Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being here.

I find some of the answers bizarre to be frank. The clear agenda for today is the secret payments, how they came about, how they were covered up and how this committee and the Government were deceived with regard to those payments. I am mindful of the fact that in the past three years this committee has done a huge amount of work on funding the future of good public broadcasting. Mr. Lynch has been before the committee on numerous occasions and every time the main focus of RTÉ's discussion, argument and presentation was the financial constraints of RTÉ. It is just really shocking. I am still really struggling, after everything I have heard over the last three hours, to come to terms with it.

I will begin with Mr. Lynch. Who negotiated Patrick Kielty's new contract for "The Late Late Show"?