Yes, page 2 deals with the background. The committee knows about the Oireachtas broadcasting unit and its raison d’être. If I were to examine it in a broad sense, I would say that the real value of it is to bring what the Oireachtas does to a wider public, to the tax-paying public. The Oireachtas already produces huge amounts of high quality material. It also provides facilities and raw material which could be edited. The main outlet for this material is the Internet on which all the material produced is generally available. As members will be aware, limited material is available on broadcast television. “Oireachtas Report” was broadcast at midnight last night, if anyone stayed up to watch it. It is hard for people to stay up to watch it at that time. The Oireachtas also has live transmissions on TG4. The Oireachtas has allowed itself, through the Act, the establishment of a channel, which has not yet been set up. There is also discussion about the inclusion of what the Oireachtas does on DDT, which will not happen in the short term. In that context, we propose to the committee that the members undertake their own study and put themselves on television in an easy and meaningful way. I have also noted who is presenting this submission afternoon.
On page 2, we, effectively, say that we believe the Oireachtas has this obligation. The members have already said that to me at previous meetings and that as wide an audience as possible should have access to all of the Oireachtas transmissions. We propose a pilot project and feasibility study to transmit the Oireachtas output on digital cable and MMDS distributed television for a limited period of 12 weeks, the content to be all deliberations of the Oireachtas live, including the Dáil, the Seanad and committee meetings and also featuring edited highlights of certain aspects of the output, the full content and a scheduled plan to be agreed with the members. In other words they would make the call on this. In addition, we suggest the channel would broadcast suitable complementary material, for example, programmes produced in co-operation with the European Commission or local councils, if members considered that was appropriate, or programming which highlights or comments on politics in particular or in general. Consideration should be given to inclusion of television material that promotes or explains the Oireachtas process, hence what I referred to in the documentation. The channel would operate to a defined schedule, inputting live events as they happen and producing, editing and broadcasting recorded and highlighting material on a regular basis. This company would take responsibility for all aspects of the channel's transmission operations and would consult the joint committee on content and editorial matters.
In terms of the footprint, the channel - for which we do not have a name, it could be called the "Oireachtas Channel" or any other name, which is something for discussion - would be carried on the existing UPC digital cable and MMDS transmission network, which includes 400,000 homes in the following centres, Dublin Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford, with a high concentration in urban areas and additional coverage in smaller urban and rural populations in areas of which I have given a sample, namely, Tralee, Clonmel, Killarney, Listowel, Athlone, Kilkenny, Maynooth, Naas and Swords. While it would be desirable to offer universal coverage at the outset, the transmissions to attain that, namely, on Sky, would require substantial and additional expense, which we believe would be unnecessary for the pilot project. However, the pilot project would give the Oireachtas a huge sample and afford it an opportunity to assess the popularity and public acceptance of transmissions. Then, the members could make recommendations for the expansion of transmission footprints, if appropriate, at a later stage.
We estimate the total number of homes served during the pilot project would be 400,000. This would imply a potential daily reach of more than 1.08 million. We do not suggest 1.08 million people would watch the channel but that is its reach and potential. We can make full details of the geographical areas and the number of homes served available on a confidential basis. That information is confidential to the network provider.
Moving to page 4, I am not sure that members need to go into the technical aspects; we have set out how we would do this and there is a transmission flow diagram on the last page.
