Minister Pat Rabbitte spoke to Lunctime's JOnathan Healy about the Newstalk television ad that state broadcaster RTE has refused to run.

Minister Rabbitte says he thinks the ad should be on RTE - telling Newstalk Lunchtime that "If I was there I would have run it".

This morning on Newstalk Breakfast Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton described it as a "commercial dispute between RTÉ and Newstalk" but went on to state her position further: "I'm very conscious that my department pay RTÉ something in the region of over €50 million in terms of older people who get free television licences through the support of the Department of Social Protection. So certainly we are major contributors to RTÉ."

You can watch the ad here.

The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources also discussed the terms of reference of the Independent Expert Group that will look at plans for Grid Link, EirGrid Grid West and the North South project.

The Independent Expert Group Panel was appointed by the Minister with former High Court judge, Catherine McGuinness, as chair of the panel. Other panel members include economists John FitzGerald and Colm McCarthy.

The panel will provide a report to the Minister and will oversee the integrity of a process that will be undertaken by Eirgrid to report on Grid Link (GL) and Grid West (GW);

For each of the Grid West and Grid Link projects undergrounding and overhead options will be assessed and analysed in respect of Technical, Economic and Environmental characteristics.

However outside of the remit of the Panel are the case for the actual provision of the North South transmission line, the Grid Link or the Grid West projects, Electro Magnetic Field (EMF) issues and “broader energy policy issues”.

Listen to the full interview here;