The RTE political programme, The Week in Politics, could have a much bigger following but for Saturday evening Mass, the Seanad leader, Mr Donie Cassidy, has told senators.
Mr Cassidy, along with Seanad colleagues Mr Maurice Manning (FG) and Mr John Dardis (PDs), has been selected to serve on the eight-member Oireachtas committee which oversees broadcasting facilities in Leinster House.
Mr Cassidy said that The Week in Politics was an enormously popular programme and demonstrated the level of public interest that could be generated when sufficient resources were made available. But, he said, statistics revealed that 68 per cent of those who attended Mass did so when this "excellent" programme was on the air. He strongly believed that it should be rescheduled for transmission between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Fridays.
Speaking outside the chamber, Mr Cassidy said that the broadcasting of televised reports of Oireachtas proceedings at a reasonable and regular time-slot between 11.30 p.m. and midnight would be a priority aim for the committee.
Broadcasting such reports at 3.15 a.m. was unacceptable.