Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will touch on a few matters today, the first of which might not be popular with the public. In view of all that is going on in RTÉ and the terrible way in which some of the staff have been treated, staff who do a brilliant job, work very well and do outstanding reporting, and in light of the fact there is a crisis there at the moment, I urge the public to pay their television licence, and I will say why. I do not want what is almost €200 million to dry up. It is very important money. If we do not pay the television licence, there is a possibility that job cuts at the lower end of the scale can happen. I know it is distasteful for people to talk about paying a licence after all that has gone on. However, I make that plea and, as Oireachtas people across the board, we should hold all that line. I tell people, when they say to me they are not paying their licence, to think of the staff, many of whom I worked with in local radio, and who do not have backup or people such as camera people to help them if they are stuck. It is extraordinary. In light of that storm, I say to people not to shy away from paying their television licence because there could be consequences for people down the line who could find themselves out of a job. Certainly, we have to stand on the side of those people.

Second, I congratulate Aoife O’Rourke from Castlerea in County Roscommon. Everything that is good about Roscommon comes from people like Aoife O’Rourke. She won the gold medal in boxing at the European Games in Krakow, Poland, recently. She is a fantastic person from a fantastic family. They are great advocates for our county and all that is positive in it.

I was not here for some of the debates or the Order of Business last week. I express sympathy to my colleague, Senator Aisling Dolan, on the death of her father. That was probably done here anyway but I was not here at the time.