The Oireachtas Media Committee has heard calls for the regulation of podcasts, which are currently not covered by the Broadcasting Act.
Under proposed changes to the legislation, only RTÉ and TG4 will be required to meet standards for podcasts as well as news and current affairs.
Chair of the Committee, Labour TD Alan Kelly, said the presidential election identified a gap in the legislation, after it emerged that Ivan Yates had provided media training to former Fianna Fáil candidate, Jim Gavin, and went on to discuss the candidate on his podcast.
Mr Yates will appear before the committee this evening, when he will say that it was public knowledge that he provided training to Fianna Fáil.
He will tell the committee that he is "flabbergasted" at the volume of media attention which has been directed at his training activities over the past few weeks.
In his opening statement, he says that a review is already under way into RTÉ and Newstalk by Coimisiún na Meán into his remarks during the presidential election, and that it isn't the role of the committee to investigate the matter nor prejudice the investigation.
Coimisiún na Meán also said it would discuss the review which is ongoing, but did tell the committee that the onus is on broadcasters, not contributors to declare any conflicts of interest.
The media regulator also said that if it were investigating a complaint, it would take into account if a bad actor didn't declare their interests to a broadcaster, but this was said in a general context, rather than a specific incident.
Coimisiún na Mean said it usually received media training from the Communications Clinic when asked by Social Democrats TD Sinead Gibney.
But its Commissioner Aoife McEvilly clarified that they did not get training for this session, as the Communications Clinic had been invited to appear before the committee on the matter.
Mr Yates pointed out that he was the only person who trains politicians to agree to come before the committee.
In his statement, Mr Yates says: "Media training has been a small element of my commercial activities over the past number of years. And media training for politicians has been even smaller ... but in the last few weeks, it seems to have assumed an enormous importance."
He added that he was "surprised at the level of surprise" which his work in this area has generated.
Mr Yates repeated that while he has always "kept the identity of my training clients confidential", work with Fianna Fáil politicians has been written about before.
He notes that Coimisiún na Meán is presently conducting a review into matters arisen during the Presidential Election, in the context of both RTÉ and Newstalk, adding: "I do not believe it is the function of this committee to carry out a parallel investigation or prejudice the outcome of this due process."
In a defence of his work as co-host of the Path to Power podcast with Matt Cooper, he said: "I believe my predictions/punditry during elections were based solely on being as accurate and informative as possible. And I don't believe any training role altered the way I saw the election unfolding or the performance of the various candidates."
The chair of the committee, Labour TD Alan Kelly, is holding two sessions today in relation to the presidential coverage, with the sole guest in the second session being Ivan Yates.
