Broadcaster Sean O\'Rourke was due to return to RTÉ Radio following his retirement. O\'Rourke attended the Oireachtas Golf Dinner last week, the Dinner was attended by over 80 people and has cause the resignation of a number of high profiled politicians. O\'Rourke was one of RTÉ\'s top current affair broadcasters earning 309,000 euro at the Irish National Public Service Broadcaster in 2016.

The Constituency Commission has reported by to the Oireachtas following from the results of the 2016 census. The Constituency Commission has recommended an addition of 2 seats bring the number of seats in the Dail to 160 from 158. Dublin will gain one seat in Dublin Central, while the second seat gain goes to Cavan-Monaghan which both become 5 seaters. The constituencies of Offaly and Laoise will merge with a number of other constituencies bring the number of constituencies down from 40 to 39. The European Parliament constituencies will have no changes made.

Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Alex White, T.D., has said he is not in favour of providing any of the licence fee to the Oireachtas for transmission costs. The Minister says he "would not be in favour of such a solution as it would further diminish the funding available to the public service broadcasters and for financing Irish public service content." The Minister also said that his department has yet to receive any request from RTÉ for new broadcasting services, as reported in The Sunday Times that RTÉ are planning to provide new services such as RTÉ2+1 and the introduction of advertising on RTÉ News Now.

No matter what the official view from the Oireachtas the public will pay for its service to broadcast on Saorview, the national free to air digital platform in Ireland. Saorview was launched in 2011 and since then OTV has remained off the service due to a dispute between the Houses of the Oireachtas and RTÉ's transmissions company, 2RN. 2RN is the company behind Ireland's broadcast infrastructure, it provides services for RTÉ, TV3, TG4 and Communicorp. It is expected that UTV Ireland will also be available on 2RN's Saorview platform. But the issue of cost has hampered much of Saorview’s development. 2RN sets the value of broadcasting a Standard Definition channel on the platform at €900,000 per year. The House of the Oireachtas are unwilling to pay this charge as they feel that 2RN is public body and should give them free passage on the public’s distribution network.

Oireachtas TV has lauched on pay platform Sky. In the dail the Minsiter for Communications, Alex White T.D., stated Sections 125 and 126 of the Broadcasting Act 2009 make the necessary provision to allow for the development of an Oireachtas TV channel to be known as the “Houses of the Oireachtas Channel” on the SAORVIEW TV network. The legislation provides that the channel should be established by the Commission of the Houses of the Oireachtas and that the oversight of the channel should be the responsibility of the Joint Administration Committee, which is a joint committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The television landscape has change phenomenally. Unfortunately Irish TV broadcasters, government and the regulators have failed to understand the changes and challenges faced by Irish TV broadcasting.