Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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471. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if the contents of a report were communicated to a company (details supplied) or its representatives before the report was officially published; and the communications he has had with the company and its representatives since becoming Minister. [17951/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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In early September 2016 INM announced that it had agreed a deal to purchase the portfolio of regional newspapers owned by the Celtic Media Group, or CMNL.

This proposed acquisition was subject to a competition review by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, which cleared the case on 10 November 2016. Subsequently, formal notification of the proposed acquisition was received by my Department on 21 November 2016.

After a period of examination by my Department, I received the Phase 1 examination report and recommendation by my officials regarding the proposed acquisition on 4 January 2017. I then accepted the advice of my officials to refer the proposed acquisition to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland for a full, or Phase 2, media merger examination and made my formal determination in that respect on 10 January 2017. I also appointed an advisory panel to assist the Authority in its deliberations.

However, the media merger notification was withdrawn by the parties on 6 June 2017 and as a result of this I was not required to make a determination in this case.

The Phase 1 examination report was published, alongside the subsequent reports of the Broadcasting Authority and Advisory Panel, in July 2017. In advance of publication and in the interests of fair procedures, both parties to the proposed acquisition were afforded the opportunity to examine the contents of the reports and to highlight commercially sensitive information, which was then omitted from the versions of the reports published on my Department's website.

Regarding the communications I have had with INM or its representatives since becoming Minister, as I have set out in my Statement to the Dáil on the 18 April 2018, I received a phone call on 10 or 11 of November, 2016 from Eoghan Ó Neachtain, Director of Public Affairs at Heneghan PR, who was representing INM at that time. During this brief conversation Mr Ó Neachtain informed me that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission had cleared the acquisition by INM of the Celtic Media Group, which I was not aware of. I understand the CCPC published its decision on its website on November 10 2016.

I expressed an opinion that the likely course of action would be a referral to a Phase 2 examination, in accordance with the media merger guidelines and in light of the scale of the proposed acquisition, its geographical impact and the extent of ownership of regional media by INM. I had not received any file on the proposed acquisition at that point. I also clearly stated that this was not a definitive view and that I would be guided by the advice of my officials, as I had been in all previous media merger cases.

As also set out in my statement to the Dáil, I briefly spoke with Mr. Leslie Buckley at a data summit in the RDS on 3 May 2017. I have also been interviewed on several occasions, either at doorsteps or at prearranged interviews, by representatives of INM and indeed the Celtic Media Group, where the question of the proposed acquisition by INM of Celtic Media Group was raised with me.