Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will go through my preamble and then I am happy to hear a response. That is pretty serious. If RTÉ on the one hand is trying to fight for survival, it needs the Government on board for that. It needs the public on board. It is hard to know what RTÉ's strategy is, but it seems to me to be to give as little as it can until it has to. That is not going to wash. It is not washing with the public and it is not washing with the Government. It is damaging and it continues to damage the organisation and the staff Mr. Lynch works with and represents, and attempts to lead.

Here is one thing that I need Mr. Lynch to try to help me to understand. It is the issue about him placing everything on the fact that he did not know the commercial arrangement was underwritten, so therefore there is no culpability. The very fact that a commercial arrangement had to be put in place that was effectively paid for by RTÉ is an acceptance that money was being funnelled to an individual. Surely to God somebody had to say: "Why is that being done? Why are we doing a commercial arrangement? Why are we doing anything other than paying the individual?". He did a great deal. A lot of RTÉ's statements yesterday set out very clearly why it thought it had to pay the person. There was a legal contract, and then the side deal, the tripartite agreement. Surely to God it was clear that that was an exercise in funnelling money to the individual, ultimately allowing for a concealment. Why else would RTÉ do it? Why would RTÉ deviate to another methodology?