When Mr Conor Maguire takes up office as chairman of the Independent Radio and Television Commission at the weekend, he and his colleagues will begin the preparatory work for the most important development in Irish broadcasting since the establishment of RTE - digital television.
The 10 members of the new IRTC will also be working without a map because at this stage it is not entirely certain what role a regulator will play in a broadcasting environment which could include hundreds of channels.
One thing is almost certain - tv3 is the last television or radio station which will have to go through the sort of protracted negotiations faced by stations during the past 10 years on programme schedules, investment, advertising levels and senior personnel.
Under proposed new legislation, the IRTC - or whatever it ends up being called - will have a much lighter hand in future.
The reason is that since 1988, when the first IRTC was appointed, independent radio has in effect been offered an exclusive right to a franchise area. Exclusivity came with rights and duties that were negotiated between the station and the IRTC.
The new broadcasting environment will be more market-led, with new radio and television stations being transmitted by a variety of methods, whether as terrestrial digital via an aerial, digital cable or digital satellite.
The IRTC, as envisaged by Ms de Valera, will operate a sort of halfway house between the current regulatory position and a totally free market.
When she announced her proposed legislation she outlined her plans for the IRTC: "Because of the important social and cultural elements concerned with broadcasting, the Government has decided that the sector needs to be regulated by a broadcasting regulator, which will oversee its development from a primarily broadcasting perspective.
"To this end it is the intention to create a new body that will incorporate the existing role and functions of the Independent Radio and Television Commission and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.
"This body will be given the role of determining broadcasting programme and advertising standards, taking account of our national expectations, cultural values and mores and the requirements of the Television without Frontiers Directive."
The outgoing IRTC chairman, Mr Niall Stokes, called the Minister's proposal "unusual and bizarre". The regulatory authority, he said, would "be placed in the position of effectively having to rubber-stamp decisions made by cable operators to put stations on air without any clear criteria regarding content or without any competition in relation to the provision of services." Mr Stokes is probably right. The new IRTC might become little more than a rubber-stamp. The problem was highlighted not too long ago when Bob Geldof wanted to launch a music station called Atomic TV as a cable channel in Ireland.
He was opposed by the IRTC and also by some in the tv3 consortium who wanted nothing to interfere with the station's startup. What was clear was that under the EU's Television Without Frontiers Directive, it would have been impossible to stop him had he pushed the issue.