asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if an application for a broadcasting licence has been received from Alternative Radio Dublin (ARD); if a request was made by ARD for an official form on which to make an application; if that form was supplied; and, if not, why.

My Department have no record of receiving an application for a broadcasting licence or a request for an application form in this case. RTE is the only body which can be given a broadcasting licence.

Does the Minister accept that the people involved here are not by nature law breakers or flagrant violators of the airwaves? Does the Minister agree that an effort was made to apply for a licence but his Department indicated that no regulations existed by which an application could be made?

There is nothing to prevent anybody making an application but my Department inform me that there is no record of having received an application.

I want to make one final point.

We must go on. We have had sufficient supplementaries on this matter.

The Chair allowed me just one supplementary and the Chair allowed ten minutes earlier on another matter.

I will allow the Deputy one final supplementary. The Deputy should not question the Chair's ruling on this matter.

Is the Minister willing to look at an application from this organisation and make a judgment on it? Will he indicate, arising out of what he said vis-à-vis the national station, that it is, according to the Act, the only station entitled to operate a service, and by what licence they operate?

I am not willing to accept an application.

I want the Minister to consider one. Are these people, as citizens, not entitled to apply to the Minister and to expect his respect?

I pointed out that RTE is the only body that can be given a broadcasting licence and, therefore, I cannot see much point in considering it.

That is not legally right.

Are there any proposals to change that?

I should like to ask the Minister if the need for such legislation has not been amply demonstrated and if he proposes to introduce amending legislation to provide such stations:

The Minister is forcing these people to become law breakers.

Which would the Deputy prefer: that we be rushed into making a decision in relation to a matter of this sort by all the commercial pressures which are so obvious or that we should consider carefully and examine every aspect of a matter of this kind?

That is what I was asking the Minister to do instead of branding these people as law breakers.