The meeting was described as "constructive" by Finian McGrath, the Dublin NorthCentral independent TD.

"They have given a commitment to do something about it, " he said. "The jury in still out on that and we'll be watching to see what happens." A spokesman for RTE said: "We listened to what they had to say and we'll take it on board."

The independent TDs raised two specific example of recent reports from which they were excluded. A news item on RTE about the Sunday Tribune's recent opinion poll gave rating figures for all the main political parties but omitted the percentage achieved by "others" in the survey.

The second complaint concerned the 9pm news on budget night in early December.

The main political report on the programme featured Dail material from all the main parties but the contribution by McGrath, who was nominated to speak on behalf of nine independent TDs, was not covered.

RTE accepted that the criticisms in both cases were reasonable but argued that, in its overall coverage, many independent TDs did appear regularly. Along with McGrath, the other TDs who attended the meeting were Tony Gregory, Marian Harkin, Catherine Murphy and Paudge Connolly. Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins also attended the meeting.