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MINISTER FOR PUBLIC expenditure Paschal Donohoe has said the Government has to consider bringing the financial control of RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General, the state’s auditor.
Donohoe said that such a move would have “big consequences” for the national broadcaster, which has been the subject of yet another scandal over exit payments over recent weeks.
Donohoe said that it would not be a simple decision because the Comptroller and Auditor General doesn’t usually oversee commercial entities. RTÉ is dual funded, receiving revenue from license fees and advertising.
A draft Oireachtas committee report on the financial and governance crisis at RTÉ is expected to call for the broadcaster’s accounts to be brought back under the remit of the state’s auditor. Public Accounts Committee chairman Brian Stanley has previously said a “central recommendation” would be for RTÉ to come under the scope of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Stanley said RTÉ’s accounts used to be scrutinised by the C&AG until legislation was changed in the mid-1990s.
The said reverting to the original approach would give the PAC better access to the accounts.
“It’s a matter we’re going to have to give consideration to, but it’s not simple. And it does have big consequences for RTÉ,” Donohoe told reporters while attending a citizenship ceremony at the National Concert Hall in Dublin today.
“RTE also has a commercial mandate and it is important that as we look at how they are audited, and the way in which we reach confidence in their financial statements, I’d certainly want to make sure we’re not doing that in such a way that could put them at a disadvantage in the commercial sector, and further undermine our efforts to reach a firm commercial footing in the time ahead.”
A Sinn Féin Bill to give the Comptroller and Auditor General oversight of RTÉ’s accounts will be introduced at first stage in the Dáil tomorrow.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh, who drafted the Bill last July, said he did so “to place RTÉ under proper oversight once and for all”.
“Last week’s decision to allow my Bill to proceed to the Dáil is a timely one, and will give both the Taoiseach and Media Minister an opportunity to put their money where their mouth is and finally do what should have been done months ago in response to this fiasco.”
The chair of the public broadcaster Siún Ní Raghallaigh stepped down last week, and Minister Martin is facing tough questions about the level of knowledge within her Department about the most recent exit packages from the national broadcaster.
Ní Raghallaigh’s resignation came after Martin was interviewed on RTÉ Prime Time and said she was repeatedly “misinformed” by the RTÉ chair on whether the board signed off on the exit packages for two former executives.
Minister Donohoe said today that Government party leaders were not aware of what was going to be said in that interview, but that the leaders were “aware of this as an important issue”.
“I don’t expect they were aware of the detail of the interview,” Donohoe said. “I don’t think it’s possible that our party leaders can be aware of the detail of any potential questions.”
Donohoe noted that in the aftermath of the interview the party leaders expressed their confidence in Martin.
He also defended Martin’s handling of the situation last week, saying she “responded to a series of questions put to her and she honestly answered them.”
Meanwhile, the Labour Party has said it will not table a motion of no confidence in Catherine Martin amid the ongoing crisis.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Labour media spokesperson Marie Sherlock said the party isn’t going to be “wasting any more time talking about RTÉ or creating any more drama about RTÉ”.
“We have made very clear that I don’t believe that the minister is currently up to the task of overseeing reforms that are needed in RTÉ,” she said, adding that there are “so many other important issues” that need the attention of politicians now.
Minister Donohoe today expressed his and the Government’s full confidence in Martin as Media Minister, describing her as a champion for RTÉ “and for public service broadcasting”.
On the appointment of a new chair for the broadcaster’s board, Sherlock said she needs to hear from Minister Martin about what steps have been taken to fill the position.
“The timing of this is deeply unfortunate, and ultimately we need government to ensure that there is a plan in place,” she said.
The Labour Party said last week that Martin’s position is untenable.
At the press conference outside Government Buildings on Friday Martin said she is doing her best to manage “a very difficult situation”.
Labour’s Sherlock described it as “an attempt to justify” failing to express confidence in Ní Raghallaigh on Prime Time on Thursday night, hours before the chair’s resignation.
During the interview, Martin said she was “misinformed” twice by Ní Raghallaigh about the RTÉ Board having no role in the sign-off of former chief financial officer Richard Collins’ exit package.
Ní Raghallaigh said that in meetings on Monday and Wednesday she failed to recollect this information, but that Martin’s team were informed of it in October of last year.
The RTÉ Board has said Ní Raghallaigh told the (now former) Secretary General of the Department of Media Katherine Licken in October that RTÉ’s remuneration committee had approved the exit package for Collins in a phone call on 10 October. Ní Raghallaigh sat on the remuneration committee.
However, Martin disputes this version of events and said on Friday evening that she was told this week by the former Secretary General that she was merely informed in the phonecall that the exit process for Collins was complete – not that the package was approved.
When asked if the Department has a record of this key phonecall, the Minister said no note on it exists.
This is because “it wasn’t of significance” at the time, the Minister said.
Minister Martin is due to speak at the Oireachtas Media Committee tomorrow evening at 7pm. She is also expected to take questions in the Dáil on the matter.
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From what I have seem of Maria , regardless of her sexuality she doesn’t know much about politics
@Pl O’neill: I’d love to know who would have heard of these adds before FG’s intervention, didn’t appear on my FB. Like you her sexuality has little to do with it , David Norris has done a great service to this country, She is simply out of her Depth.
@The long walk home☘️: what did David Norris ever do bar collect his money?
FG complaint is incorrect.
There is no attack on her based on her sexuality.
In fact the website references her total lack of qualifications for the job and her lie about her business.
Well done Facebook
@ciar0: he mentions LGBT in every other sentence.
“Maria has made clear that her aims include to annoy those who, because of conservative beliefs, cannot approve of the homosexual lifestyle.”
“Maria has visited multiple schools promoting LGBT issues, and encouraging youth to question their beliefs and adopt new “values” with measures such as the raising of the LGBT flag outside the school.”
“Maria has declared herself to be a homosexual woman. She was in a relationship with another woman, TV producer Shauna Keogh, for some time after winning the Rose of Tralee. Last year, she stated that she was no longer with Shauna but was looking for somebody else.”
@Karen Wellington: and are these incorrect?
@ciar0: I suppose the third quote might be true but it’s also completely irrelevant. The rest is a smear campaign. There are plenty of great reasons not to vote for her, or FG (& FF) for that matter, her sexuality is not one of them.
@Karen Wellington: did I miss the bit where they said don’t vote for her because she is gay? A straight person could promote all those agendas and be canvassed agsinst for the same reason.
@SFNutters: the entire website say don’t vote for her and the reasons given include “The goal of most LGBT activists is that people would be coerced into accepting immorality as if it were morality and subsequently give up their own ability to distinguish between right and wrong.”
@Karen Wellington: where is the part that says don’t vote for her because she is gay…LGBT activists could be straight or gay or any of the other options.
@SFNutters: and yet he felt the need to mention that she’s ‘gay’ (inverted commas are Burkes addition, not mine) more than half a dozen times. If you can’t get your head around the circumlocution Burke’s using to obfuscate the vitriol in his rhetoric then good for you; you’re the better for not having understood his bile, but I’m not in a position to explain it to you as I have neither the patience or the necessary sna training.
@Karen Wellington: similar to Maria,Kate is also out of her depth.
Facebook should also name who published the advert so they can be taken to task on a public forum(media, print media)
@Garreth Mc Mahon: the person who paid for the ads is named in the facebook ad library just put in maria walsh and scroll down.
@Garreth Mc Mahon: Enoch Burke. He’s a headcase and he’s not ashamed to let people know it, he put his name on the website.
@Karen Wellington: anything to Enoch Powell??
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: Burke would not supported Powell’s stance on homosexuality (Powell is the moderate in this instance).
@steve white: I’ve yet to hear of a good Enoch or eunuch. Tough name to give a kid.
Can we ban her ads? Do you remember tamagotchi’s, black Jack’s and fruit salads? Me too, now that we’ve established we’re roughly the same age vote for me because I’m groovy and down with the 90′s kids…..The bang of desperation off of her is overpowering.
@Rachel O’ Meara: all of which might be true but it does not entitle someone to single her out and target her because of her sexuality.
@James Wallace: I wasn’t commenting on her sexuality just her crap campaigning abilities. I honestly couldn’t give a fiddlers if she’s gay.
@Rachel O’ Meara: but that’s the entire point of this thread: she was targeted and singled out because of her sexuality.
@James Wallace: It’s about the story yeah but it’s also about her and her campaign, just expressing my two cents on what I thought about it.
Mother off God she was destroying an chance if getting elected all on her own. Her only policy seemed to be attack Peter Casey. Is this an effort to drum up support out if sympathy for her.
@Daithi Ó Raghallaigh: ask Enoch Burke that question. FG didn’t create the website, he did
@James Wallace: FG made an intervention with the hosts giving this oxygen
@James Wallace: Burke is an utter and complete bollix from a family of super religious nutjobs.
@The long walk home☘️: yes they did, but the initial targeting of her by Burke is the problem. People are choosing not to see this because of their hatred for FG
Facebook is right in this case. censorship for nothing poor poor fg
@Robert Phelan: do you think it’s ok for a person to be targeted solely on the grounds of their sexuality?
@James Wallace: oh she’ll get over it james.you know that saying”stick’s and stones will break my bones,but name’s will never hurt me”.
@Robert Phelan: so going after one candidate, chosen as a target because of her sexuality, is ok by you then? Just to clarify.
Next up, Ronert Phelan justifies bullying in the classroom and racism, because, you know sticks and stones etc
Being used to canvas late in the day ,is this spin?
@Cathal: No but I can imagine there are people out there dim enough to think that.
@Cathal: No, its a smear campaign against Maria Walsh.
I don’t even vote FG and I can see that
Facebook advertising does not have the power to influence elections. Maybe a few dozen would be swayed by what they saw on it. So pathetic to get all uppity over it.
@BreadBasketCase: any influence at all is unacceptable and we should always challenge it.
@BreadBasketCase: I work in advertising and Believe me it does. Facebook is a leisure platform, people don’t consume content on it with the same mental barriers up as when they read a news site. There’s a psychological lack of distrust due to the nature of the platform combining your personal lives (friends posts, cute pictures) with news and advertisements.
People don’t even realise they’re being fed pre-selected content. It’s what makes Facebook such a profitable platform to advertise on.
@BreadBasketCase: your missing the point that she is being targeted because of her sexuality, no other reason.
@Aisling: any influence? then all ads should be banned.
@SFNutters: I’m clearly referring to elections, that’s what this article is about.
@Aisling: so am I..if your going to ban ads that influence voters then all ads, leaflets, posters etc would be banned.
@SFNutters: start with the posters….
It is up this evening, I got it in my feed just now, and reported it as a scam anyway. Disingenuous scunners (and for once, I’m not talking about Fine Gael)
This has Leo all over it. She’s a flop and he knows it, time to wheel out the sympathy vote campaign. Wait till you see how many fools fall for it and land us another useless MEP
It’s all a publicity stunt.
She’s banging leo
Toxic
Having met Maria on couple occasions i believe politics wont be her game. FG have sucked her in for cheap publicity. On another note she in stunning when you meet her face to face. Tv presenting could be a career choice.
It’s a terrible state of things when Facebook are deemed the moral decision maker between two standpoints – able to advertise a gay woman and her policies or allow political attack for same
Hfyjjbh
Her appearance on The week in politics a few weeks back showed she has no place in irish politics. It’s amazing that you would seek political office and still be unable to answer the most basic of political questions!! Celebrity candidate if ever there was one. Seems nice enough though
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