LAST UPDATE | 2 Jul 2023
MEDIA AND CULTURE Minister Catherine Martin has said she has made no proposals to lay off staff at RTÉ or sell its assets, following media reports of mooted changes to the broadcaster in the wake of a major payments scandal.
The Irish Mail on Sunday reported this morning that the government has plans to significantly overhaul RTÉ.
The broadcaster has been engulfed in controversy since it revealed that it had under-declared fees paid to its highest earner, Ryan Tubridy, over several years.
A spokesperson for Martin said: “There are no proposals by the minister for staff redundancies or selling assets.
“These, and related issues, would be matters for the RTÉ Board in the first instance,” the spokesperson told the PA news agency.
Martin is said to be “acutely aware” of staff concerns after meeting with them, and recognises the “real and understandable anger the public feels”.
“However, what she wants to see is fundamental change, not piecemeal reactions,” the statement said.
Earlier today, a Green Party minister of state strongly denied reports that the government is planning to make up to 400 RTÉ staff redundant in the wake of a payments scandal.
Additionally, the chair of the Oireachtas Media Committee has said that staff at the broadcaster will not become “collateral damage” in the scandal.
Responding to the article in the Mail on Sunday, junior minister Ossian Smyth rejected that there were any plans to seek the redundancies.
“I can imagine that RTÉ employees are very worried reading that this morning and I just want to say that there is absolutely no truth to it whatsoever,” he told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics.
We’re talking about what went wrong in the past and that we have a public sector broadcaster in the future and we can keep the organisation and institution working and that we can fix it and mend it and heal it.
He said there was “no question” of 400 RTÉ employees losing their jobs and that he wouldn’t give the report any “credence”.
Most of the focus has been on two undeclared €75,000 euro payments made by RTÉ to Tubridy for the years 2021 and 2022, which were made after RTÉ reportedly underwrote the amounts due to Tubridy from Late Late Show sponsor Renault.
Political and media scrutiny has focused on why this guarantee was given, what level of governance and financial controls are in place at the broadcaster, and the use of a barter account used to pay the amounts, dubbed a “slush fund” by politicians and a former RTÉ chair.
RTÉ operates on a dual funding model, with 55% of its income, €200 million a year, brought in by way of the licence fee – which costs Irish households with a television €160 a year.
Fianna Fáil TD Niamh Smyth, who is chairwoman of the media committee, said neither she, her committee, nor the Media minister were using the controversy at the broadcaster to “wield revenge”.
Ms Smyth also told Newstalk that, having also spoken to Martin, she is “sure that that is not the intention of the government” to implement redundancies or split up RTE, saying that staff would not become “collateral damage”.
“I’m pretty certain from speaking with the minister this morning, that is our intention: to protect the staff, to protect RTE, and when I say ‘protect’ I mean protect that entity of public service broadcasting.”
Agreeing that putting forward proposals before the review would be putting the cart before the horse, she said that “ultimately, there’s one minister responsible for media” and she wasn’t seeking revenge on the station.
She added: “I don’t think it’s revenge in anybody’s heart or mind in trying to sort out this in RTÉ.”
Ossian Smyth said that following this week’s revelations, a “deep inquiry into what happened” was needed.
“I think that’s a power that belongs to the minister, I think she’ll use all the powers available to her,” he said.
Mr Smyth said that Martin may use powers available to her under the Broadcast Act, which could include appointing an external auditor.
He said that the terms of the inquiry would likely be decided at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
“I think that somebody will be appointed who is very senior and respected for corporate governance,” he said.
Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week programme, chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Brian Stanley said that an auditor needed to appointed.
“Obviously, the auditor being sent in [should happen],” he said,
They need the powers to be able to go in there to to dig deep and to to be able to compel people and to compel for documents and no ifs and buts about that.
The chairman of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has suggested that witnesses may be called in over the summer recess in relation to the scandal.
Committee chair and Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley told RTÉ Radio’s This Week programme: “What we need here is full transparency, and the fact that we haven’t had full transparency has brought us to the mess at the top of RTÉ.”
Stanley added that he was also interested in hearing from former director-general Dee Forbes, RTÉ director of content Jim Jennings, Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly, as well as former RTE director-general Noel Curran.
“Certainly, we will be adding other people to that list,” he said.
Forbes has not appeared before the committee, citing ill health.
The committee is expected to meet in private this week to discuss the breadth of evidence it has heard so far, and to examine any documents handed over by RTE.
“The fixing of this won’t be done with a sticking plaster. It won’t be done with day surgery. This is a major transplant that has to happen here at the top of RTE, it’s major surgery,” Stanley said.
“My own personal view is if we have to bring them in over the summer period, that’s fine, we need to do that.
“Because this matter is fundamental to how our country operates, how the State operates, and how our democracy operates, and to public sector broadcasting.”
The Dáil term is due to end for the summer on Thursday 13 July.
The PAC this week heard evidence from senior RTÉ executives and members of the RTÉ board, has requested extensive documentation from the broadcaster relating to its accounts and payments to presenters.
Labour TD Alan Kelly, who said it was “the most extraordinary meeting” of the committee he had witnessed, also requested transactions from the barter account over the past 20 years.
During that appearance, PAC members requested a number of documents be submitted to the committee, including Tubridy’s five-year contract and a legal note taken on the May 2020 Microsoft Teams call where a key decision was reportedly made in relation to payments to the presenter.
At the committee hearing on Thursday, RTE’s director of legal affairs Paula Mullooly said that the note was protected by legal privilege, and could not be submitted amid “active and threatened litigation”.
The Committee of Public Accounts has sought parliamentary legal advice in relation to this, and called on RTÉ to waive the legal note in the interest of transparency.
Additional reporting by PA
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