Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media debate -
Wednesday, 1 Feb 2023

Future Business Model Plans and Long-term Vision for the Media Sector: Discussion (Resumed)

Acting Chairman (Deputy Ciarán Cannon)

I thank members for agreeing that I act as Cathaoirleach for today's meeting. Apologies have been received from the Chair, Deputy Smyth, and Vice Chair, Deputy Dillon.

The meeting has been convened with representatives from Age Action, the Independent Living Movement Ireland, the Irish Traveller Movement and the National Youth Council of Ireland to discuss future business model plans and the long-term vision for the media sector with a particular focus on access and inclusion. This is the committee's fourth engagement on this topic. On behalf of the committee, I warmly welcome all of our witnesses. From Age Action I welcome Ms Celine Clarke, head of advocacy and public affairs, and Ms Mary Murphy, research officer. From Independent Living Movement Ireland we are joined by Dr. James Casey, policy officer, and Ms Claire Kenny, policy assistant. They are both welcome. From the Irish Traveller Movement I welcome Ms Jacinta Brack, co-ordinator of political advocacy, communications and campaigns. Finally, from the National Youth Council of Ireland I welcome its director of policy and advocacy, Mr. Paul Gordon. He is joined by one of the council's young voices participants, Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe. The format of the meeting is as follows. I will invite our witnesses to deliver their opening statements, which are limited to three minutes. That will be followed by questions from members. The committee may publish the opening statements on its web page. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Before I invite our witnesses to deliver their opening statements, I must explain some limitations with regard to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses with regard to references that witnesses make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to any identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I also remind members of the constitutional requirements that they must be physically present within the confines of Leinster House to participate at the public meeting. I cannot permit a member to attend where he or she is not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to attend from outside the precincts of Leinster House will be asked to leave the meeting.

We now proceed with the opening statements in the following order: Ms Mary Murphy from Age Action, Dr. James Casey from the Independent Living Movement of Ireland, Ms Jacinta Brack from the Irish Traveller Movement and Mr. Paul Gordon from the National Youth Council of Ireland.

Ms Mary Murphy

Age Action welcomes the opportunity to address the committee today on future media from the perspective of current and future generations of older people as both consumers and creators of media. The Future of Media Commission’s report is a much-needed contribution to the vision of an inclusive society and Age Action encourages media organisations to recognise their role in influencing ageist attitudes and their responsibility to help reframe how we think, feel and act towards ageing and older people. Age Action’s recent polling on ageism found that over one third of Irish adults agreed with two or more of the seven ageist opinions presented to them. Media content tends to reinforce ageist stereotypes, through the use of language like elderly and vulnerable, pictures of wrinkled hands or stories that pit one generation against another. However, the media also hold the power to provide evidence and narratives of the diversity of people across all age ranges. The sector must develop standards and codes that prohibit ageism in content.

Age Action recognises the digital transformation of the media space is both a challenge and an opportunity to creators and consumers. We estimate that 65% of people aged 65 and over are digitally excluded. Research shows that people aged 55 and over rely more on traditional media than younger age groups. The delivery of fair and objective content through offline media platforms should be safeguarded and maintained, including by ensuring its affordability. This includes community and regional media, which are crucial platforms for information and debate. We know that persons aged 65 and over have higher levels of trust in the national media, and lower levels of mistrust, than people aged 18 to 64. Often, efforts to promote media literacy are targeted at younger cohorts. While there is value in this, older persons should also be targeted by media literacy programmes.

The media industry is also an employer that should strive to deliver age-positive workplaces. Many elements of an age-positive workplace are simply desirable conditions for all workers. These include flexible work habits, occupational health and safety and continued training and development for workers, including approaches best suited to older workers. Our polling on ageism found that those working in the arts and entertainment sector were disproportionately likely to have experienced age discrimination in the past few years. One particularly harmful manifestation of ageism in the workplace, including in the media sector, is mandatory retirement. No justification for mandatory retirement is backed up by strong evidence. Forcing older workers to retire does long-lasting damage to their health, well-being and financial security. Age Action supports the elimination of mandatory retirement clauses in employment contracts.

In conclusion, the media sector and media policy need to be responsive to the circumstances of older persons through eliminating ageist stereotypes and narratives, preserving offline media, targeting older persons’ media literacy and ensuring media workplaces are age-positive.

Dr. James Casey

I thank the committee for the invitation to contribute today. It is somewhat serendipitous as is it almost nearly one year to the day since the Independent Living Movement of Ireland, ILMI, a national cross-impairment disabled persons organisation, held an online event to launch our policy position on how disabled people’s lives are represented, utilised and portrayed in the media. The event was a consultation process with disabled people throughout the island. As with all of our core methodologies at ILMI, we work from the position of a grassroots collective and our work is driven by disabled people and their voice. From our consultation with disabled people, the overwhelming theme is that the dominant narrative of disability portrayed in Irish media is either one of how our impairments are tragic or stories of disabled people overcoming their impairments.

Disability is seen through the prism of medicine and charity, something to be cared for, looked after by charities and services providers. However, rarely are we portrayed as whole, active, multifaceted citizens in our communities. Disabled people are often only sought out to give our personal stories and not to speak about how society disables us and prevents our full and dynamic participation. A significant issue is that our authentic voices are not heard. We are not part of the discussions around our lives, and our value in society is dismissed as solely passive citizens. Discourse around disabled people is by parents or carers and charities. Frequently, no regard is given to how we as disabled people feel about having our lives displayed in public and terms referring to our being a burden and in constant crises are common and predominant. This is a prominent theme when service providers and charities are utilising disabled people in a call for more funding. This is a very different type of disability representation in the media. This is not looking for investment in disabled people. This is not about rights and equality, although sometimes in the media this language is used by those who are not members of disabled people's organisations, DPOs. This type of portrayal is about seeking further investment in the disability industry. This is where Irish media need to be more discerning and robust. They need to ask who is giving these messages and what they want. In much of the Irish media the predominate trope is that disability is a charity issue and the narrative is often one of sympathy, but sympathy sells.

There is a small number of disabled people who have a platform. However, this is not always positive as they are repeatedly framed as inspirational superhumans who have overcome their impairment. As disabled people, we rarely see ourselves portrayed accurately in media. This will only change when we, as disabled people, are directly involved in the production of media as presenters, writers, technicians, actors, audience members, etc. Media companies, the trade union movement, Government Departments and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, need to explore how to reflect diversity in the production, delivery and presentation of media in contemporary Ireland. This discourse needs to plan, resource and implement real inclusion in the media for disabled people in the 21st century. This can be done by directly consulting and engaging with us as disabled people, and engaging with true disabled people's organisations who try to capture the authenticity of disabled people’s lived experience.

Disability needs to be framed in discussions around inclusion, human rights and equality. Where there are discussions on issues that impact on society, such as education, employment, housing, transport, social inclusion, gender etc., we, as disabled people, must be involved. There is an intersection between disability and other issues that consistently remains unexplored in Irish media. This is due to the regular framing of disability as a medical or charity issue. If media explored disability through the social model lens, it could witness the fullness of disabled people’s lives and how disability intersects with gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, race, sexuality and so on. The discussion on shaping how disabled people's lives are represented in the Irish media needs to be led by disabled people and DPOs. In the disability rights movement we have two mottos. They are both very germane today. One is "rights not charity," and the other is "nothing about us without us."

Ms Jacinta Brack

Good afternoon to members. Many thanks for the invitation for the Irish Traveller Movement to present today. Before addressing some recommendations and proposals, we want to acknowledge the comprehensive report of the commission and the many recommendations made, which we welcome as having significant ambition in the equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI, area. We welcome the establishment of the media commission and appointments of commissioners for overseeing the new regulatory framework. This gives confidence that the outstanding concerns of Travellers about fair and balanced reporting and under-inclusion and accessibility might be addressed. In the making of the media service codes across services, our expectation is that these would be considered in the context of Travellers' exclusion from the previous code, and that these might be referenced in the new codes to mitigate against harm and offence and provide a strengthened safeguard. Some of the specific difficulties Travellers encounter in media both as consumers and contributors are evidenced here. Media content, by its design, is consciously biased towards a majority view and Travellers are treated as a statistically insignificant subset. Travellers have almost no say in what is articulated in the media about Traveller life, with some few exceptions.

Greater Traveller participation and visibility in delivering content and improvements in reporting standards is particularly important to combat racism and promote inclusion. Their concerns remain regarding the safeguarding standards for vulnerable groups and broadcasting content, without transparency of editorial and production processes, governance procedures and guidelines for researchers and editors in producing content. For example, matters have been raised by groups to programme editors and researchers in debating format TV for the potential of offence or harm to Travellers on specific topics where, most often, producers take unilateral decisions that could be interpreted as servicing media content demand rather than due regard for invoking anti-Traveller discourse. There is no Traveller representation in delivering content and very little visibility across features, drama and entertainment. Along with other underrepresented groups, Travellers have almost no decision-making status in media or occupy advisory or employment roles.

In print media, there has been a disproportionate focus by some on negative reinforcement and stereotyping themes, which has caused hurt and offence and contributed to anti-Traveller sentiment over many decades. Travellers generally, and children particularly, are vulnerable as digital natives to increasing exposure to anti-Traveller racism and widespread discrimination online. Despite some moderation by individual news sites of their own content, others continue to host Traveller articles that consistently fuel hate. This is further compounded when these are posted to their third-party platforms and those sites are governed by their own rules. We agree with many that these and other loopholes require urgent attention and the appointment of the online safety commissioner and standards moderator is much anticipated. As Travellers are not specifically identified for protection under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022, which is a concern, considering the long-term discrimination and racism faced., there is uncertainty over how specific and aggravating harmful offence caused will be sufficiently dealt with. This is particularly important given the procedural difficulties requiring persistent and time-consuming monitoring by sector organisations up to now, as neither the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI or the Press Council were required to monitor media content for harm and offence. It is notable, however, that the media commission will undertake strategic reviews insofar as is consistent with other functions, and its available resources . It is hoped this includes harm and offence for vulnerable groups and that the revised and strengthened media services codes will address these concerns. Ways in which Traveller visibility, broad inclusion and representation can happen in a proactive and planned way by this public service media are much needed. It is concerning that Travellers were not targeted in RTEs diversity and inclusion vision and strategy. There is also no advisory council of underrepresented groups from which RTE can draw expertise in the development of related content. Establishing such a group would support better outcomes. Internship programmes are also needed to develop a pipeline of talent from underrepresented groups to media employment and apprenticeship programmes. We very much welcome the many recommendations in this regard in the commission's report and I can elaborate on those later.

Mr. Paul Gordon

On behalf of the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI, I am joined by my colleague, Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe, a member of the council's Young Voices Dialogue, who is also student and journalist. We at the NYCI know from engagement with young people and our members in the youth work sector the concerns young people have about how representative media outlets are, the distinct challenges and opportunities social media platforms present for young people, and young people's changing media consumption habits. A sustainable media sector is vital to the effective functioning of our democracy. NYCI believes that young people must be the cornerstone of that sustainability. With the support of the Government, public sector media and public service content providers can, and must adapt to, secure the future the sector. To start, they need to foster a culture of inclusivity for young consumers or potential consumers and provide meaningful opportunities for young people to drive the development of the Irish media sector of the future. This means including young people on diversity boards, implementing youth participation strategies and, crucially, gathering and using data effectively to monitor and improve youth representation. The sector and Government must also support and listen to young people working in media. As part of our submission, we spoke with young journalists across print, online and broadcast outlets. I would like to take the opportunity to thank them for their time and valuable insights. They spoke about increasing workplace demands, barriers to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds pursuing a career in media, gave unfavourable assessments of the lack of diversity in the industry, and highlighted challenges for young women entering editorial and management roles. To ensure a workforce and sector that is representative of modern Ireland, the sector, with support from Government and coimisiún na meán must improve access to paid apprenticeships and the identification of career pathways for women and minorities in the industry as well as addressing the concerning dearth of data collected on equality, diversity, inclusion and youth representation.

Without radical change, this will hamper not only access to careers and adequate representation of minorities but also the industry. All the journalists we interviewed also spoke of a toxic online culture of gender-based harassment and abuse against female journalists. We heard accounts of female journalists receiving threats, unsolicited pictures, suggestive comments and appearances on TV and radio being followed by a barrage of abuse.

NYCI believes that action needs to be taken to prevent this kind of abuse and support young journalists who are subjected to it. This includes adequate sanctions for social media companies that do not enforce standards and mental health supports for staff at public sector media and public service content providers. This could be funded through a levy on social media companies. In a context where disinformation is rife on our social networks and media consumption habits are changing, Ireland remains vulnerable to disinformation. The prevalence of hateful and harmful content and content violations being circumvented or not enforced properly also pose risks. Despite high digital skills among our younger population, they need to be further empowered to recognise this information and be safe from harmful content and abuse. The Government has a key leadership role to play in ensuring we set the highest regulatory standards, providing the right supports to empower young people to be autonomous users of social media and holding tech companies to account for upholding those standards.

From our discussions with young people, including young journalists, it is clear that the future can be bright for the media sector if it elevates and embrace the voices of those who engage with media in a very different way from the past and listens to young professionals who are passionate about serving the public interest and dedicated to telling stories that inform, entertain and represent the full diversity of communities across Ireland

Senator Shane Cassells

I welcome all the witnesses. There were interesting presentations from four diverse sets of witnesses but there was probably a central theme across all four as well. Mr. Gordon pointed out how young people's engagement with and consumption of media is much different from what went before. If one were to ask many young people whether they buy a newspaper or watch terrestrial television, the answer would be "no". When he refers to how young people are reflected, what areas of the media is he specifically referring to?

Mr. Paul Gordon

We are speaking to the broader traditional media sector, be it print, online or broadcast. Consumption habits are changing dramatically. During Covid, there was a slight increase in the younger age groups - 18 to 24 and 25 to 34 - getting their news from TV. When we are talking about news, we did see a brief spike.

It was because there tends to be a level of trust in the delivery of news and, in particular, on important issues such as Covid. The latter were all-consuming at the time but that interest has dropped off rapidly since.

There has also been a subsequent increase in the proportion of young people who are getting their news from social media. That is a concern but it is also an opportunity for established media outlets. The committee has heard from some of them in recent weeks regarding changing their approach and ensuring that they meet young people where they are. It is fundamentally important that there be more of a synergy between the traditional media sector and the new media sector in order that they meet young people where they are, and change their content to meet people on those platforms rather than necessarily diverting them back to their own channels.

Senator Shane Cassells

That is a fair point. I pay tribute to RTÉ, which celebrated the anniversary of news2day recently. Is it the case that some of the traditional media - print and visual - maybe ignoring a sector of society? I might ask Ms Chadamoyo Makombe this too. Ultimately, they are businesses. Ms Murphy made the point about consumption of traditional media among those aged 55 years and over whereby media outlets know that they have a captive audience. Is there a bias against young people because they are not the consumers of such media?

Mr. Paul Gordon

I would not necessarily say there is a bias against them. On the long-term sustainability of the sector, Ireland has one of the youngest populations in the EU. In order for the established media to ensure that they are sustainable and that they underpin a robust and strong democracy, they must meet young people where they are and target them through different channels. We have seen good examples elsewhere, namely, the The Times and NPR in the US, which have given opportunities to younger journalists to branch out and foster different types of content that would drive younger people towards their established podcasts or radio shows. For instance, NPR in the US has a young man called Jack Corbett. He is an assistant producer on its "Money Talks" programme. It is basically an economics programme. He has used his platform to very simply explain complex economic concepts which relate to that show and drive new audiences towards it.

Deputy Shane Cassells

I want to ask Ms Chadomoyo Makombe about herself and her peers and their consumption of news. Do they find that their voice is reflected?

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

It is a really interesting question. I thank the Senator. This is something we have been reflecting on a lot, especially at my lectures. I am a journalism student. Much of the diversion away from traditional media is because at some point it stopped catering for us. Even look at television shows made by RTÉ. "Derry Girls" and "The Young Offenders" are examples of TV programming that is aimed at young people. Then look at BBC, it has BBC 3, BBC Radio 1Xtra. If you look worldwide, many more traditional media companies are creating channels and platforms for young people to express themselves. Ireland is not at that point yet. It is a big factor in why people go onto social media.

I can only speak from my personal experience as a young woman. As someone who is from Tallaght and who is black, I was not seeing myself represented in traditional media, so, naturally, I will go to where I can see my people and where I can hear my voice and my life experience being reflected. Unfortunately, the reality is that it is not being reflected in traditional media in Ireland. That is not to say that there is no bias. I have great trust in media in Ireland. I believe what I see when I see it on TV or when I read it in newspapers. I think the content is not being made for young people so they will go to where it will be. As Mr. Gordon said, it is about integrating the content and seeing that there is a market out there. Because there is a market. It is just that the money that could be spent on things created in Ireland are now just going abroad. It is about integrating the content and recognising that there is a huge market of young people, older people, people of colour, people who are disabled who are dying to see themselves represented in the media. They are spending their money elsewhere because someone else is out there who is willing to cater to them and we are not doing that here.

Deputy Shane Cassells

Ms Murphy was speaking about the other end of the spectrum. A report entitled Telling It Like It Is; Combatting Ageism was launched here last week. Before Covid 45% of people in Ireland aged 50 years and over said they felt discriminated against because of their age. One wonders what that figure might be today. Media organisations see a captive audience in their traditional audience, but Ms Murphy suggests that there are issues that are not being reflected.

Ms Mary Murphy

In how older people are represented in media, yes. We would see issues with that.

Deputy Shane Cassells

Is that purely in visual media or is it across the media, including print?

Ms Mary Murphy

It includes in the use of language. We would take issue with descriptions of older persons as elderly or vulnerable, which is language that international research has demonstrated to lead older persons to see themselves in a more negative way. There is also visual ageism in use of pictures that are unnecessarily in black and white or often focusing in on hands, for example. Then it is also the issues themselves and the framing of stories where older persons are seen as a problem or a burden or not capable of contributing to society. Older persons continuing to engage with a media that in some ways does not do them justice could be a result of there being high levels of internalised ageism among older persons. Our research has found that they share much of the most extreme ageist opinions.

Deputy Shane Cassells

That is really interesting. We often see it in RTÉ news reports on older people, when they do the shot of just focusing on someone's hands. It is a simple thing like that.

My next question is for Dr. Casey and Ms Brack. The issues are different but it is still on the theme of inclusion. Dr. Casey touched on not wanting to be stereotypically portrayed. Is that purely visual? How do we counter that? I also put this to Ms Brack. Dr. Casey made the point about the future of media report. I pay tribute, because when it was being compiled after the preliminary discussions, all these groups were represented. I was at nearly all of the online briefings during Covid, and they were all represented. Are they hopeful that what has been set out charts a different pathway for Independent Living Movement Ireland and the Irish Traveller Movement?

Dr. James Casey

Look at authenticity of representation. Everyone is talking about fake news and so on, but you rarely see disabled people in the media talking about disability issues. You will see large entities talking about it. We are talking about authenticity of voices. It goes back to a power struggle. There is a lot of money involved in disability, but that is not about me, Ms Kenny or anyone I know. The message is usually quite negative, and one of crisis and so on. In the context of the future of media, disabled people need to be involved in the planning of that media just like other groups, whether they comprise people of colour, members of the LGBT community or members of the Traveller community. Everyone needs to be involved in that because it needs to reflect Irish society. Irish society has moved on from "Glenroe" on a Sunday night, and people fretting about doing their homework, and that is important. Sometimes, the media is not moving with society. Sometimes, it is still a little slow. It needs to catch up. I cannot talk for any of the other groups although disability is intersectional, just as every other group is intersectional in many ways. Specifically on disability, this is the fist time that a disabled persons' organisation has come to a committee like this. Think about that. It is the first time that disabled people have represented themselves. Many groups have come here representing different specific charities or organisations and that is grand, that is cool, but it is very rare that we as a group of people get to represent ourselves. That is quite concern. It is not something that a lot of disabled people will take anymore. They are more militant and more proactive as citizens.

I listened to the others talking about Covid. That is a perfect example. During Covid, we heard a lot about vulnerable citizens, whether they are elderly or whatever. Disabled people were used like a rubber chicken. The only narrative you heard was to the effect that they were vulnerable, they were going to die and they were in crisis. That is not the thousands of disabled people I know around the country. Covid was an exciting, creative time for us. We came together in many online spaces that we, as disabled people, created and fostered.

Today came from many of those spaces. We knew we could not all get together in Dublin. People live in Donegal, Ballina, Clonakilty, Laois and Louth. How do we get together? We get together online. These were not things a service provider came up with. We were using these tools anyway. It was an exciting time. We were creating spaces. It is not like throwing a rattle out of the pram, but the media totally ignored that. They were more inclined to quote service providers about their clients. It was almost like they wanted to keep away from the vulnerable, as though disabled people in society had a hex on our backs. That was the narrative that was being put out. The reality was very different. I have spoken to hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. Ms Kenny can also speak about how lively we became in that period. That whole story is missing. The reality is missing. Instead we get the marketing. We hear that more funds are needed and that is okay, but those funds do not go to me or Ms Kenny. They are not reflective of the disabled people I know who are parents, workers, people from the LGBT community or Travellers. Those are the disabled people I know. When the going got tough they are the people who stuck together, came out, became creative and started speaking for themselves. We have been doing so for a long time but on the whole the narrative was of vulnerable people and service providers.

Service providers skedaddled when Covid-19 happened. Many ran for the hills. That is their issue. It is fine. The important thing is the predominant trope. I keep going on about this but it is important. We do not go to men's sheds and ask them about women's rights issues. We do not ask the GAA about the IRFU or Ryanair about passenger rights. However, much of the time, and always in consultation processes, service providers and large charities are the ones talking about disability issues. That does not reflect in the media who we are, how we are as people, a community and how diverse we are. We would never ask hetero people to speak about LGBT+ issues. We would never ask Caucasian or white people to speak about people of colour issues, but it is more than acceptable for disability service providers to drive the narrative, which in turn drives policy. That is the crucial issue. Consultation with true DPOs will lead to solutions, rights and equality.

Senator Shane Cassells

That was one of the finest engagements and answers. I hope the media that are covering this committee meeting will reflect on the fact Dr. Casey stated it was a creative time and that was not reflected in the media and hear Dr. Casey's voice clearly. That is why he is here.

Ms Jacinta Brack

I concur with what Dr. Casey said. What diversity looks like must work in tandem with what the safeguards will be. In other words, to have greater representation in the media, in this case of Travellers, as has been referred to, they need to know that once they are communicating and dialoguing in a media space they will not subsequently suffer online hate or racism against them. We feel strongly that the safeguards are necessary in order to increase involvement. A wide berth of actions arise from the commission's report. We agree with most of them, but we must not be overly expectant that it will realistically happen quickly for the community. We also know we must accept the reality that there is educational disadvantage. For instance, perhaps the criteria are too high when internship places are being looked at. Prior life experiences are an important part of it as well.

We concur that Travellers must be part of the dialogue in shaping media content. An advisory forum for the public service or private media will be important to inform and shape what that looks like. That is a first step in the process.

Senator Fintan Warfield

I thank and welcome the witnesses.

I will start with a question for all the groups. I know from experience that some LGBT organisations have been super-complainants for social media companies. One of our witnesses today mentioned time consuming monitoring of media. Do any of the organisations, or perhaps groups under their umbrella, work on monitoring and should that ever be the responsibility of non-governmental organisations or campaign groups?

My second question is also for all the groups. Do they engage with media organisations such as TV stations, newspapers or social media companies directly or would they be more inclined to engage with the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, or Coimisiún na Meán if they had issues. Have they had issues in the past?

It is great to have Age Action here. Modern society is obsessed with beauty and image. I appreciate that older people who very much have a fire burning inside are sidelined and their wisdom is often ignored. Does Age Action think advertising is a bigger issue than commissioned content? When I look at TV during the day, the ads are targeted at older people. Does advertising push stereotypes more than produced content?

I will put those questions to the floor and come back for a second round.

Ms Jacinta Brack

I have been involved in media management in this sector on and off for 20 years. We worked early with the National Union of Journalists and various editors of daily newspapers at the time on putting a code of practice in place for journalists. At the time, reporting about Travellers was consistently negative, stereotyped and racist. At that time most editors were open to the idea of implementing safeguards. An editorial decision would then be made on an article that would throw that out the window and something so racist and disgusting would be published that I would be surprised it passed an editorial standard, but such articles often did.

After that when the Press Council of Ireland was established and created its codes and the BAI was established, we were able to bring complaints there, as the Senator referenced. As I stated in our submission, the problem with that is the arduous nature of monitoring means that in truth we would probably have been making a complaint every week up to a few years ago and those complaints would probably have been successful. However, we do not have the time and resources to do that.

The other element is that there was an acceptability. It was almost as though Travellers were fair game across every section of society. Media were not the only offenders. There are regular radio programmes which still exist with the sole purpose of discussing a Traveller narrative. We took a complaint to the BAI and won it last year. That is an issue. Unless we can defeat and overcome that in some way, it will remain a problem. The new proposals in the Act state that the strategic reviews will in some way sort this out. They will not. We have to keep the pressure on by monitoring it. We have worked with the BAI and I have asked it whether it can monitor but it does not have the resources to do so.

There is a separate regulatory requirement in the print media, but there has been a change in the way the print media are reporting Traveller stories and that is welcome. However, there are still offenders. I refer to the tabloid media, especially the Sunday tabloid media. They rely on delivering inflammatory anti-Traveller stories. Much of the focus for many decades has been on Travellers and criminal activity. That serves to further fuel hate. The commission referred to the role the media play in forming, educating and all those things. We are countering that by having this weekly and, in some cases, daily narrative that "others" Travellers, suggests they are "less than" and devalues them at a minimum.

It would be a big concern for us not to have the safeguards in place to ward against that. I think that covers most of the first questions. With regard to the advertising content versus other content-----

Senator Fintan Warfield

Yes, that was more specific to the older folks watching daytime television. Does Age Action want to comment on that?

Ms Celine Clarke

I can take that. I thank the Senator for the question. There is the silver dollar, which is a big market and economy both globally and within Ireland. People who are advertising will target older age cohorts, particularly on afternoon daytime television. If you are ever sick and at home, you will see the adverts for paying for funerals, for chairs that will help you get out and so on. There are a lot of products that are marketed at older persons. That does have a stereotypical reinforcing problem. In terms of how to counter it, there are a number of things. We do not just take the adverts off; we have to address the ageism that is built into the industry and built into society. That is the crux of practically everything we say around the lack of diversity. There are 1 million people over the age of 60 in Ireland. Those are 1 million different stories to tell and 1 million lives lived differently, and how they are reflected, both in the mainstream media and marketing or advertising, tends to be stereotypical. It is not in all cases and there is some very good practice. I acknowledge that.

Senator Warfield asked if Age Action engages with the media. We do so daily and I would not be able to do my job if I did not have good relationships with journalists to be able to put issues on the agenda and create space for dialogue. Where we recognise there is poor practice, it is largely because of a lack of awareness. We all need education and guidelines on diversity, equality and inclusion, and that is what we are trying to do - map the equality and rights narrative onto future media. The commission's report provides a very good framework, basis and hook for us to do that, and that is important. Ms Murphy mentioned we have a poll on ageism which was a representative poll. There are high levels of self-reported ageism and ageism directed at oneself which is internalised largely from the age of four as we grow older. If you do not see positive representations of yourself, regardless of the label that has been applied, you will end up having a negative attitude. At Age Action we convene positive ageing week each year as an attempt to focus on the positive stereotype and the diversity of older people and older people's issues, and we have some good support among media representation on that where they take the time, and that is possibly part of it. There is a news cycle that does not have a lot of time and then there is the longer term such as documentaries and different genres that have space to be able to create and give time to understanding the full issue. Those things are expensive to produce and need to be funded and that is why the protection of the public media content is vitally important going forward.

Senator Fintan Warfield

A couple of advisory panels were set up. Our colleague Senator Malcolm Byrne, who could not be here today, pushed hard for a youth advisory panel. The National Youth Council of Ireland welcomed that. On Ms Chadamoyo Makombe's point, I listen to BBC's Radio 1Xtra as well for a bit of dubstep that I cannot get on RTÉ. Her point about the possibility Internet radio presents for more special interests suggests there is huge potential there for RTÉ to cater for people.

Mr. Paul Gordon

In terms of diversity, that is certainly something we welcomed in the Future of Media Commission report. We would like to see younger people represented on those panels to have that youth lens included.

Going back to Senator Warfield's first question, in terms of monitoring the coverage of young people, it is difficult to do. We represent a broad sector that serves around 300,000 young people but we have a very small communications and digital team that needs to be agile in terms of responding to these issues. It is more a reactive than a proactive approach. Something we would like to see in the broader sector and in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and for the newly established Coimisiún na Meán to look at is how well young people are represented across media and how they are represented. That is something on which we have not seen systematic research done on in the past 20 years, in the South of Ireland at least, and that is something that needs to be examined. There are consistent themes and negative portrayals of young people. There are these almost dichotomous views of young people as either irresponsible or involved in crime or antisocial behaviour or, on the other side, as very vulnerable and needing to be protected. There is that confusing dichotomy that is projected onto young people, and the way to address that is by using data to ensure we know we are adequately representing what is quite a large youth population in Ireland so that their voices are heard.

In the Nordic countries, for example, specifically in Iceland, a very interesting piece of work to ensure gender balance is actual audits by editors of who is being interviewed on their shows and who has been invited on. They review the shows after three months and they are able to see almost in real time how representative their shows are in terms of gender balance. That is something we would like to see applied to young people as well. It is very important to ensure their voices are heard. Does Ms Chadamoyo Makombe want to pick up on some of Senator Warfield's points?

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

Yes. On the dichotomy of the way young people are portrayed in the media, as a young person, it is incredibly frustrating when all of the stories around you are about how negative you are and how you are a burden to society. When I look at my circle of friends and the young people around me, there are some really cool things happening in this country. There is some amazing work being done by young people who are doing a lot to push forward this culture and new Irish identity, and that is not given its space to shine, I guess because good news does not sell but bad news does. We are not asking a lot when we ask media companies to push back on that and not allow only negative stories of people to be the things that infiltrate our media. Allow us to tell our own stories ourselves. It was very frustrating when Covid-19 happened and there were a lot of stories about young people having parties and breaking rules, but young people were not the people reporting on those issues so that insight to maybe explain the behaviour and explain what was going on was completely lost. I do not expect people who are not in that group of people to understand. For example I do not expect white people to understand black issues. That is a lot to ask. If someone is not a part of that community, they will not understand. Allowing people from the communities that are being reported on to report that news is very important because there are little details and insights that get lost in translation. Misinformation spreads very easily when those people are not allowed to report on what is happening in their own community.

Senator Annie Hoey

I thank everyone. It is a very interesting and important piece of the jigsaw puzzle in terms of what is missing in our media landscape. I am furiously writing notes as I always end up doing at these things and thinking of more questions. I remember that RTÉ poll and being so horrified about it and thinking that if they had asked about my community whether they would be okay if there was an LGBT person, there would have been, I hope, uproar. I was really surprised that in 2022 RTÉ felt emboldened enough to do that, and that is a real shame and possibly reflective, as was mentioned, of RTÉ leaving Travellers out of the equality and inclusion strategy. It seems to be a very big thing to have left them out considering Travellers are listed under the Equal Status Act. Does the Irish Traveller Movement have any insight as to whether there was ever any decent explanation given or if there was any dialogue between it and RTÉ as to how this happened? I cannot imagine and it would be a glaring omission to have done it accidentally. I do not want to put words into their mouths but it seems extraordinary if RTÉ is basing it on the Equal Status Act to have just taken one of them out and just removed a sector from the strategy. Was there any dialogue that happened or even after it?

Ms Jacinta Brack

It only came to our attention when we were developing our own submission for the Future of Media Commission and it gave evidence to the fact that there is very little dialogue at that level between RTÉ and the community and Travellers generally and so these unilateral decisions are taken. We found it shocking and RTÉ appointed, I think about three years ago, an executive to the role of diversity.

I know the commission is making a recommendation that higher executive officers, diversity officers, be appointed across media generally. That is welcome. Even with that person in place, however, they did not reach out to us, so that came as a surprise. I am not in any way linking these things, but we have brought a few complaints to the BAI regarding RTÉ's reporting. Traditionally, current affairs relied on the trope or pitchfork style, as I said in the submission, around Travellers on one side versus anything from an opposing councillor, to an opposing Deputy, to a vox pop of opinion. There is no consultation whatsoever with Travellers about that. The poll we referred to, because it happened in 2022, was also shocking because people in the community fed back to us that after that show was aired, the next day young children down in Cork were facing and experiencing either people talking or being racist towards them on the street, having seen the poll. In delivering that kind of content, it tells the rest of us it is okay to talk about Travellers in that way. If RTÉ is doing it, then it is okay. There was no consultation. We would welcome ongoing engagement with it in order to make that better.

Senator Annie Hoey

There was a mention of unpaid internships. I am sure that is across all of the areas the witnesses work in and represent. I believe it is immoral to not offer people remuneration for their time. There is another layer of societal discrimination based on socioeconomic, age, or whatever factors, which is blocking people from getting into it. This is putting work onto the witnesses' organisations to solve a problem that a behemoth like RTÉ should be able to solve itself. Is there any engagement with these organisations which are doing unpaid internships to try to either diversity those internships, offer specialised internships, or strategies to get diversity of people into them to try to change the face of who is doing these internships? Do the witnesses' organisations have any engagement on that?

I am not sure if the witnesses are familiar with the Headline organisation. It came out of the National Office for Suicide Prevention. It is a media monitoring organisation that monitors mental health reporting and reporting particularly around suicidality. Headline has a person who does monitoring. It is a great organisation. As has been highlighted, everyone at the committee is under resourcing constraints. Is there space for an organisation like that? It would be a whopper organisation to have to take on the equality, diversity and inclusion of the media sector. Is there a space for an organisation that does that monitoring? Headline works with a number of organisations and mental health charities. There is a whole training piece as well. Would there be an appetite within each of the organisations represented here for something like that? I am not sure who it would fall under. I do not want to land it onto the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, or someone else. It would be a specific piece of monitoring as to what is happening. It is balanced and offers feedback about how something could have been slightly better and that kind of thing. Would something like that within the witnesses' organisations be something they would support or be interested in seeing happen? Academic research is done on it but these things are not all pulled together. It just so happens someone does a piece of research. Would there an appetite for a new organisation for something like that?

I am not sure if the witness organisations are familiar with the Headline organisation. It came out of the National Office for Suicide Prevention. It is a media monitoring organisation that monitors mental health reporting and reporting particularly around suicidality. Headline has a person who does monitoring. It is a great organisation. As has been highlighted, everyone at the committee is under resourcing constraints. Is there space for an organisation like that? It would be a whopper organisation to have to take on the equality, diversity and inclusion of the media sector. Is there a space for an organisation that does that monitoring? Headline works with a number of organisations and mental health charities. There is a whole training piece as well. Would there be an appetite within each of the witness organisations for something like that? I am not sure who it would fall under. I do not want to land it onto the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, or, someone else. It would be a specific piece of monitoring as to what is happening. It is balanced and offers feedback about how something could have been slightly better, kind of thing. Would something like that within the witness organisations be something they would support or be interested in seeing happen? Academic research is done on it but these things are not all pulled together. It just so happens someone does a piece of research. Would there by appetite for a new organisation or something like that?

People mentioned equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI. I was at an LGBT conference over the summer and someone added in a "B" into "EDI" for "belonging". That made me reflect on how we think about EDI. Giving those groups a sense of belonging within it moves it from the tokenistic piece of, "Here you are", to, "You belong here, you are embedded into the system. It is not just a documentary about you, you are embedded into our story lines, you are presenting or you are a creator or producer". That interested me, in the context of what we are talking about today.

Mr. Paul Gordon

The National Youth Council of Ireland has long campaigned for the abolition of internships. As part of our submission to this committee, we spoke to a number of young journalists who pointed to it as a significant barrier to access, especially for people from disadvantaged backgrounds and from minorities. Our sister organisation, the European Youth Forum, did research on internships. People from lower-income backgrounds were four times less likely to be able to undertake one compared with those on middle incomes and eight times less likely than those on higher incomes. We see similar figures for people from minority backgrounds, be they Travellers, people of colour or LGBTQ+. It requires Government support for the sector to enable media companies to ensure there are apprenticeship programmes and pathways to work and graduate traineeships for people from particular minority backgrounds. That is important.

On Headline and a similar body being established, that would be helpful for the broader community here today in ensuring that there is adequate monitoring, evaluation and reporting on equality, diversity and inclusion. We saw in the Future of Media Commission report and in BAI reports that there is a dearth of data in that respect. The sector is flying blind if it does not have data that can inform good decision-making. That needs to be addressed and that kind of body would be important in doing that. On the mainstreaming of issues, Ms Chadamoyo Makombe and I were talking about that as we came in. Perhaps she wishes to comment.

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

On Headline, a similar organisation would be welcome. As somebody hoping to go into reporting, I remember asking my lecturer in first year about online abuse. The reality is, I think most of the lecturers I have had have been men. Only one was a woman and almost all of them have been straight. They are prepping me for online hate but they have no understanding. Their perception of online hate is nowhere near mine. Even during summer 2020 when a lot of the Black Lives Matter, BLM, stuff was happening in the US, I was waking up every single day to direct messages from people telling me to kill myself, that I do not belong and racial slurs just for saying, "Hey, maybe killing people is not okay". I did not even have a career as a journalist at that point. If, every single day, as an unknown person on the internet, that is the level of hate I have to prepare myself for, then what happens if I am on RTÉ? What happens if I am working for The Irish Times? Something like that would be welcomed. It is a deterrent for a lot of people who are minorities from going into media jobs because nobody should have to wake up every single day to people telling them they do not belong and they should not exist because of something they cannot control.

The "belonging" idea is interesting. I think Emma Dabiri tweeted a few days ago about EDI and that inclusion is great but what am I being included to? I do not want to be a mouthpiece for regurgitated discrimination against other people and be okay with it just because I am the minority in the room. It is strange when it comes to having quotas and saying you have to hire this amount of people of colour or women, because getting your foot in the door does make the difference for a job, but is it worth working in a company if you are just going to be spewing the same amount of hateful rhetoric towards other groups of people just to get your foot in the door? That is a cultural change that needs to happen. That issue is not limited to just media companies. Jobs in general will push diversity and inclusion but when you get there, if the culture in the workplace has not changed, then ultimately, what is the point?

Dr. James Casey

The Senator's points are great and interesting. The Senator spoke about monitoring. We could do it, but we are vastly under-resourced. In disabled people's organisations, DPOs, we have nothing. It goes back to money. Our discrimination is that there is a great struggle here. Let us open this can of worms. It is ready to pop. I use an organisation like the Irish Network Against Racism, INAR. It has an iReport system where you can report racial stuff on the Internet and it will go directly to the media companies. That has to be done by the people who experience that racism and discrimination themselves. The only ones who can really and truly understand that are the ones who have experienced it. When we talk about inclusion and diversity, you will see disability a lot in the media, but again, it is always about driving money and driving resources. It is always parents doing a fun run. I am not speaking ill of the parents. The Irish people are very good. When a disability or impairment happens, you are scared. You ask yourself, "What do I do?"

If you end up in a wheelchair or whatever, people decide to have a raffle for that lad to buy him a van. They feel active, like they are doing something. Or they will run 5 km for a massive charity because people will say, "Wahoo, you are doing this for us". They are being proactive about something that is scary and unnerving. It is an unpredictable circumstance. That is another way of taking advantage of people's kindness but you are not actually getting that; it is not real inclusion. It is just pumping money into a beast. Ms Kenny can say more than I can as a young disabled person. Does she ever see herself in the media?

Ms Claire Kenny

The media has a big part to play in how non-disabled people see disability and how disabled people see themselves. Meaningful representation is everything. If I cannot see myself represented in the media and the media represents society, I cannot see myself in society. As a young disabled person, a typical question your parents ask you is what do you want to be when you grow up. As a young disabled person, my answer straight away is, "A librarian", and my mother says, "But Claire, you do not even like reading". I say that because I can sit down at a desk and no-one will see that I am different. There are three ways that disabled people are always portrayed. They are portrayed as superhuman, as needing to overcome their impairment or as needing to be cured. That is really harmful and it needs to change.

Dr. James Casey

To add to what Ms Kenny said, we cannot compete with massive marketing machines that have a staff of 3,000 or 300 or 400. These are corporations. While they are non-profit, that does not mean they are not well-funded. Some €2.2 or €2.4 billion goes into disability every year, which is a staggering amount. We do not see it. Then we have to have fundraisers for someone's wheelchair or to get a special bus. That is not inclusion. Inclusion is in society, being in the mainstream, whether that is being able to get into a nightclub or getting thrown out of a nightclub, for example. It has to be part of the society. As Ms Kenny said, you do not see yourself in the media or the images you do see are always harmful. If you are told there is something wrong with you long enough, you start thinking there is something wrong with you. It is only when people come together in a collective do they start to think, "There is nothing wrong with me, there is nothing wrong with you". It is not necessarily in that way but in that kind of sense. This is not a new thing. We did not come up with this. We see disability as an interaction between us, between our impairment and a society. It is not just our impairment. Yet again and again, it is framed as, "It is us". We need to adapt and sort ourselves out or, it is the idea of, "Give money to this crowd to sort us out, they will straighten us out." That is the problem. We can do amazing things if we are given the help and resources to do them. A lot of the time, that is channelled into areas that may not be doing amazing things and where they are keeping people in chains in some ways. Ireland has done some fantastic things over the last ten years such as same-sex marriage and women's health. This is the last great hurdle of equality. It is not there. Disabled people are still not trusted with their own lives because people think we will make a hames of it. We need to take that on board and move with it. There are solutions. We are not just highlighting issues.

Ms Mary Murphy

On the notion of "belonging" alongside EDI, that reminded me of Dr. Casey's point in his opening statement about disabled people not just being there to tell their personal stories but to provide more general contributions as full members of society, which we would equally say about older persons. It is the same for older persons; if you only ever see them on the news talking about the pension or the fuel allowance and not just talking about them as full people who have thoughts and things to contribute on sports, culture, nature and everything else, that is another barrier. It leads into the other element of the question, which was about unpaid internships and goes into the general issue of quality of work in the media sector. As Ms Clarke said, at the root of many issues in the portrayal of communities by the media is often a lack of familiarity. It is not any ill intent or a big conspiracy. It is just an oversight. A way to overcome that would be if the people making up the media sector were representative of the people who make up society. Any effort to improve how the media looks at marginalised and disenfranchised communities in our society will require ensuring that they are able to offer good-quality work, including for older workers. More and more people are going to be working for longer periods of time. Older persons are a growing sector of the workforce. That will involve age-positive workplaces in the media sector.

Deputy Johnny Mythen

I thank all of the witnesses. It is informative and from the heart. It is a difficult situation to be in. Inclusiveness and equality are the main issues that should come out of this particular section. Most of the questions I wanted to ask have been asked. What came across in all of the witnesses' reports was stereotyping. I never thought about it until lately when I started looking at programmes and advertisements. As the witnesses said, it is about older people, funerals and aids to such and such a thing. Disability is the same thing. We have a problem that we have not got representatives. We do not have anything like that for people with disabilities or youth. One of the statements was that we seem to be complete outliers in this on a worldwide scale. We are losing the connection between our young people and our society. Young people are the future of society. It is the same for people with disabilities. They are portrayed as vulnerable and not being able to take part in society. As Dr. Casey said, this is the first time he has been in here as a representative. That is a shocking indictment. It is a shocking statement. What are the main barriers to each section getting proper representation? It was suggested that the policy could be changed whereby boards supported by the State and that receive money from the State should include each group. What do the witnesses feel about that? That would be a start. For example, the RTÉ board does not have representation from the Traveller, youth, or disability communities or people living independently. That is where we are falling down in a major sense. We do not seem to be listening at all. I hope people will now start to listen because it is important. The contribution to society of the groups represented by the witnesses is important. It is a question of not only inclusiveness but equality. Will the witnesses please speak about the barriers?

Mr. Paul Gordon

Regarding representation on boards, it would be welcome if there was a designated place for young people. Equally, from speaking to young female journalists, they identified challenges in reaching editorial or senior management roles. Quotas may be helpful in that respect in ensuring a clear pathway for women into senior roles and to provide that level of visibility. Visibility is vitally important. Speaking to some journalists, they used examples which touch on a similar issue to what Ms Murphy mentioned around visibility of older people. Particular issues are seen as young people's issues and in the case of many issues that affect broader society, such as the cost-of-living crisis or energy costs, young people are often excluded from those conversations and older people can also be on different issues. It is important we ensure there is broader representation.

We can see experts in their fields among the younger population. Media organisations themselves have done more to include young voices in recent years but need to do more in terms of collating those experts so they can rely on them at short notice to come on. It is something that has worked well in terms of gender balance in other countries and is something we could do here also. Does Ms Chadamoyo Makombe wish to come in?

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

As has been said already one of the other barriers is the unpaid internship thing. Someone would have to be in a very privileged position to be able to take an unpaid internship. That is coupled with the fact that we know the media industry in and of itself is very elitist. There is a reason why, when I turn on television, that almost every single person in newsrooms looks a certain way. People tend to hire who they know. It is something that does not get talked about very much but when my mom first moved to this country, one of the things she taught me growing up, was that my social capital would be the thing that saves me. Ireland is beautiful in the sense that we are a village and country at the same time so everybody knows everybody but that is only of benefit is a person is not new to the community. If a person is moving here and does not have that same social capital or routes that have been settled, good luck trying to get a media job anyway. They are not going to hire you because they do not know you. If people's foot in the door is an unpaid internship and they cannot afford to do an unpaid internship or if they are in university full time so cannot do the internship at the same time, then it gets very hard to diversify a media sphere when everything is stacked against them. I do not know how much can be done about the nepotism thing apart from discouraging people from just hiring their nephew or neighbour's soon or whatever but advocating for unpaid internships to be abolished would be of benefit because there is so much talent in this country that is not tapped into. There are so many people who are amazing writers, hosts, producers or sound editors who get an opportunity to work at a big station or media company but it is unpaid and they have to pay rent, or their phone bill, or eat for a week and sometimes working in a newsroom is not worth living in poverty for so they choose the thing that will let them live as opposed to the thing that brings them joy which is a shame.

Senator Micheál Carrigy

I apologies for being late. I watched some of the discussion from my office. I welcome Ms Kenny in particular with no disrespect to anyone else, but she is from my home county of Longford and I know she has been doing very good work there with the Independent Living Movement Ireland over the past could of years and she is very welcome. To me she has hit the nail on the head in her last statement that the media represents society and unfortunately we have to change society's view of people with disabilities. There is a lot to do and that is something the media need to step up to.

I chair the Joint Committee on Autism and have done for the last number of months, and we have been looking at making recommendations to make changes and give opportunities, particularly to young children, to get the same chance in life every other child gets. They are quite entitled to it. Every day when I come in the hallway I see a copy of the Proclamation from 1916 that was signed and states that we must cherish all the children of the State equally. Some 105 years later we are not and we are not giving the same opportunities to those who have different abilities. That has to change. There has to be more inclusion in society and the media has to play a role in that. What we read in written media and listen to on local radio and television, the reality is that and the Future of Media Commission report found that over 75% of people trust the information they see on that whereas what they read on social media to be honest is down at 30% of what is not fact so there is a responsibility on the media in general to represent society. We need an equal society and we need inclusion in society. I will be quite honest that we are not there yet and we have a bit to go.

I looked up a witness that came to our Joint Committee on Autism meeting before Christmas and that was young Fiacre Ryan from Mayo who was the first non-verbal child to sit the leaving certificate who is now in third level education in the Atlantic Technological University, ATU, in Castlebar. His statement which was read by his mother spoke about some of the challenges he had being heard because he was non-verbal and autistic. I will read a couple of lines of what he said:

We do not assume that deaf or blind people have lesser intelligence. Why so with autism? ... It only seems appropriate to give the same rights given to those without autism [I am just speaking of autism but it is a disability] to individuals with it. Needing some type of assistance does not make someone less of a person...Try to see past the autism and realise we are the same inside as others.

Society needs to change and the perception society has needs to change and the media has a huge role in that. Mr. Ryan finished his statement by saying that:

Talk is our utmost difference and we are silenced when we spell what others do not want to know. Please listen today to the voices of those who have been silenced by our society. It is time that they are heard, valued, and understood.

That is from a young lad of 20 years of age and he has encapsulated what a lot of people probably feel in society. That is what we need to move to, a society of inclusion and give everybody of every ability the same opportunity in life and to achieve.

I also want to comment on the State boards. That was an excellent point put forward by Deputy Mythen and we need to put that at the minimum there must be a representative from the disability sector on every single State board. We need to lead by example as a Government in doing that. It is only since our committee was set up that the process is under way in Leinster House to be an autism-friendly building. We need to lead by example at Government and push these things and that is where it should start at a minimum that on a State board there has to be representatives of the disability and indeed youth sectors. The youth are our future and their voices need to be heard, without doubt. I know Senator Cassells spoke about a proposal for a youth committee in the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill, which was put forward and that is the way we need to go. We need to listen to our youth and need to represent the full society. Particularly with disabilities we need full inclusion in society. Media represents society so it has a huge role to play. I thank the witnesses for their comments and wish them well and continued success in advocating for those they represent. That is out job as well at Oireachtas level, to advocate on their behalf to make sure we as a State change what we need to change to make sure there is full inclusion in our society.

Mr. James Casey

I thank Senator Carrigy and I really appreciate it. He spoke about Mr. James Cawley who has gone. Just to say about that young lad from Mayo, I am from Mayo and we are good at many things but we are not good at the all-Ireland unfortunately. The Senator is right about the board members. There needs to be someone from a disabled persons organisation, someone that knows what he or she is talking about. I know a fellow who did his degree in broadcasting so he knows what he is talking about instead of it being a tokenistic thing.

I also think the problem with the media, and the media is informed narratives, we think in terms of stories and in terms of narratives. We do not think in terms of facts and figures, you know the 60,000 or the 50,000. I always think about this and have used it before when I give lectures. My great aunt Katie used to smoke Woodbines and we all know smoking is really bad for us and that we will die young if we smoke. I remember her smoking Woodbines and throwing them into the fire and she was into her 90s. That is what I think about, that auntie Katie had such a hard life. It is the same with stories about disabilities and impairments. When a person sees the stories on the news it is like, we have made a new special playground in Cork and in Wicklow and the public think we get loads of money and they do not need to give us any more and what is wrong with us. We have a special school and a school for autism and all of this but that is not going to us it is going to somewhere else. The media informs the narrative which in turn informs public opinion which in turn informs politics and representation and things like that. I thank Senator Carrigy and we really appreciate that.

Ms Claire Kenny

I would like to make a quick point. When talking about the disability sector, it is important to be clear that it quotes directly to disabled people. We know how disabled people are represented. We know through lived experience. Disabled people are qualified in journalism, some in sport, some are good at housing. We are not just there to talk about issues on disability. We are transactional human beings. Everything that affects society also affects disabled people. That is why it important that disabled people are consulted on every issue.

Deputy Imelda Munster

I will ask my questions first and take the responses together. In her opening statement, Ms Brack said that she welcomes the establishment of the media commission and the appointment of commissioners to oversee the new regulatory framework. She said she hopes the outstanding concerns about fair and balanced reporting on Travellers, inclusion and accessibility will be dealt with. There is a good deal of ground to cover in that respect and many wrongs to put right. Where would she like the commission to focus its attention to start with? What should its first priority be?

With regard to representation to work towards effecting real change, on which body, NGO or Department do Ms Kenny or Dr. Casey believe most needs representation? On which of those would representation be most needed to bring about that change? Which one would be the most important, or their first priority?

For Age Action, I do not know whether Ms Murphy or Ms Clarke has the answer to this but if 65% of 65-year-olds are digitally excluded, have they any ideas or suggestions on how the commission or public service broadcasting could begin to address that to encourage people of over 65 to access not just traditional media but digital media as well?

My final question is for Ms Chadamoyo Makome or Mr. Gordon on the statistics that show young people have moved away from traditional media. What would one of the biggest tasks be for the commission in the context of young people driving new audiences?

Ms Jacinta Brack

The first priority for the commission would be around trying to insert, in this case Travellers, as a protected group within the new codes. It has been proven that because Travellers were not named and identified under BAI's previous codes that this reporting could remain as before, which had caused great offence in the community. The lack of monitoring is a problem there. That links to Senator Hoey's question about this element of monitoring. Representative organisations might be encouraged to monitor if resourced to do so, which they are currently not. However, the context is wider than that. It has to be imbedded within the regulatory function of the commission itself. It would be hard to distinguish and to be able to take either by sanctions or for organisations to take complaints unless the element of monitoring was happening at that level. One of the first priorities would be to identify Travellers within the codes. I would include other groups in that as well. There has to be a ring-fencing or naming within the codes to ensure that safety guard is there.

The other part of establishing something quickly would be the establishment of the implementation group to take action around these other advisory committees. The Irish Traveller Movement is represented in that sector as well. Another NGO is also included in that. I would question why it is not wider than our two organisations as NGOs because there are up to 20 media organisations on that. While I acknowledge the fact that advisory boards are intended to take shape throughout the wider media services sector, there is probably a lack of inclusion at the first point of the establishment of those other advisory committees. Those two areas would be particularly important. The whole element of data, which we did not really get to today, is central to establish a whole range of things, whether that be collecting information in order that we identify need. That could be linked to the monitoring element. Data is important also to justify the progress across the various different actions. I can see from the report that this is due to start in 2020 and, therefore, our call would be for that to be expedited.

Ms Mary Murphy

We estimate 65% of people aged over 65 are digitally excluded. That is an easy figure to remember. It is made up of two elements, namely not having technical devices or Internet in the home and having below-basic levels of digital skills. With regard to how to support older persons to engage more meaningfully with online media, part of that response will be a broader policy ask that may be directly to the media sector and that is greater supports for older persons for lifelong learning, and supports for organisations that deliver digital learning to older persons. Age Action delivers a service to older persons to give them skills but there are limitations on how we can do that. That is one area of it.

On the media, there may be three areas, which are accessibility, affordability and confidence. Accessibility relates to how media such as websites and apps are designed. Are they in line with guidelines on accessibility for people who may have a tremor in their hand or poor eyesight or hearing? Affordability can often be the barrier for older persons in engaging with new technology, for example, buying devices or getting WiFi and ensuring there are not significant financial barriers to engaging with this media. Confidence is the final point. As I have said quite often, older persons can lack basic digital skills and are aware of this. Even if they have the skills there is the stereotype of older persons as being technologically inept. That can be portrayed in a negative way. We see that older persons can have higher levels of suspicion or lower levels of trust in information they encounter online. That could be because they do not trust themselves to engage with media online because they have been told that there is a great deal of risk associated with that. We need to train older persons to better engage with information online and identify misinformation. That goes to a recommendation about having media literacy initiatives that reach out and target older persons effectively.

The other side of this is that this should never be about pressuring older persons to engage with the media. If people have lived their whole lives engaging with media in a certain way and they have a way of life they like and that works for them, and they are able to take care of themselves in that way of life, we cannot take that way of life away from them. Ensuring that traditional forms of media are maintained as well is important so that older persons are not punished for not wanting to engage with online media.

Ms Celine Clarke

I want to acknowledge that during Covid-19 we had to pivot our Getting Started Digital Literacy Class to be online. RTÉ scheduled in the "Today " programme a couple of sessions on "how to". This involved how to connect to the Internet on a mobile phone. RTÉ followed a curriculum we had created and broadcast that.

That was very useful and beneficial to us, and we were able to tell people when it was on. It was accessible for them to tune in because they could access their TV at home. They were able to work with it, so it became an educational space. We were very grateful for that opportunity. It would be welcome if things like that could continue.

Mr. James Casey

I thank the Deputy for the question about representation. The simple answer is all Departments, although perhaps not the Department of Defence, must engage with organisations for disabled persons. I stress "real" DPOs. There is gaslighting going on in the language about rights and equality from large charities and service providers. That is because they know they are the buzzwords of the day.

Ireland ratified the UNCRPD on the rights of disabled people. This is law now. As Deputy Mythen said, there should be a DPO representative on the board. There is not a DPO representative even on the National Disability Authority. They were put forward but there is no representative of a DPO. We need to have that authentic voice there. I accept that we are not the only one. There is Disabled Women Ireland, the National Platform of Self Advocates, and other ones too. It is important that they are in those spaces.

I keep going back to it. We have industry driving policy that drives rights, which drive equality, and that cannot continue. It is not value for money. It is not good for disabled people, my friends or my collective. It is not good for us because it does not create equality. It just keeps the wheel going. We must look at value for money and ask why we are not empowering disabled people with their own choices, rather than giving the choices for us to someone else?

The media is doing that. The Government must stop outsourcing our lives. The media play a large part in that but not all of them. There are good people in RTÉ who are working with us, helping us and listening to us. It is not just because they are listening to us; they get what we are doing. More often than not, the narrative is driven by industry. That is why we are still unequal. It could be depressing, but it is also inspiring that we could meet the challenge. We definitely need to have DPO representatives in every Department or at least a process in place. We are more than open to talk to anybody. We would talk to the dogs in the street. We do not care. We could have that function and be a conduit for disabled people's voices. That is all we do. We do not make anything up. We just get what we get from them, and we put it onto a nice piece of paper for everyone to read and that is it.

Mr. Paul Gordon

In response to the Deputy's final question, in terms of ensuring that the traditional media reach young people, there is not necessarily a silver bullet to solve that problem, especially in a fragmented sector. However, there are push and pull factors. Among the push factors is there is less trust from younger people in traditional media. That harks back to the issue of perhaps less representation than other age groups. They are disinterested in news, which is a particular challenge around disinformation. The 18-24 age group is the least interested and after that the 25-34 age group is the second most disinterested. That is a real challenge. We have seen that interest in news drop off a cliff in recent years, as in the DCU and Reuters annual report.

In terms of the pull factors, the things that can be changed, younger people tend to see traditional media and news as reported in a dry, serious, institutional way. It needs to adjust to a new media landscape that is more irreverent. Studies on this have shown that older people see the news as what you should know, but younger people see it as a bit of that but also what is interesting to know, what is fun to know and what information they can share. The media must change its mindset to adapt to that. That is something that has been done elsewhere and can be done in an Irish setting. Some positive examples of that have happened.

There were many welcome recommendations in the Future of Media Commission's report on the role of the commission. As we discussed, the implementation of diversity on boards is important. Another factor is engagement with youth representation in terms of diversity and youth content and ensuring that is built into editorial and production values.

I will keep beating the drum about data because we need to understand youth representation in the sector but also EDI. We must collect that data. The Department and the commission must move to legislate to ensure that EDI data are published. That is something we would very much like to see and would be very welcome. That cannot be delayed any further.

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

Funding is also something that is super important. I say that as a young person trying to get funding to create an initiative. I set up an arts and media collective during Covid with my friend called The GALPAL Collective for young women, queer folk and people of colour. The idea is that it would be a kind of online magazine and we could teach each other and create the type of media that we want to see in the world. Getting funding for something like that is very difficult, especially if you are in education. We cannot apply for most funding opportunities until we are out of university. At that point, when we finish university, like most young people in Ireland, we are thinking about emigrating and again our talents are going elsewhere. I do not see the accessibility so that young people can set up their own magazines and media publications based in Ireland and are telling the stories that young people want to hear. That could make a world of difference when it comes to losing the young person's voice in the media landscape.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Ciarán Cannon)

From my perspective, that was some of the most powerful and thought-provoking testimony that I have heard or seen in this room since I became a member of this committee. I thank all the witnesses for causing us to reflect on how we think, speak, act and perform as legislators working as best we can in all of their interests. It has been an eye-opening, ear-opening and mind-opening session.

Pretty much every question I would have sought to ask has been asked by my colleagues and friends on the committee. I will make one or two quick points. This is for Mr. Casey and Ms Kenny. A long time ago, I was CEO of a charity that works with children with special needs, mostly providing respite for them. Mr. Casey's perspective is interesting about how exactly we seek to support people with disabilities in this country. Perhaps the subject matter is beyond the realms of the committee. We constantly channel money towards those organisations that do valuable work, but a lot of the time have little or no input into their policymaking or structure from the very people they seek to support. On a long-term basis, first, is there any international exemplar that gets this right that we should seek to learn from? When the State supports, which it does, numerous NGOs across the spectrum who work with people with disabilities, should there be a requirement prior to receiving funding for each organisation to have a far greater representation of disabled people on their boards, so that people with disabilities themselves, the very people they seek to work with, have a greater say in how they are organised and funded and exactly what they are setting out to do? That is something we should seriously consider. I am interested in the perspectives of Mr. Casey and Ms Kenny on that.

Ms Murphy and Ms Clarke, like everyone else, spoke about exclusion. As Ms Chadamoyo Makombe said, she does not see herself. They all said that: they do not see themselves and the people they represent in the way the media seeks to tell the narrative or story of typical Irish daily life. They say they are not there, and they do not see themselves there. As Ms Kenny points out, it is much more beyond the realm of disabilities, and is totally cross-sectoral, she has interests in all facets of Irish life, yet her voice is somehow not considered a legitimate one when speaking about issues beyond disability.

I could not agree more with what Mr. Casey said about the pandemic being an exciting time. I think it was. It was visited upon us and there was a great challenge with healthcare, but it also caused us all to reflect on how we communicate with one another, form mutual interest groups and associate with and support one another.

If we do not learn from that and all the positive things that arose, we will have done our country and ourselves a great disservice. I remember one gentleman on Twitter, I cannot recall who he was, saying right in the middle of the pandemic, when we were all Zoomed up to our two eyes, that in the rush back to normality in Ireland, let us decide what parts of normal are best worth returning to. We have rushed back too quickly and forgotten about a lot of the very good and exciting things that happened during the pandemic.

On digital inclusion, I have an 81-year-old mother who is a fantastic manipulator of her iPhone and who has learned to be a really powerful communicator on social media within our local community in rural east Galway and within the wider realm of social media. She has taught herself, in essence, with a bit of help from her grandchildren. She has managed to navigate that, at times, very difficult landscape. A lot of community life where I come from in rural east Galway is centred around social media. Things are organised on social media. Discussions are had on social media about how a community can move forward and what kind of investment it needs. Is there a role for education and training boards in this? Do they or should they have a role in taking all of the great content that the organisations present have already developed and which, as Ms Clarke said, were delivered by RTÉ during the pandemic and embedding it in ETB delivery throughout the country? The ETB network is very powerful and successful. Is this an opportunity for an ETB to say it has an empty room on a Friday night, for example, in wherever it may be, so let us get people in there to learn more about how exactly they can become powerful manipulators of digital technology to work in their best interests?

Ms Chadamoyo Makombe has said she does not see herself in media. She spoke about funding. Is there an opportunity for young journalists or young people to be empowered themselves to become creators of media? Can they somehow go around the back of the mainstream media and to use a kind of a guerilla network to create their own content and output that reflects who they are, the community in which they live and the people with whom they wish to connect? Is there an opportunity for all that?

Is there a serious need right now in terms of education, certainly coming into the senior cycle in secondary schools, to empower young people to be much more analytical and critical of general media content and their consumption of it? I am deeply concerned, and I spoke to a young councillor from another part of the country this morning who is about 30 years younger than me and who is also deeply concerned, that, right now, young people do not have the critical and analytical skills to determine what is genuinely accurate information, what is misinformation and, in particular, what is misinformation directed uniquely at young people to try to send them down a particular path of understanding that is not an accurate reflection of the world in which they live.

I thank each and every one of the delegations. This has been a very powerful session.

Dr. James Casey

The Acting Chairman is right. The service providers and charities do a good job. They provide valuable services and they provide services for certain people. There are certain ones, especially smaller local charities, that do fantastic work because they know what is going on. That changes when things are scaled up and they become corporate and have a corporate office. There are solutions and we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Let us look at the Nordic countries and a country of a similar size and output. Unfortunately, we always look towards Britain, the US, Australia and New Zealand. That is great because we have a great history and culture with those countries, but socially we are very different and our values are very different. If we look at somewhere like Finland, Sweden or Denmark, which have the same GDP population-wise, how are they getting things right? Why can we not just copy them, and in our own Irish way because they are very serious people and we are not so much? We can do that. Those countries have personal budgets for disabled people and people can bring their voucher wherever the need to, and that is managed by the local authority. We do not need to reinvent the wheel and we need not to start from a false positive of looking at research and countries that are outside our realm of social values. We have the same social values as the Nordic countries but maybe not the same language. Unfortunately, the United States, Britain and the others are not in the Union, which is a fundamental thing for us because we have signed up to the Union's collective of values. We should look at what the Nordic countries have done right and done wrong and how we can we adopt that.

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

On the first question about media, there is space for going round the back of mainstream media. I believe the future of journalism lives on YouTube and TikTok currently. I want to be an arts and culture journalist. I get the majority of my information about music and things that are happening within Irish culture not from radio or the newspapers but from the Internet, from word of mouth and other people sharing what they think is really cool. I think, like anything in the world, traditional media is always threatened by the new thing that comes in. First we had newspapers but then radio came in and people freaked out, and then television came in and people freaked out. This is not a new thing we are in. It is just that we are experiencing it for the first time so people are a bit spooked. There is absolutely a place to empower young people to create platforms for themselves. I guess the worry traditional publications have is about losing the market because people are going somewhere else. Maybe it is that thing of traditional publications, which have a long-standing relationship with their audience, engaging with these new publications that are coming in and giving them a platform to create a space within their own platforms, so they are not being lost completely but young people are being allowed to take the wheel a bit.

The media literacy question is a fascinating one. I have been thinking about this a lot. I do not think it is something that is completely isolated to just young people or just Ireland. I think the world is having this issue with media literacy. There is a space on the leaving certificate course, specifically with English, to have a discussion about what the content being consumed means. I did the leaving certificate in 2019 so maybe things have changed since then. We did the comparative part and were looking at the three texts, looking at the common themes and what they mean. Even within poetry there is the space for teachers to be, or for the curriculum to be changed ever so slightly so it is, more welcoming of media literacy. For example, where someone is watching a superhero movie, what is it telling them about war? Is it pro-war or anti-war? A lot of what we consume is entertainment, and while I do not think there is anything wrong with taking in everything as entertainment, teaching young people that not everything they take in is just entertainment, that there is always an underlying meaning to everything they consume on the Internet, in theatre or on television, and to have a baseline awareness of it, means when they go out into the world or they go on the Internet and they read something that is incorrect, they are quicker in being able to find out it is incorrect rather than falling for this propaganda that is going on. We saw a lot of that happening during Covid especially, where people found spaces of disinformation on the Internet. Getting secondary school students, specifically in English, to do a bit of media literacy would help a lot.

Ms Celine Clarke

On the point about digital inclusion, the State definitely needs to do more to assist people to acquire digital skills across all age cohorts but particularly older people in terms of accessing services and fully participating in society. The State needs to protect people from a digital-only approach. So a digital-first approach and then a digital-only approach will exclude people, especially the people that we are talking about here today. The State also provides loads of opportunities, as we have talked about.

On the specific point about ETBs, the Adult Literacy for All strategy recognises digital literacy as one of the areas that need to be targeted. The strategy identifies various methods of providing access to digital training skills, including ETBs. Age Action has developed a curriculum to reach a Digicom standard at EU level to provide digital training skills to older people, which is learner led, so it needs to be particularly tailored to how the person learns and training is usually done face to face. Therefore, it is important to have enough space to do so. Unfortunately, the digital skills for citizens fund finished in 2019 and it has not had any newer additional moneys. There is no channel to access additional funding for organisations like ourselves that have developed ways to manage and deliver training.

There are also cost barriers for people who have an inadequate income. For example, 50% of people aged over 65 years depend on the State pension for most of their income and when that pension is inadequate things like digital skills, having a tablet or a digital device become secondary and not a priority. A multitude of things must be in place to support all of us to be digitally included and that includes protecting the offline channels.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Ciarán Cannon)

Senator Carrigy wanted to come back in.

Senator Micheál Carrigy

I have questions for Ms Chadamoyo Makombe and Mr. Gordon on the facts and figures on the youth and their trust in media. The report of the Future of Media Commission states 73% or 74% of people trust the mainstream media but only 33% have trust in social media. The reality is social media is being targeted for misinformation about facts and truth and this is directed especially at a younger generation who spend more time on their phones than my generation and older people do. What can we do to change that? What campaign can we run? There is so much disinformation and incorrect information out there on social media. If the younger generation grows older believing some or much of that information is correct, we will have a very changed society in future. What can we do to change that?

Mr. Paul Gordon

Trust in traditional media is lower among the younger population who tend to get most of their news from social media. That is one of the challenges. Younger age groups have high literacy skills but when that is married with the distrust, to some extent, of traditional media, it leaves young people more open to disinformation online. Investment in media literacy programmes right across the life cycle, from young people to older people, is vital in doing that. The NYCI with Webwise provide resources for youth workers and anyone working with young people to recognise disinformation to ensure they are safe and autonomous users of social media. We are trying to empower them to develop those skills. It is important to do that both in a formal education setting and non-formal education settings like youth work.

The proliferation of harmful racist and misogynistic content online is having a significant impact. Young people are seeing more of this. We have aggressive algorithms on social media platforms that continue to push it, even after community guidelines are violated. That is where the role of the online safety commissioner and the recently passed Act come in. It is about looking at sanctions for social media companies under the soon to be published codes but also being proactive in ensuring we are examining what other types of harmful content the online safety commissioner should be looking at. The social media companies also have a responsibility to play their part in helping to fund media literacy programmes. We saw a UK all-party parliamentary group recommend a levy on profits to fund such programmes. There is scope for that within the Act and it was discussed in the context of a digital services tax in the report of the Future of Media Commission. Those are opportunities for us to address this issue. It is important we take a proactive approach rather than being reactive to one particular person who is in the media at any given time. It must be embedded in both formal and non-formal education.

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

There is also this initial reaction of blaming social media rather than questioning why young people do not trust traditional media. For example, as a black person, all the stories I am reading about black people are about somebody getting stabbed or assaulted and somebody got this and somebody else got that. That is not the everyday life of a black person. When you are being fed a constant rhetoric about one of the communities you belong to, of course you are not going to believe traditional media. Traditional media also need to take a little responsibility for that distrust young people have because it is not like young people trusted them and went to social media anyway. They already felt like they could not trust traditional media. As Mr. Gordon said, when you get on social media it is very easy to fall into a pigeonhole and have terrible rhetoric continue to be thrown at you because of these aggressive algorithms. Traditional media need to look at how they frame groups of people. When they change that we will probably see many more people coming back to it as their main source of news.

Senator Micheál Carrigy

When we were doing pre-legislative scrutiny on the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill we met many of the social media companies that are funding programmes. I think DCU does a programme that is voluntary for schools. It should be compulsory to teach cyber safety in schools because that is the world our kids are growing up into. We have to provide them with the correct information from a young age. Should that be part of the educational curriculum?

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

Yes, absolutely. One of the other challenges is that the language of social media changes so quickly. A couple of weeks ago, Prince Harry's book came out and somebody tweeted a joke saying he listens to Shenseea in moments of sadness. To anybody else it was a joke but traditional media companies were picking that up and publishing it as if it was actual news. That was because the way in which people make jokes on the Internet, the language they use to do so and the way they share things change so quickly. Courses are super valuable and really important but we must be aware that they will have to be constantly updated. Last week "mascara" was just "mascara" but this week "mascara", I think, means a person is talking about sexual assault, so we can see how things have changed in just a week. Courses are super important but the people running them need to be on the Internet and aware of the changes happening as they are happening because the course would have to be updated as quickly as the Internet is changing.

Mr. Paul Gordon

There has been progress in that respect and the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Harris, are consulting on a literacy strategy that includes digital media literacy. It is something that needs to be looked at throughout the life course. There are opportunities, especially in youth work settings because youth workers may be seen as less of an authority figure and is more of an open forum in which to engage in queries. We must treat young people's concerns, their use of social media and the misinformation we see online seriously. We have to understand how they relate to it and have those open conversations.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Ciarán Cannon)

I thank all of the witnesses for their very powerful, thought-provoking testimonies and thoughts on how we can work towards a culture of inclusivity and having meaningful opportunities for citizen engagement in how our media are developed in the future. We have learned a lot. I wish the witnesses every success in the future. All I can say to Ms Chadamoyo Makombe is that I am watching the space.

Ms Ashley Chadamoyo Makombe

So, no pressure then.

The joint committee went into private session at 3.39 p.m. and adjourned at 3.47 p.m. until 1.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 15 February 2023.