David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

At the last meeting, when the Secretary General from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment was here, I asked questions about the funding for RTÉ. There was then a discussion about whether or not a service level agreement was in place. I have a number of concerns. I fully understand the need for there to be independence and separation between politics and the national broadcaster, and that we should not stray into policy or seek to ask questions which could be seen as us trying to influence the programmes of RTÉ. Those are not the questions I have. Some 40% of the budget of that Department goes to RTÉ. The majority of RTÉ's funding comes from the taxpayer. There are issues with regard to bogus self-employment within RTÉ and how some well-paid people in RTÉ are using legitimate tax avoidance schemes. It is legitimate but they are avoiding paying income tax. There are various issues, including issues related to the disposal of assets, which I would like to put to RTÉ.

The Secretary General was not able to give us a line by line breakdown or even answer basic questions about how that money is spent. It is reasonable for us to have RTÉ before us. I understand that it is not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. That is fine, but it gets substantial money from the taxpayer. A number of people from RTÉ came forward to me following last week's meeting to say that this is an issue. Philip Boucher-Hayes, who people will know works for "Drivetime", did a programme on this where he talked about the prevalence of these bogus self-employment contracts in RTÉ. It costs the taxpayer money and is an issue the Chairman said he wants to look at. If there is a loss of revenue to the Exchequer, we should focus on it. I propose that we examine the matter and invite RTÉ in to address those specific issues which are important. We know the issue is prevalent in the construction sector, among others. We will have Revenue in and can put the matter to it. If the national broadcaster is involved in this sort of practice, facilitated by the taxpayer, we should be given the opportunity to put questions to RTÉ about how it spends public money.