Vol. 497 No. 4
131 Mr. Yates asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands the consideration, if any, the Government has given to allocating a channel under digitalised television for Government information and services or in conjunction with the Information Society Commission for the purpose of communicating Government information and services. [25230/98]
I understand that the proposed digital terrestrial television (DTT) infrastructure would be capable of supporting the type of service which seems to be envisaged by the Deputy. For example, if Departments considered it practical or feasible they could enter into commercial arrangements with operators or broadcasters to use the infrastructure to have information about their services provided to viewers. However, such a service would seem to be more of an Internet-like information service which while accessible via a television set would not actually be a television broadcasting service. In these circumstances the question of allocating a specific television channel would not seem to arise.
