I wish to raise RTE's announcement that it plans to outsource children's television. It is utterly unacceptable that the director general appeared before the committee this week and made absolutely no mention of it outsourcing children's television. That has been the incubator of talent for the broadcasting community and the arts. It is totally unacceptable that the director general should sit down in a committee room here knowing that this announcement is coming about and not inform the committee.

Hear, hear.

RTE has referred to a challenging financial environment and reducing operation costs. I suggest one reduction in its operation cost is the €4,300 a month it pays to the Phoenix for full-page advertisements. While talking about a challenging financial environment, it is happy to waste that sort of money. The Minister needs to challenge whether we are getting value for money.

We also had an oblique reference to RTE's coverage of the Dáil and Seanad. We are giving it €180 million and it has a remit for public service broadcasting. I know it has very small viewing figures, but RTE gets €180 million to cover politics and the arts. At the committee meeting, the director general said one of her journalists was discussing moving coverage of this House, committees and the Dáil to the digital platform. Yesterday, I was critical of Deputy Dooley. However, he was the only one awake at the committee and picked up on it. That is clearly what was referred to at the committee. We are giving RTE €180 million to cover the arts and politics, and the new director general is talking about moving the coverage to the digital stream and using a journalist to quietly lobby for support around the House, and is meeting journalists on a regular basis.

Ministers are putting off decisions on the funding of public service broadcasting. We had a do-nothing Dáil and we now have a do-nothing Minister in this area. There are serious questions to be asked as to how RTE will nurture future broadcasting talent and over its oblique reference at the committee to how it will cover politics.

We are into injury time.

The Minister needs to take charge. The Minister has been getting a lot of soft coverage by RTE. Was he being softened up for these decisions?

I thank the Senator.

I have not gone over time because I carefully watched the clock.

I am afraid he has, but anyway-----

I will finish on this. I want the Minister to come to this House very quickly. RTE gets a huge amount of money. It is sitting on a very valuable property site of several acres in Donnybrook. It should not consider cutting services before it liquidates that property asset.

We are in the middle of a housing crisis and an awful lot of that land could be used. We want the Minister in here and very quickly. The director general of RTE should be called back to the committee-----

I thank the Senator.

-----to explain why-----

The Senator is being repetitive.

-----she did not inform the committee.