Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I am sounding like our dear Leader. I know where Senator O'Toole is coming from. I recall raising the concept of older people and people over 65 with the Minister for Social and Family Affairs five or six years ago. I must take full credit for this as my only political achievement over 20 years, having the term old age pension taken out of the directory of social welfare and replaced by State pension.

While this question of what is old and defining people beyond a certain age as being old is difficult, we know deep down that there is a market for programmes for people of maturing years. Whether it is "Reeling in the Years", programmes on the GAA of old or whatever, there is great interest in such programming. In the course of any politician's day in the constituency, one visits the houses of elderly people late in the evening and often they remark that there is nothing on television. It would be helpful if we could gear a degree of programming to that market. I appreciate that this market is difficult to pin down and to define. We know what we want to do but the journey is probably unmapped. Perhaps it is a principle to which we must aspire rather than a prescription. It is an amendment worthy of reflection.

We also discussed subtitling. Senior citizens, mature people or retired people have a little time on their hands and television can be a useful form of entertainment and window to the world for them. We should try to respond to the needs of such people, especially elderly people living alone, and fill some of the gaps that may exist in their lives by having programming which would appeal to them. There are so many channels available, even on the domestic market, with the independent channel, the RTE channels, TG4, and now perhaps a film channel and the heritage channel. There should be space on the broadcasting spectrum for designing a degree of scheduling to facilitate these undefinable people. I hope the Minister will at least take the spirit of the amendment on board and respond to it in the most practical and positive way possible.