Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To draw the pieces together on this matter, No. 588 from Séamus Dooley, the Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, is related to this matter. It is brief, but Mr. Dooley states in his letter that he welcomes the interest of the Committee of Public Accounts in the issue of bogus self-employment which has long been of concern to the NUJ, the RTÉ trade union group, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. He concludes that the Eversheds Sutherland process agreed with the RTÉ group of unions is ongoing in RTÉ insofar as the issue of retrospection remains unresolved. I bring that to the attention of the meeting so that members will know where the process may be at. Mr. Dooley clearly states that the matter remains unresolved. He does not indicate that there has been any great progress on it. With the agreement of members, we will take No. 586 from Mr. Dooley with this correspondence. He has provided helpful information.

Arising out of the discussion on this matter, I cannot see why a public service broadcaster, which has made a settlement with the Revenue Commissioners, an arm of the State that works on behalf of the taxpayer, cannot disclose to the Committee of Public Accounts how much of a settlement it made to Revenue. I had to drag out of RTÉ that it made a settlement. We need to know the amount of that settlement and when it was made. I propose that the committee secretariat correspond with RTÉ advising it that we expect answers to those questions and that it is unacceptable that the committee has not received answers to date. I also suggest that the committee secretariat ask RTÉ to disclose any financial settlements that have been made with workers who were misclassified and the cost of any retrospective PRSI payments that have to be made.

Deputy Munster previously raised a question in regard to the staff of Raidió na Gaeltachta, which she has raised again this morning. The Deputy is not requesting the disclosure of the pay of individual staff members but, as I understand it, the comparative figure for people on the same grade in RTÉ. Am I correct that that is the information the Deputy is seeking?