Since the Green Paper on Broadcasting was issued in 1995 and throughout the current authority's term of office, RTE has engaged in a good deal of soul-searching. Many recent contributions to debates, in these pages and others, about the future of RTE and of public service broadcasting reflect issues and concerns that have been teased out and tested inside RTE as well.

At all levels in RTE, old assumptions have been challenged: the authority has challenged management and staff to develop a principled approach to the provision of public services that will attract the growing support of audiences, advertisers and civil society; the management has challenged staff to provide increasing levels of service that will be more responsive to audience demands without commensurate cost increases; and staff have challenged managers to take seriously the terms of the Partnership 2000 agreement and so engage their commitment.

In meeting these challenges RTE has to bear in mind that in the coming years, probably during the term of the next authority, our community will decide whether future debates about broadcasting will be made by reference to civil society or to market forces.

But is John O'Donoghue right when he says (The Irish Times, January 21st) that RTE is suffering from agoraphobia, a fear of the marketplace? Surely, it's fair to argue that the market is not always the best mechanism for making decisions about broadcasting policy, that high quality is not always the result of the free play of market forces. Look, for example, at how market-based approaches have affected the range and quality of food.

Post-modern philosophers have made great use of the idea of a simulacrum, meaning a perfect copy of something that no longer exists in reality - or perhaps never existed at all. And often, on a Saturday morning as I do the weekly shopping, I think about things the term was probably never meant to cover.

For example, there are reddish fruits that look like tomatoes. On closer inspection - the eyesight is deteriorating with age - the label on the packet tells me they are indeed tomatoes. And picking them up, I find that they smell like tomatoes. Sometimes they're called "beef", sometimes "cherry" or "vine" or even "cherryvine" tomatoes. But are they tomatoes? Not at all! They're simulacra - almost perfect copies of tomatoes that exist only in my imagination. I say almost perfect because, in my imagination, tomatoes have a flavour, an acidity and a saltiness, a hint of iodine. But the things I find in the supermarket have no such flavour. They are not grown on a farm by the side of a country road. They are made, I think, in a simulacrum factory. Some days, the factory manager orders that the mix be changed, perhaps because there's a glut of tomato-like fruits on the market, and they make apple-like fruits instead. Or kiwi-like fruits.

On slack days, yet another new variety of potato is produced: for keeping, for washing, for chipping, for roasting and making colcannon as fast as you will - a Bould Thady Quill among potatoes! It only disappoints when the time comes to eat. These simulacra are results of the free play of market forces.

The market is certainly a useful mechanism for identifying those qualities of a product that will make it seem superficially attractive and for impressing on producers - of fruit and vegetables or of radio and television programmes - the need to reproduce those qualities. Unfortunately for those who end up consuming the products, qualities like authenticity and creativity seem to be beyond the grasp of market forces. This, rather than any lack of courage, might be the cause of the apparent agoraphobia in RTE.

Reading contributions to the recent debate, you might get an impression of RTE as a demoralised, defeated organisation - almost as if it was itself implicated in the scandals that have shocked our society in recent years. But in fact it is no harm to remember that brave and hardworking RTE staff like Charlie Bird, Mary Raftery, George Lee, John Keogh - and there are many more - have helped to build a space where we can look at and deal with those scandals and where victims can express their hurt and righteous outrage.

More than 30 years ago, the authors of Sit Down and be Counted wrote: "Radio and television are nothing other than people talking to themselves in public."

The news reports and programmes made by RTE are part of a conversation about Irish society, about the levels of integrity we expect from bankers, priests, politicians and all in positions of power - and about the levels of selfishness, corruption or xenophobia we find intolerable. At their best, they display those elusive qualities of creativity and authenticity.

One of the major challenges we now face is to avoid the risk that the conversation becomes a monologue. We have to listen as well as talk. And the fact that we in RTE bring our various histories with us to the dialogue doesn't help much in this regard - a history of elitist, arrogant, monopolistic approaches to audiences; a history of superior, dogmatic approaches to commercial clients; a history of dogged independence in the face of government views; and a history of difficult industrial relations.

But is this just a blast of self-congratulatory whingeing from RTE? I don't think so. One reason RTE must sometimes seem like a moaner is that it has to do a balancing act - and it must do it in public - to find the appropriate relationship between the pressures of market mechanisms and the demands of civil society.

This relationship is at the core of the current debate. Put simply, the question about the future of broadcasting is whether we in Ireland should allow it to become entirely commercial or maintain a way of ensuring that views expressed within the community about what should be broadcast are heard by the broadcasters. Our dilemma in RTE is that the insiders cannot answer that question without appearing to have our own agenda.

So we tend to be hesitant in asserting views. Instead, we try to identify the various options open to the community and point out the costs and benefits associated with each one. We then have to hope that the various responses coming from our audiences, advertisers and politicians will allow us to develop clear and coherent visions for our future.

During the 20th century, we Irish protected our national culture by closing our eyes and ears - and our radio and television services - to the outside world. RTE, the national minstrel boy, was expected to lead the charge in the war against "unhealthy foreign influences" - for example, when the radio service built its Athlone transmitter in 1932, it was not permitted to play jazz.

Whether or not this protectionist policy was ever desirable, it is clearly no longer workable. The war is over and the minstrel boy has to sing his song in the marketplace.

Tom Gormley works with the trade union group on the RTE Partnership Project.