Mr. S?amus Dooley:

Actually I had answered it but Deputy Griffin had temporarily left the room at that time. One of the questions was around who was involved or how was it decided that it was included. My answer was that RTÉ had appointed a company called Eversheds Sutherland. They were picked by RTÉ and had terms of reference. Eversheds did a desktop review. They set themselves up in RTÉ and had a checklist whereby they went through everyone within the organisation. The unions had no involvement in that. We did have involvement in campaigning for an appeals process and that is where the senior counsel came in. A measure of the difficulty we had was that RTÉ sought to deny people the right to be accompanied by a trade union official at those appeals. We secured the right to representation in that regard. One of the difficulties relates to Deputy Munster's comment earlier, which surprised me a bit because she would have been aware of it, and it is to do with competition law. We have spent many years coming in here looking for the right to do this but under the law it was an offence for trade unions to represent freelance workers. In fact, a SIPTU official was threatened with jail on the steps of the court for doing that. We did not have a right to represent people. When RTÉ forced people to act as sole traders anyone on more than €30,000 paid VAT. The implication of this is it nails down further their status as sole traders and denies them access to the right of the WRC and the right to representation.

With regard to the figure mentioned of 700 workers in the scope, the committee really needs to bring in RTÉ to drill down into that. The scope's determination includes anyone who actually might act as a contributor in RTÉ, including someone who is a sports commentator and happens to also be an auctioneer or a bank manager, for example. This could be someone who makes something once or twice a week. They are in a very different position to the people we represent. I would like to see granular detail from this scope and I would like RTÉ to deal with this as a matter of urgency. This cannot be allowed to drag on for ten or 15 years. I would like to see a greater examination of the figures RTÉ is talking about. To reiterate my point from earlier, it is absurd that the State broadcaster comes in crying poverty while simultaneously lining the pockets of lawyers. It does not make sense.