Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes, that is fine.

Regarding the invoices which were generated by NK Management talent agency. First, the figures should not have been underwritten. Second, I do not think that during the Covid-19 pandemic - I know the person is not here to defend himself - the talent agency should have invoiced the organisation for those figures at a time when companies closed, hundreds of thousands of people were out of jobs and people were on Covid-19 payments. Yet the agency and Ryan Tubridy felt it necessary that he should still get his money. This is despite the fact that due to the downturn in the economy at the time because of Covid-19 and the closure of businesses, he felt himself that he should still get his money's worth. That needs to be highlighted too. I do not believe Mr. Tubridy should have invoiced for those figures but ultimately they should never have been paid. Somebody made the decision, during Covid-19, to pay those when they were invoiced. I think that should have been brought to the attention of the full board at the time and the chief financial officer at the time should have been the person who should have done that and made the decision not to pay them.

The witnesses probably would not be aware, but I myself am a postmaster and would work at home on a regular basis before I came to Leinster House. I was working over the weekend where people pay their television licence and I know RTÉ has lobbied for it to be removed from An Post and moved over to the Revenue Commissioners to increase the funding coming in to RTÉ, basically. I actually agree with increased funding but funding should be across all media sectors, to both regional papers and radio, and not just with the majority of it going to RTÉ. I was working on a couple of days recently and a number of people came in and said they were not paying their television licence. One gentleman actually said to me, "would I rather lose Ryan or Renault the money?" Do they, as a board of directors and executive committee, fear that the licence fee income take will take a serious nose dive because of the actions of management of which they are part? What are the witnesses views on that, going forward?

I apologise again to the public, to our staff and to the Oireachtas about what occurred because it was a clear breach of corporate governance and shows a lack of transparency. The public are outraged about it, as are staff and Members of the Oireachtas, which is absolutely right. Public service media, in which I believe strongly, is about holding power to account, about independent journalism and about many important values that support our democracy. This stands at the absolute opposite end of values. As a board member, I am incredibly ashamed that this happened while I was sitting on the executive board and I feel people's disappointment. Part of the reason is, as someone stated earlier, 70% of the public trust RTÉ. This is a corporate governance issue. It is not an editorial issue. This is not about our journalism or the 1,800 people who work to provide high-quality programming and brilliant analysis. This is a deep breach of corporate governance and a terrible lack of transparency around events.