TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said the coalition leaders are “really bothered” that it has been revealed there were more than one barter account in use by RTÉ despite an Oireachtas committee being told otherwise last week.
At the Public Accounts Committee last week, Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy asked RTÉ’s chief financial officer Richard Collins whether there was “a list of barter accounts”.
“No, there is only one barter account,” Collins said in response.
Addressing the controversy in the Dáil, Varadkar said it has to be established if RTÉ executives were deliberately misleading parliamentary committees or just providing information that turned out to be wrong.
“There is a difference between giving incorrect information to a committee or the Dáil, which many of us would have done, and actually lying,” he said.
The Fine Gael leader said barter accounts were used regularly within the media industry and that there was no issue about that.
“It’s the misuse of barter accounts for secret payments, that’s the real issue here,” he added. “And certainly I didn’t become aware of this until the last couple of weeks and only found out last night that there were additional barter accounts.
“And I’m really bothered about that, quite frankly … So we’re not satisfied at all about the answers that we’ve been given by RTE to date, it is below the standards that you would expect, not just of people working in a public body, but of anyone working in any body, quite frankly. It is really not a satisfactory situation.”
Full transparency has been absent’ from RTÉ executives in appearance before Oireachtas committees so far, said the Taoiseach.
“The drip feed of information to committees and Government has done untold damage,” he said.
His comments come as Media Minister Catherine Martin said in a statement that she has spoke Chair of the RTÉ Board, Siún Ní Raghallaigh today and received an outline of the Board’s position, particularly around the “deeply unsatisfactory nature in which information is being provided by the Executive”.
Ní Raghallaigh informed the minister that the board has now written to the Deputy Director General and the incoming Director General outlining that “this is totally unacceptable, and that it has eroded their trust and confidence in the Executive”.
“In this context, the Board has requested that swift action be taken. The Chair will speak more on this issue at the Media Committee today.
“I absolutely understand that erosion of confidence and it is imperative that full clarity around these, and all issues, are forthcoming without any further delay,” said Martin.
“I am bringing my meeting with the Chair, acting DG and incoming DG forward to tomorrow. I intend to have the forensic accountant in place next week given the urgency of these matters.
“The Chair also confirmed they will initiate a further Grant Thornton investigation of the Toy Show the Musical, she added.
Documents seen by The Journal reveal that the inaugural Toy Show musical last year made just €495,961 in revenue against costs of €2,699,193. In total, the project made a loss of €2,203,231.
RTÉ’s economic forecast for the second quarter of 2022 and had factored revenue from the event as being worth €3.215 million, based on the assumption that 83.75% of tickets would be sold across 54 shows.
Meeting this target would have required selling over 90,000 tickets. In the end, RTÉ sold just 11,044 tickets across 27 performances (as half of the shows ended up being cancelled), the documents show.
Comp and guest tickets made up 5,573 total audience members, while competition winners made up a further 3,645. Including RTÉ guests, free tickets, and competition winners, Toy Show The Musical managed to fill just 41% of the available capacity of the Convention Centre.
Varadkar said “we absolutely understand that the erosion of confidence has done enormous damage and it’s imperative that full clarity around these and all issues is forthcoming without further delay”.
Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty asked the Taoiseach if he had confidence in the RTÉ Executive Board.
“I have confidence in the Board and the Executive Board. But I’m also conscious that this is an emerging situation. And I reserve the right to change my position on that based on what happens in the coming days,” said Varadkar.
“I think it’s important to point out that there is more than one person on the Executive Board. And in any democracy, in any decent society, as I’m sure you’d agree, anyone should be afforded due process.
“And for me now, to condemn en mass, an entire Executive Board made up of several different people, who would have had several different roles, would not only be unfair, it would potentially leave the state open to compensation claims,” said Varadkar.
The Taoiseach said the new director general will take up his position soon, and he is sure Kevin Bankhurst is “going to want to reconstitute the Executive Board or perhaps get rid of it altogether”.
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