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THERE NEEDS TO be better oversight of how RTÉ spends taxpayers’ money, according to members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Launching their periodic report, the cross-party committee queried the lack of a service level agreement between the national broadcaster and the Department of Communications.
The report summarises its conclusions on a number of issues it dealt with last year, such as IBRC, RTÉ, and the account audits of a number of third level institutions.
Today the committee urged RTÉ bosses to sign up to transparency deals in return for government money due to ongoing concerns over how they pay their top broadcasters.
It also called on RTÉ to sign up to new service-level agreement contracts to ensure there is transparency in how it spends the licence fee money.
PAC chair Fianna Fáil TD Sean Fleming said there is no legal requirement on RTÉ to agree to such a contract, adding that there are concerns about individual presenters setting up their own private companies.
Taxpayers’ money
The committee said it was informed by the Secretary General that there are regular meetings between the department and chief financial officer for RTÉ, however, these are on an “informal basis”.
Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane said “it is not good enough” that nearly 50% of the department’s spending goes to the national broadcaster, yet public representatives, like himself, can’t put questions to the station bosses as to how it spends the money.
“I don’t think that is good enough and for that reason we have asked RTÉ to come before the PAC,” he said, adding that he hopes the accept the invitation.
While he said RTÉ must remain independent in terms of policy, “equally it should be held to account for the use of taxpayers’ money. At this point in time there is no mechanism to allow RTÉ to be publicly held to account, not by the PAC or anybody else in my view”, said the Waterford TD.
He added that there were also concerns about bogus-self employment arrangements in use at the national broadcaster, an issue that has been highlighted in the past by its own reporters.
The department’s largest area of expenditure for 2016 was broadcasting, which accounted for €241 million. Over €179.3 million in grant funding went to RTÉ in 2016.
Here is a breakdown of how licence fee money was spent in that year:
The committee said it was told that a formal oversight agreement between the broadcaster and the department would be in place by the end of 2017, with the Secretary General of the department adding that it was their view that there is sufficient control mechanisms in place.
While the PAC is one of the most important Oireachtas Committees in terms of holding State bodies to account, its members raised concerns about the lack of sanctions imposed on those who fail to take on their recommendations.
“I don’t believe there are adequate sanctions,” said Fianna Fáil’s Marc McSharry, adding that there is nothing binding to ensure changes are made following their findings.
He said this serves to undermine the value of the committee’s work.
While the majority of those invited to appear before the committee do attend, a number of invitees from the private sector and international companies have chosen not to.
Fleming said people are asked to attend on a voluntary basis and those working in the private sector, who do not receive public monies, are not required to attend.
Cullinane said the majority of accounting officers that do appear before the committee are from government departments and state bodies. He added that the committee’s work in the past has been frustrated by some officials who have failed to supply sufficient documentation and information.
“The lack of candour from some of the accounting officers – and these are people that are well-paid – has been found wanting at times,” he concluded.
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sell it and leave us in peace
@Johnny Mason: Aye, the one thing in the public service they don’t seem intent on privatising and it is the thing that would be best privatised.
@Jeffrey McMahon: only a foolish government would lose control of the media!
@Paddy: You are dead right. All governments need a state propaganda machine. Which we pay for!
Why are we still blindly following a 50 year old model of funding public service broadcasting here? In the 1960′s, there was was no other option but to fund the RTE organisation and trust it to deliver public service broadcasting. In 2018, doing this is simply funding the biased corporate monolith that RTE celeb land has become. Fund public service programming not the RTE organisation.
@Brian Deane: Agree but to be honest that place is on the wane and has been for years. Viewership numbers for the once popular programs such as the Late Late have been sliding for 10 years. The standard of their production and their programs is chronic (Fair City…Jesus wept). Look at who Tubridy can just about manage to drag on and compare it to Graham Norton.
@Tony Skillington: and we are forced to pay through the nose for this…
@Brian Deane: Corporate monolith!?! Let’s not get carried away.. They’re hardly competent enough to have become that. They’re more a parochial Micky Mouse operation that has been allowed to get way above it’s station. One that badly needs it’s wings clipped…
The Revenue Commissioners are letting the bogus self-employed in RTE with murder! How come? Not because RTE is the governments propaganda machine?
Finucane, O’Callaghan, Darcy, Duffy,
An overpaid collection of opinionated FG wafflers.
Make it subscription based, and they can do what they like with the money!
I thought Ming’s comment a few years back summed RTE up perfectly…. Marion Finucane gets €250,000 a year to have a cup of tea and a chat on Saturday and Sunday morning
Sell RTÉ! If the “top presenters” want to set up private companies let them. I want my €160.
Wow, that’s an expensive orchestra budget – one million euro per month ?
RTÉ should be sold off and the tax money given back to the people who work for it. Since losing Rugby and dare I even say soccer there is no value in the stations. Let me keep my €160
Just an example.. Why was one reporter-(Caitríona Perry) sent to America to interview another reporter-(Brian O’Donovan ) on Patrick’s weekend.
@Enuff Said: Also a reporter and a camera man touring the Caribbean for the sake of 4 minutes during the 6pm news.
The whole setup is a rort. A ‘licence’ required whether you look at the station or not. Then the government throw in a few hundred million and to add insult to injury, it’s full of paid advertising! The salaries paid to presenters and senior staff is exorbitant and unacceptable. The whole thing should be shut down tonight!
@Elizabeth Gregory: what do they do with all the competition money now being extracted from the public!
They’d wanna be a bit more impartial with the news. They seem to have an unwavering loyalty to FF and FG and their corrupt, incompetent gombeen politics.
Incestuous little organization…”your dad was great, so you can join too,no need to advertise the job!” I wouldn’t mind paying the license if there was a bit more transparency, if the “big boys” threaten to leave for more money, let them off, most of them wouldn’t get a job outside Ireland anyway. The orchestras should be self funding if they were good enough. Local radio stations should get more of the license fee, they at least provide some kind of a service to the community.
@zippo: more like your dad was a coke head, have a job dear
@Thomas Paine: I really thought the breakfast show on 2fm was about as bad as it could get with Jennifer zamparelli….but in fairness to the ” hugely talented” Lottie it’s reached a new low
Sell up quick lads….
Do we need twenty news bulletins a day. Or to send a reporter off to some random location for a day. Or some reporter standing in the snow during storm Emma over and over again. And then there’s fair city. It’s an embarrassment that is being produced even if there are sad people watching it making it commercially viable.
@James McCarthy
And yet it toom them 48 hours to send a reporter to Catalonia during their referendum. Prior to that, they relied on the British channels for information.
Something else I’ve noticed, particularly with radio, when an ‘expert’ is required, they nearly always have someone from a British university. Thereby the only opinion we get is a British one.
I’d rather stand outside burning 32 fivers rather than fund Daithi and co
Abolish the TV tax. State propaganda is State propaganda regardless of the State.
Whats the point when they seem to just spend their time interviewing each other and issuing regurgitated Govt releases as news reports?
Why isn’t D4bes controlling it? Sure isn’t she the best thing since sliced bread? Or just another waster.
I think the most shocking thing is Lyric FM gets €6m funding. Imagine how much a fraction of that would help independent local radio stations, many of which have greater listers and have a greater impact on the local communities.
“Remain independent in policy” Remain!! They are anything but independent; always taking one side in debates and pushing agendas and getting public funding to do it.
Give it all to tnag
We live in an era now we no longer require a state broadcasting station. 99.9% of channels are now viewed from outside this country. But it’s ridiculous to think that our Irish state will criminalise anyone who objects to funding the massive salaries of hyped up DJ’s and newsreaders. It’s actually against the law to refuse to contribute to Joe Duffy’s €500,000 salary !!!
RTE gave birth to itself like Frankenstein’s monster who time travels to fathers his creator? Familiarity breeds contempt?
Repeats repeats. Is rte for real. Don’t pay for the licence. You will get a fine if you don’t pay. Go to mountjoy they’ll look after you. And give you money to get a train or bus home. Plus ur grub.
With their bias towards FF FG, they are turning the nation against them. Propaganda shite…
Nothing a single thing do i watch on RTE , let it die
Do Lyric FM use taxpayers money to fund Marty Whelan’s jolly to watch the opera in Italy and to broadcast his show from there? If so then why do RTE think it acceptable to do this ?. You can see where the waste of money occurs. They take it as a given to waste money because there is no accountability of their actions
PAC lobbing PUCKS at RRRRTTTTEEEEEEEE
Much a do with Ta se mahogany gas pipes!! State funded windbags.
Give the committee teeth,or scrap it.
I like RTE – I love Nationwide, Room to Improve, Home of the Year – Perry and Shanley are crushing it on the News. I like the seasonality and Irish people talking about Irish matters. Very difficult to get enough good content – we have all seen it already or they can’t get it. I can’t stand Tubridy or Darcy and their salaries are ridiculous and they have way too much air time. Glad to see the politicians looking for a service agreement with RTE and article about it.
Could thejournal.ie find annual cost of taxis in RTE. Seems staff, guests and in RTE have taxis available to them.
Why are the most expensive presenters and newscasters despatched with crews to foreign and long-distance locations to conduct 4 or 5 minute interviews that could be done either by their own correspondent in the region or an on-site contract journalist, e.g. Miriam and crew get hotel and travel expenses to Belfast for a short Prime Time interview on a roof in Belfast yesterday that could have been done from the studio. Six-One news are constantly at it. Dobbo, Sharon, Eileen Dunne etc. presenting the news from bogs, housing estates, political party conferences etc. presumably with full crews, frequently interviewing themselves or their own local reporter.
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