Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will leave it at that.

On the RTÉ issues, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, answered questions for three and a half hours before the committee last week and made statements here in the Chamber. In regard to the statement of the former chairperson, the Minister has written to the committee about this, provided some phone call and meeting notes, which it requested, and also has confirmed that she met the chairperson 11 times in the past nine months. She is willing to engage with and appear before the committee again but she would like that to be in the context of the final reports being published and made available to the committee. That can be done in a matter of the next few weeks.

I hope we can move on from this. We need a strong RTÉ in this country. We are a small country of only 5 or 6 million people. We need to produce our own news content, our own current affairs content, our own drama, our own entertainment and our own children's and Irish-language programming. If we do not, there is a huge risk we will just get sucked into the news, media and entertainment market of the UK and the US. That would not be good for our country. We made significant decisions today as a Government to appoint a new chairperson, who is someone with great experience of leading State boards and also has great financial experience, and two new board members as well. I hope that can be the beginning of a new start and allowing us to move on from this.

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