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LAST UPDATE | 7 Jul 2023
If RTÉ has traditionally been weak in home-produced drama, it has certainly made up the deficit in the last few weeks.
The drama at RTÉ since the revelations that senior management sought to conceal the accurate remuneration of its top earner has riveted public and media attention alike. Where else can you go to see Mattie McGrath TD starring opposite Verona Murphy TD?
It would be funny if it were not so serious. Ultimately our democracy will pay the price for the controversy at RTÉ and for the manner and pace of its prosecution. In a world of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’, citizens – now more than ever – need to be able to trust their public service broadcaster as an influential player in the public discourse.
RTÉ does many things very well, other things not so well. If one is dissatisfied as a licence payer with RTÉ’s output, worse is to come unless someone gets a grip on the current runaway crisis.
How many inquiries are necessary to establish why the public was misled about the remuneration of its top earner? Two Oireachtas inquiries, two reviews and one forensic excavation by an accountant seem deliberate overkill.
Nor is the self-flagellation at RTÉ helping matters. Entering its third week the controversy continues to dominate although the planet is overheating, warlords in Russia may be targeting a nuclear power plant and, potentially, there is an existential threat to the cervical check programme.
It is not difficult to understand why workers at RTÉ on modest to reasonable incomes are incandescent over the behaviour of the officer class over a long period. Other critics revelling in the broadcaster’s humiliation are not so well motivated.
They are milking the controversy for all it is worth and right now it is great value as a feeble management struggle to staunch the wounds. When the carcass is picked over what will we be left with?
Some of the behaviour at the top of RTÉ cannot be defended. However, it is not clear why it should attract the attention of not one but two competing Oireachtas committees.
Some members of the committees have acquitted themselves well but the grandstanding of others has added nothing but embarrassment.
The overcooked indignation of some ministers encourages the hanging public climate–something they may yet live to regret. Minister for Media and Arts Catherine Martin’s reported refusal to advise householders to pay their licence fee is remarkable.
That serving politicians should nurse a grievance real or imagined against RTÉ for one reason or another should not be surprising. RTÉ would not otherwise be doing its job. However, we have largely abandoned the Reithian principles, “to inform, educate and entertain”.
The ‘gotcha’ principle is now too frequently in evidence as some interlocutors in political interviews seem determined to demonstrate superior knowledge to the Minister. But this is no excuse for sitting back while the broadcaster fatally damages itself.
An element, therefore, of schadenfreude may be unavoidable. But if we believe the high-minded rhetoric about how our democracy is conditioned by the quality of our public broadcasting, ministers should be wary of unleashing forces like we occasionally glimpsed at the Oireachtas committees.
The UK Conservative government has been intent for some time now on squeezing the BBC. The pusillanimity of its treatment of the Brexit referendum was due, I have no doubt, to government hostility and the result has been disastrous for these islands.
The BBC is the exemplar of the proposition that public service broadcasting is a public good. I have learned more from the BBC than I ever did at university.
Provided that the runaway horse at RTÉ is reined in, some good can come of this. Reform is now unavoidable and that includes the funding model long-fingered for years. It was my intention as Minister in 2014 to implement a premises-based public service broadcasting charge but that was derailed by the water charges imbroglio.
A decade later the funding issue, notwithstanding accelerating technological change, remains calculatedly untouched. Meanwhile, as the current controversy has revealed, those at the top of RTÉ have been driven to unwise and imprudent ad hoc decision-making that now threatens the future of the broadcaster.
The government appears content to continue to sit on its hands while the controversy throws up further fripperies that may not amount to a hill of beans in themselves but cumulatively are enough to undermine the broadcaster. There is now an opportunity for the RTÉ unions to cooperate with the board and the new DG in cleaning out the Augean stables as well as forcing the government to put its grudges aside and place the national public service broadcaster on a stable footing to meet the future.
The longer this saga runs, the more damage will be done to RTÉ’s reputation. The drip-drip of minor transgressions will further erode public trust.
In the blizzard of revelations about flip-flops and match tickets, we still don’t know who gave the guarantee, sanctioned payment and resolved to conceal the transaction in respect of Ryan Tubridy or why he acquiesced in the deceit.
Frankly, I don’t care whether or not Marty Morrissey was wearing flip-flops when driving his gifted car. Any competent management should have rules for that kind of thing and should ensure they are transparent and observed. What matters now is the future of public service broadcasting and we are now in danger, with multiple inquiries and a government content to enjoy the spectacle, of being diverted into punitively addressing the symptoms as distinct from the cause of the malaise.
Pat Rabbitte is the former leader of the Labour Party and former Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications of Ireland.
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Ah Pat Rabbitte, the politican who made election promises to the irish people but later admitted he was lying, the man that finally killed off the treacherous Labour party, nobody in the country wants to hear what that man has to say
@Adam: so why did you read it?
@Adam: Didn’t he also say that in the semi states there was a race the the bottom? Family being employed 6 figure salaries for no qualifications – in laws spouses all employed and taxpayers money to silence those who highlight wrongdoing! The Government already know this is happening and yet act shocked- all semi states need to be examined abbd remember Minister knows what is going on!
@P Martin: directors in RTE have very little accountability on their spending.
And whether it is commercial or licence fee income it is all the same money, it is taxpayers, not theirs.
I stopped at ‘Pat Rabbitte’.
@Ernie Gallagher: a wise choice. Why ruin a perfectly good Friday with his asinine witterings?
Is he Afraid that the forensic audit might uncovered something about Him
@New Boy: it’s not an impossibility.
Pat Rabbitte who “gave away” swathes of Ireland’s natural resources to 13 oil companies…
I remember him now..Media Tax…
Etc…
If there was ever a time for Pat Rabbitte to sit down and stay quiet, this is it. He had in his time attempted to do RTE DG’s dirty work and push for an increase in the TV licence fee which thankfully fell flat on its face. Either he was hoodwinked by their cap in hand bs, or he was in some way complicit. Either way, he’s wrong. A deeply forensic examination of the situation in Montrose is absolutely necessary to restore trust in the state broadcaster and crucially, it needs to be prompt.
Rabbitte as Minister wanted to bring in the media for all households.
@Jason Sweeney: utter drivel. And to cite Reith is …..a real sickener, coming from somebody whose own career has been driven by decidedly un-Reithian manoeuvres. I can’t ever remember his appearances as being either informative or entertaining and as for his attitude to the public, we’ll check his property based tax (no mention of income: is it any wonder Labour are in the bin
Sure isn’t this the same Pat who admitted on RTE that campaign promises no longer apply after election. Go back under your rock.
Pat Rabitte, chairperson of Tusla (another underperforming state body), and member of ESRI, must be great top-ups for your ministerial and TD’s pensions no doubt.
This is where I stopped reading:
“Nor is the self-flagellation at RTÉ helping matters. Entering its third week the controversy continues to dominate although the planet is overheating, warlords in Russia may be targeting a nuclear power plant and, potentially, there is an existential threat to the cervical check programme.”
Easy for a man firmly established on the public-money gravy-train to tell the rest of us to look over there. Would you ever fvck off.
Pat in a couple of weeks all of this will be forgotten like the labour party the only difference being RTE will rise again.
I’m pretty sure Pat Rabbitte wanted to change the tv licence into a media licence, pretty sure he was thinking ahead, not too sure many young people have much interest in RTE but he knows everyone uses smart phones, tablets, laptops and other media devises.
He’s the wrong man to try and convince the general public of that, and he’s dead wrong too. We’ve been steamrolled by RTE for decades who ran rampant with the licence money and made sure other broadcasters got as little as possible. He’s siding with the bad guy all for a bit of self serving publicly. Take a hike Pat, you don’t serve the general public you never did.
RTE has been stuffed with Union and Labour supporters for decades. Since this former Workers Party/Democratic Left/Labour man telling us to not look too closely at RTE, we should give his opinion the adequate weight it deserves. None.
As Minister, he got the eircode system changed so it identified every dwelling individually, even in apartment blocks where it was only necessary to identify the front door of the building, so that each unit could be targeted for a TV licence or broadcasting charge.
Pat you clearly miss not been part of a Pac committee member,The Irish people have had enough of politicians that swings their versions to suit themselves,Coveney’s brother last week had been asked very few questions by politicians of his involvement in the flop christmas show..I wonder why he wasn’t grilled by politicians as hard as other RTE representatives.Why aren’t politicians been grill for their part of overseeing RTE.Isn’t that what Minister Martin and predecessors and their, over paid advisors are there for…
Exactly who what we have now. A not fit for purpose organisation
“If RTÉ has traditionally been weak in home-produced drama it has certainly made up the deficit in the last few weeks.” Your first sentence shows how little you realize this issue is. The very reason people regard RTE content to be not as good as our neighbour’s is because money that should have been put toward funding and nurturing new talent, creating better content and gaining the trust of the people who fund it has instead gone toward greedy, talentless execs that hoard money for themselves, wasting it on flipflops and tickets to the rugby.
Well, well, look what just climbed out from under a big slimy rock ! Actually, you’re right for once – we don’t need all these toothless committees looking into the criminal antics at RTE, we just need An Garda Siochana to do their jobs. But hey, this is sleazy Ireland, not Star Wars – we NEVER use the force ! Back on the gravy train with you (the source of your myriad of taxpayers pensions), otherwise you’ll miss the champagne and smoked salmon course.
He’s convincing nobody. It’s time to for them to go Subscription. Enough IS Enough!!!
Pat I lied to get into politics rabbitte……whats next we getting bertie to do articles about dodgy financial advise and account creations
#See them yo yo’s on RTE#
#Money for nothing and flip flops for free# (Apologies to Dire Straits).
Oh Gawd…. not Pat Rabbitte… master of disaster
From the same politician who defended the Government’s decision to not burn the senior foreign bondholders which is why we’re all still paying USC charges.
Tusla next.
Listen to Pat Rabbitte is overkill. He is the one that was in every party possible and still think that he is believable.
If only there was a state agency with a remit for investigating such things …
Coming from one who was full of Sh— years ago Pat is proving he hasn’t changed.Now that we’re in the mode lets turn towards the political system which would probably make RTE look like a well oiled machine if you started digging into it’s finances ..unvouched this,allowance for that,security,chauffeurs,helicopters,private jets, first class travel…and thats only scratching the surface.
Where is the Revenue investigation in all this ?is it one rule for RTE while the poorest in society pay. Also pay for the Banks and nothing for it except no health service because all the money is going to politicians, Bankers and RTE celebrities, People make you’re own mind up and change this with a vote
I would expect nothing less then wagon circling from gravy train Rabbitte, only one inquiry needed and that’s by the Garda fraud squad.
Rabbitte ..more Blueshirt than the Blueshirts..Labour’s way or Frankfurts way…we know how that worked out, Under no circumstances will the junior bondholders be paid…Water charges…media licence..Little wonder the so called Labour Party has gone the way of the PDs
POLITICIANS CANNOT BE TRUSTED
including this one.
BTW, I hope de Wabbite read what the Judge who hears the Licence Fee cases had to say. Needless to say he’s NOT a happy man. It’s in the Irish Mirror, if anyone is interested.
Why this brown stain is still relevant? In that as usual he fails to serve the people but instead wants a continuation of the rotten status quo. Run Rabbitte Run (and don’t come back).
The government. If they believe in a .democracy they should put..it to the people let .the people deside don’t .insults they intelligent of the people
That’s like something you’d say during an election.
I was hoping never to see or hear this fellow ever again.
I don’t know a single person who has the RTE app on their phone. Bad enough on TV, so NOT wanting it on mine! You must be frkn joking.
@Mick Hanna: RTE app is a total joke – they throttle the bandwidth so much it’s only good for buffering TV3 app not much better..
Overkill! God!. Gardaí should have been brought in. There is obviously more to come out. Imaging having a car for five years. Did he get it serviced himself?. Did he declare it as benefit in kind. He didn’t have expenses allowed on this car and he travelling all over the country commentating on matches. Something doesn’t add up.
The (former) Director General is the one who knows the answers to the key questions regarding the payments to Tubridy, why they were sanctioned and why they were concealed in the manner they were. So, it’s about time she comes out of hiding to face the music. She has little else to lose now having lost her job and her reputation in the broadcasting sector. Tubs and Kelly have decided to brazen it out and tell their side of the story in the hope of gaining some small measure of redemption. Dee should do likewise and ought to be compelled to if not willing to do so voluntarily.
The Workers Party still sticking up for their own. Abolish the licence fee.
Did you really give that money back?
Pat Rabbitte is correct but unfortunately, because he is Pat Rabbitte, people will find excuses not to heed him. Bu please, don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater . Ask yourselves the question,” why isn’t there a public enquiry into the shenanigans in the children’s hospital contract”.?
There are many serious issues happening but are being glossed over, so why all this fury and righteousness over this issue, rest assured something else is being covered up.
As usual Pat , you hit the nail right on the head. Spot on , ” wish you were here ” Slainte.
I refuse to read this article, on the basis of i don’t read or listen to liars who break promises, and then openly admit it.
However i feel compelled to leave a comment
How torn am I today.
Much of the commentary is ill informed. Most of it comes from a particular political direction.
RTE is poorly managed at the higher levels and substantial change is urgently needed.
A staff member who negotiated a car for himself for the last five years would need his tax status checked and the big fish is Late Late in offering his presence before a Seanad Committee . He knew years ago that his published salary was wrong and entirely caused by his presence as a car salesman on behalf of his main employer!
Both should resign immediately.
Mark Rodgers
Remember that time our politicians and RTE told everyone to get an injection and everyone actually did it? Lol
Condescending man
Wait till all the fiddling going on by highly paid employees in our 3rd level educational institutions comes out..not to mention the ridiculous salaries paid to admin staff in the hse..it’ll curl your toes
Wait till you hear the lame excuse Tubridy will come up with next week, he has had a long time to think about his excuse, solicitors in his ear as well, sure why didn’t he make a statement already if he has nothing to hide, stop the kidding, irish people don’t buy that fake friday night persona anymore, you can have all your upper class buddies come out 8n your defence, but you don’t fool the irish public anymore, R yan T ubridy E nestled
!!!
I agree with Pat Rabbitte. All these inquiries are ridiculous. He did give me a good laugh too. Do the TDs on these committees have the tight to humiliate staff from RTE in public. They are all on big expenses and there aren’t many saints in Dail Eireann.
I remember Pat Rabbite stating that politicians were entitled to make promises and renege on them.
The Irish Labour Party will be rightly shunned for at least a generation!
R yan T ubridy E ntitled
This clown is not trusted by the people so why is he given air time. I can’t stand the green party because of the mess they are creating in Ireland. But at least you could say they are sticking with their election mandate unlike Labour Party whom sold out the irish people. Never forget this folks and never let them into power again.
Pat the rabbit with two bs and two ts. One would almost think that the author of this piece was not the bloated supercilious windbag who consistently gaslit the electorate throughout his political career. He never did manage to “rock the foundations of the state”, but he sure managed to bag himself multiple platinum state pensions!
If this was R Murdoch, he would sign off -Assas sinate him ‘he’d say’, in the media term of course. Do you think ‘Marty, Ian Dempsey, that Go b shite Tiernan and the unlikable rest would be viable in any other place on Earth. Or on TV?
RTE NEEDS to be turned into subscription, I never watch it. I like RTE news though and that’s free without that awful APP, THEY KNOW, the first year and it will fall apart -They know that no one will sign up for Tubs or Marty, GAA can f e ck off 2, Robbers needs Garda Investigation into the funds.
Who is Pat Rabbitte??
More drivel from a ex politican who left a trail of destruction behind him and paid handsomely for it
Begod and I thought he was dead! Is this the oleaginous Pat Rabbitte(two b’s and two t’s, no less!) who signed away our natural resources, who made a brass ball of the Labour(ahem!) party, who admitted that he lied (what a surprise!). Pat, if you read this please go away, enjoy your pensions, and as a fellow Mayo man I can see the “Bucko” coming through and recognise said “Bucko” for what he was and continues to be! No class Pat!
Okay
Pat is right of course, excessive institutional raging is never a good thing.
He asks what will be left of RTE when we’re finished picking the carcass?
He would be more correct to point out that the ongoing external enquiries came into being because RTE was already being treated as a carcass from within.
The damage had already been done.
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