Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat a Chathaoirligh. I welcome the Minister and her officials. In her opening remarks she made the suggestion, with which I agree wholeheartedly, that public service media plays a vital role in the well-being of our society and the health of our democracy. I think everyone in this room acknowledges that, which is why we are so deeply concerned about the ongoing difficulties within RTÉ. Something that astounded me in the early days of our questioning of the RTÉ board was the complete disconnect between it and its senior management team. This existed to the point where the then chairperson of the board, Moya Doherty, said at no time during her tenure as chair did she or other members of the board have any knowledge of the issues relating to certain payments and the profoundly serious lack of transparency involved.

Has the Minister had any discussions or conversations with the new Chair who, as she referenced earlier, is only in the job a number of weeks at this point, about how exactly those internal processes of reporting can be changed and reformed so that the board is more acutely aware? I am not asking that the board would micromanage the operation of RTÉ on a daily basis but that the internal reporting processes are much more robust so that the board can have an early account of any likely misdemeanours or other issues arising around funding, financing and the management of those finances.