Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I appreciated the Leader's response yesterday to my remarks about the ongoing saga of the long wave 252 transmitter.

Earlier this morning, at the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, I sought and received the unanimous backing of the committee for the newly appointed RTE board, which was announced by the Minister for Communications. Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy White, overnight, to reverse the decision to shut down the long wave 252 transmitter. The momentum has been building on this issue over the past number of weeks to the point where it is now a major issue for the Irish in Britain and also for those who are concerned about the transmitter in Meath, which was upgraded in 2007 and can be fully digitised. There are no technical reasons RTE should shut down this transmitter. It has not even answered the question as to what it will do with it if it shuts it down.

I congratulate the newly appointed chairperson designate of the RTE board, Moya Doherty of Riverdance fame. For the record, Moya Doherty and I go back a long way. She worked as my production assistant in the early 1980s in 2fm and she has done well since. She has done much better than I have.