Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

RTÉ provides great coverage of elections on radio and television. The programmes are much watched but the service will cost more money. Has RTÉ set aside money for an election?

"RTÉ Investigates" has been doing enormous work. Sometimes it is better than Governments at finding out things, such as on the matter of children's care. It is terrific work and public broadcasting at its best.

How many freelance workers work at RTÉ, leaving aside the ten? I appreciate they generate a lot of revenue. They also pay taxes, they have no security of tenure and they must buy their own pensions. It is not all one way traffic in this regard. They draw in revenue from advertisers and the witnesses know this. We can do a cost analysis and find out the ten top paid broadcasters bring considerable revenue to RTÉ. I will leave this aside because it is too easy a target. What will be the policy governing the freelance contract sole traders?

I will try to bring together a few questions to save us going back and forth. The sole traders are broadcasters who are well known but they have no permanency of tenure. They are deeply concerned about their future. I understand the proposal that has been made is that they will be laid off and some have been notified already. Do the same criteria apply to sole trader freelancers in RTÉ regarding the length of time they are allowed to stay? Some have been given a little extension in time. Why are sole traders singled out, especially if they continue to produce very high quality work? It is of deep concern to the sole traders. My previous questions were general but this is specifically with regard to freelancers and sole traders working for RTÉ. Some of them have been working there for 25 or 30 years and, to my knowledge, there will not be any pensions involved. Do the witnesses have a rough idea of how many of these individuals are top broadcasters on all of the platforms?