Tánaiste says GAAGO will 'restrict the audience'

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has said he does not believe the balance is being struck correctly between commercial interests and the public interest in the streaming of live hurling and football matches on the pay-to-view platform GAAGO.

Mr Martin told RTÉ News issues in relation to the streaming service "need to be discussed in far greater detail".

In May, Mr Martin was one of the first senior politicians to raise the absence of some GAA championship matches on free-to-air television.

At the time he called for a review, saying he believed all GAA games should be shown free-to-air.

Earlier this week, RTÉ Group Head of Sport Declan McBennett told the Oireachtas Committee on Media that it is "neither realistic nor feasible" that all sport can be or will be free-to-air.

Speaking this afternoon in Mallow, Co Cork, Minister Martin said he continued to have concerns.

He said a balance had to be struck between commercial interests and the public interest and he believed more needed to be done.

"I am not satisfied that the balance is being struck at the moment," Mr Martin said.

"I believe more work needs to be done.

"A lot of this caught people by surprise, if you remember, at the commencement of the Munster hurling championship, (when) it was only discovered that two great games weren't covered on free-to-air.

"That took a lot of people by surprise.

"These issues need to be discussed in far greater detail."

Mr Martin said he would have thought - particularly in relation to hurling - that the aim would be to reach as broad an audience as possible.

"There is a danger that, if you go down this particular route (pay-to-view) you are restricting the audience inadvertently," he said.

"From a GAA perspective, I have