Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The note we have been discussing has become a bigger issue than it should be. In essence, I see RTÉ protecting an internal Chinese wall. It looks like a ring fence or brick wall is being put around RTÉ. That is the difficulty here. I asked how the legal office was advising "Prime Time" about a Government measure that was taken. I can understand why the witnesses would defend editorial independence. I would support them on that in many cases. However, it appears they do not contest anything to do with the facts around this that everybody knows. Our concern is that there are facts we do not know. The only guarantee that there is nothing of concern in this is by way of the witnesses telling us to trust them. The difficulty with that is they are coming to the table having created a trust gap. We are asking for the document and the witnesses are saying there is nothing contentious in it. It seems to me they are creating more of an issue out of this than there needs to be. There is an opportunity to create trust by showing us there is nothing in the document. If there is nothing in the document, show it to us. Doing so does not create a principle on which future committees might interrogate the independence of RTÉ. It would be silly of the witnesses to die on that hill. However, it is a matter for them in terms of their credibility and willingness to build trust. They are saying to us: "Trust us, there is nothing in it." We are here because we cannot trust them. That is a sad situation for everybody involved. I urge the witnesses to make the document available and save the committee, our internal Oireachtas processes, RTÉ, the courts and anybody else who might get involved the possibility of further action. I ask the witnesses to provide the document. If it says what they say it says, there is no issue.

Going back to editorial independence, Deputy Dillon is correct that a register of outside interests is really important. There is also the issue of monetising RTÉ's corporate intellectual property. One of the most worrying elements of the tripartite agreement was that a third party was allowed to monetise the corporate intellectual property of RTÉ, namely, the hugely respected "The Late Late Show" branding and so on. Have any measures been put in place around how employees and contractors might leverage the position they have within RTÉ?