Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the five-year strategic plan brought forward by RTÉ and how it proposes to move the organisation forward. On reading it I found very little reference to the GAAGO issue, where the GAA is tied into RTÉ. There is a significant issue that needs to be addressed around what is the long-term strategic plan for RTÉ working with the likes of GAAGO, which is just broadcasting a certain number of games on a paywall system. This is creating great fury at the moment. I believe the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, needs to come to the Chamber to discuss her strategy on where the strategic plan is going and more importantly how the GAAGO entity that is tied in with the GAA and RTÉ fits into that five-year strategic plan. I fundamentally believe that what is happening here is wrong and the general public is 100% against the proposals as they are happening. We saw it again during the weekend where, amazingly, the best game of football that we potentially had this year was on GAAGO, when the Galway-Dublin game was tied away. Do they just pick the matches that are actually going to be entertaining? We saw it with a Cork-Limerick match a few weeks ago as well. It has been a complete disaster. It does not have regulatory approval. We still have no real outcome for how we will look at this scenario regarding the five-year strategic plan brought forward by RTÉ. We need have the Minister come to the Chamber to address this issue. It has been ongoing - to say the least - and we need to have some major movement.