Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I echo that. It is important people be reminded that, despite the mistrust of RTÉ or certain people in the higher echelons of RTÉ that may be there at the moment, independent broadcasters and producers benefit from the fund as well. You would have thought the messaging would have shifted in July. On 17 July, I got the figures back on the massive fall-off in licence fee collection. Since then, €17.5 million has been haemorrhaged. Last year’s figure of just under €400,000 represents less than 0.2% of the overall revenue generated by the licence. It is a tiny output for a huge return. In June, someone in RTÉ at executive or board level made the decision to cut advertising completely, outside of RTÉ platforms. The Minister should ask for the rationale for that. It has not been renewed yet and there has been a massive fall-off and no intervention, change in messaging or reminders that other people like independent producers and broadcasters benefit from the licence fee. The amounts lost continue to accrue. In the meantime, the situation had gone beyond RTÉ and it came to Government and got funding.

A cynic might say it suited RTÉ to pull back and let the situation develop. It does not look good that RTÉ made that decision and did not intervene when it emerged there was a massive fall-off. There was no intervention or change in messaging. In fact, it pulled back completely from advertising outside its own platforms. That €17.5 million represents over 50 times the €345,000 at the heart of this scandal on day one and is a scandal in itself. It warrants investigation. The Minister should ask the chair how the decision was reached, what was the rationale and why, given it was so little that for the second half of the year it would have represented 0.1% of the amount brought in last year by the licence, this mind-boggling decision was made by RTÉ. If there was discomfort about looking for the licence fee from people, why not pivot the message and remind people it is not just RTÉ, but local radio stations we all value dearly and independent producers who employ people in our communities? It did not do that and that warrants further scrutiny.