Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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60. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she has met recently with the Media Commission; and when she expects its report to be finalised. [47848/21]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The Programme for Government, Our Shared Future, expanded the remit of the Public Service Broadcasting Commission to become the Future of Media Commission. On 29 September 2020, the Government agreed the terms of reference and membership of the Future of Media Commission. It was tasked with considering the future of print, broadcast, and online media in a platform agnostic fashion. Chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, it held its inaugural meeting on 29 October 2020.

The commission engaged comprehensively with stakeholders, including broadcasters, journalists, publishers, regional media and the wider public.

The first phase of the Future of Media Commission public consultation, which ran from December 12th 2020 to January 8th 2021, resulted in over 800 written submissions from stakeholder groups and the general public on a wide range of themes.

At the end of January 2021, the Commission began a series of thematic dialogues through online webinars in which panels of experts explored key themes in more depth and answered follow-up questions from the virtual audience and the Commission members. The webinars and the public consultations mentioned earlier are all available on the Future of Media Commission’s website.

The work of the Future of Media Commission has now been completed. The Taoiseach and I have received the report and are considering its contents. We met recently with the Chair of the Commission and the Report will be brought to Government for consideration in due course.