FORMER RTÉ CHAIR Siún Ní Raghallaigh has said that she believes her “enforced dismissal” from the role “seemed designed to traduce my reputation”.
Ní Raghallaigh resigned after Media Minister Catherine Martin’s appearance on RTÉ’s Prime Time programme last month, in which she failed to express confidence in her.
Martin later told the Oireachtas Media Committee that Ní Raghallaigh had given her inaccurate information on two separate occasions, and had threatened to resign if the Minister sent her a letter expressing her disappointment in her before the Prime Time interview.
In a lengthy statement this afternoon, Ní Raghallaigh said: “If the Minister had decided that she no longer wanted me as Chair, that is her privilege.
“However, I cannot remain silent about the manner of my enforced dismissal which seemed designed to traduce my reputation.”
She also said that her experience in the role had been of a Minister “actively taking a hands-off approach whilst delegating through her officials”.
“The rule book on good governance may prescribe regular contact between Minister and Chair as the norm but, from day one, I had no choice but to accept the practice of regular contact between Chair and Secretary General,” she said.
“Although I believe this practice worked well but it is not typical. It is also contrary to the impression given by the Minister to your committee members on Tuesday, 27 February.”
This evening, Minister Martin noted Ní Raghallaigh’s statement and thanked her “for her dedication and commitment to RTÉ and public service broadcasting”.
“Last week, I outlined in detail the position of the Department officials and I on this matter. This included taking questions at a three and a half hour meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee and doing statements in the Dáil,” Martin said.
“Any Minister needs to rely on getting clear, timely and accurate information from the Chair of a State Body. This is particularly important at such a challenging time in RTÉ’s history.”
On the subject of former RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins’s exit package, Ní Raghallaigh said she could not understand why it was raised with her by the Minister five months after it was first discussed with her officials.
“I do not claim to understand why an issue disposed of on 10 October 2023 and subsequently discussed in length at the PAC should be revived in February 2024 but not in the intervening period.”
She said she made a clarification about Collins’s exit package to the Department of Media on 22 February after realising she had “inadvertently” given Martin the wrong information on Monday 19 February and Wednesday 21 February.
“The error was a lapse of memory – nothing more. I had no motivation or gain to obfuscate on the matter. This was a matter that had been dealt with in October 2023, almost 5 months prior.”
She said the questions posed to her in relation to the exit packages from last October “were left of field and rehashing an issue that was dealt with”.
To raise it five months later was and remains baffling to me.
Ní Raghallaigh said after clarifying the matter on 22 February, “the first response from the officials was to relay the Minister’s disappointment and indicate that a formal letter stating this would be sent to me”.
She said she asked officials to request that the Minister not send the letter “because it would not be in the best interests of RTÉ” and would put something that had been dealt with months beforehand back into the spotlight “and would make my position as Chair untenable”.
“It is inaccurate to state anything other than that I told the Secretary General of the Department about the decision of the Remuneration Committee in respect of the Richard Collins case. I have no doubt at all on that matter.”
She said that during subsequent phone calls with Department officials, “I was actively trying to get my point across as to how a letter from the Minister would be damaging to the urgent work the Board and the Department were engaged in”.
She said that there was “no invitation at any point” to meet with or speak to the Minister directly during these conversations, adding that she would “of course” have made herself “instantly available to meet or talk with her by phone”.
Ní Raghallaigh said she told officials that sending the letter would make her position untenable “as it would reflect the Minister expressing no confidence in me and this would mean I would have to resign”.
“In response, it was said to me that the Minister wanted to get the letter out to me so that if she were asked any question on this matter during her Prime Time interview, she could say that she had sent this letter to me.
It was now apparent that a plan was afoot, somehow involving the letter and the Prime Time appearance and that would not be changed by any input from RTÉ.
“It began to appear that the letter was as much being dictated by the upcoming Prime Time interview as anything surrounding my clarification about the Collins case.”
She said that after the letter was issued to her by the Minister’s private secretary that evening, she discussed the matter with Director General Kevin Bakhurst and “after hearing the content of the interview agreed that I had no option but to resign”.
“It seemed somewhat incredulous to me that the Minister cited ‘leaking’ when in fact there was just one media enquiry to which a response was due the next morning.”
She said she was alerted to one press query about Collins’ and Coveney’s exit packages at around 3.30pm on Thursday 22 February, and after drafting a response, “I was told by the Department that it would definitely be better” if the response could be published the following morning.
“I asked communications to delay the response until the following morning. At no point during these exchanges on the press query was I told of any other similar press queries to the Department.”
Ní Raghallaigh also noted that the communication between her and the Minister usually happened by relay: department officials would ring her with a message from the Minister and they would then relay her responses back to the Minister.
“It is not true that there were scheduled/formal monthly meetings between the Minister and myself as has been claimed,” she said.
“In my 15 months as Chair, I only had a handful of meetings directly with the Minister.” Instead, she says she had regular ‘often daily’ contact with the Department.
Ní Raghallaigh also said that Martin had not assisted in the board’s efforts to restore the confidence of licence fee payers in RTÉ, saying the Minister “said she would refuse to tell licence payers what to do”.
Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould has called on the Minister to apologise toNí Raghallaigh.
“The handling of this entire debacle at RTÉ has been an utter shambles since the start. The government have been on the back foot at every turn, particularly Minister Catherine Martin,” he said.
“She has been behind the curve on every twist and turn in this debacle. The statement of the former RTÉ board Siún Ní Raghallaigh this evening confirms this. Siún Ní Raghallaigh is owed an apology. That should happen without delay.”
Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, who is the deputy chair of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said the former RTÉ chair’s statement raises a number of serious questions for Martin.
“In a devastating critique, Ms Ní Raghallaigh bluntly states the Minister “actively” adopted a “hands-off approach” while delegating responsibility to her officials. That hands-off attitude – and delegation to Oireachtas Committees and various expert groups – has been obvious, even to outsiders, throughout this debacle,” Murphy said.
“The Minister now has serious questions to answer about whether she misled an Oireachtas Committee in an effort to scapegoat Ms Ní Raghallaigh and damage her reputation. The Minister must come before the Dáil and answer questions as a matter of urgency.”
Minister Martin will seek Government approval for the appointment of a new Chair and additional boards members tomorrow.
“Upon appointment I will seek to meet the new Chair and the Director General in the coming days,” she added.
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