Síle de Valera,"Dialogue will be continuing"
Members of the RTÉ Authority and the station's management have met the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Síle de Valera, to discuss her plans to amend the Broadcasting Bill. These are believed to include selling RTÉ's current transmission network and excluding the station from a shareholding in the company that will build and control a new digital system.
After the meeting, the minister told RTÉ that there had been a useful exchange of views and that the dialogue would be continuing with the Authority. The chairman of the Authority, Farrell Corcoran, said that the discussions would be continuing because this was of vital importance to RTÉ. Until now, the Government had intended RTÉ to have a 40% stake in that new company. According to newspaper reports today the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, is opposed to Minister de Valera's new proposals.
