ENTERPRISE MINISTER SIMON Coveney has said he will continue to recuse himself from any Cabinet discussions regarding RTÉ due his brother having previously sat on the Executive board.
Rory Coveney, formerly the stations former Director of Strategy, announced that he would step down with immediate effect on Sunday.
He worked for RTÉ since 2007 and oversaw the production of Toy Show The Musical which lost RTÉ €2.2 million.
Rory Coveney said in his statement over the weekend that he had met with RTÉ’s new director general Kevin Bakhurst and tendered his resignation immediately.
When asked today to confirm that he would continue to recuse himself from Cabinet discussions regarding RTÉ, Minister Simon Coveney said yes, adding:
“I think it’s appropriate for me, given the fact that one of my siblings was on the Executive board that I didn’t and don’t get involved in the public debates and discussions around the reform within RTÉ.
And I think that’s the appropriate thing to do. I think most people would have expected that.
He said he is not the minister with responsibility for RTÉ or media, stating that there is a “very robust committee system that has been trying to establish the truth”.
“That process continues into tomorrow. We have a situation where the government has agreed to put in place to separate reviews of RTÉ, external reviews of RTÉ, which will obviously progress now at pace.
“And I think across government, we want to see renewal in RTÉ that can ensure that public service broadcasting is enhanced, and that we learn lessons from what we’ve witnessed over the last number of weeks, and that RTÉ in time will be stronger for that,” said the minister.
The new director general of RTÉ is “finding his feet” and needs support in the “new challenges that he faces”.
He added that the Oireachtas system and the government “needs to continue to ask the hard questions, which we will”.
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