Tuathaigh, then VP of UCG, the application was made jointly by UCG and Galway RTC (applications had to be made by a corporate body, in line with IRTC policy). In November, following oral hearings in September 1994, the Commission decided to award four 'community of interest' licences, as opposed to the single licence many had expected - one in each city. 1994-95 was then spent securing the funding and facilities that had been pledged by the two educational establishments, and preparing to go on air. The station's first station manager was Andrew Ó Baoill, founder and former auditor of the Radio Society. When he returned to his studies in 1996 he was succeeded by Fiona McNulty. Due to limitations imposed by Irish broadcasting legislation - 20% of time must be devoted to news and current affairs- and by the station's agreement with the IRTC - including that 40% of time would be devoted to talk-based programming - the station has been somewhat limited in the number of hours it can broadcast in any given week. The station started with two hours per day and rapidly ramped up to a 'complete' 39-hour schedule, consisting of 7 hours on weekdays - split between mornings, afternoons and evenings - and 2 hours on each of Saturday and Sunday. In early 1996 the station expanded its content, for a brief few months, to almost 70 hours per week, but was required to return to its smaller schedule as it was not hitting its content quotas in this expanded form. A 2001 Master's thesis in Communications and Cultural Studies, documents the volunteer participation in the station and recommends further improvements, drawing from Habermas'theory of the public sphere and Theory of Communicative Action. Written by Flirt FM's first station manager six years after its founding, the thesis also documents the history of the station founding. In September 2015, the radio station celebrated its 20th anniversary. The station is currently looking at alternative solutions to transmit the station's microwave link to its transmitter due to the construction of a new Human Biology Building on the University of Galway campus. The station has never fully recovered from the resignation of controversial DJ Dara Dolan who featured heavily in the late 2000's and early 2010's. His popular but opioniated show focused on a broad range of topics and music genres. It is believed he left for a Cavan based