Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 12 June 2024
Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media
Engagement with Chairperson to the Board of RTÉ
Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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It would need to be, given it is now four years on. After this meeting, I may need to go to a shop, a restaurant or somewhere else. Those kinds of businesses have to operate within the law. RTÉ was not operating within the law. It was committing a flagrant breach of the law and the management was complicit in it. We saw how all the yellow-pack workers were treated. Ms Cusack mentioned the number of workers, 363, down from 600 and something, who were summarily dismissed. RTÉ is dealing with them going back to 2019 and 2020 and it is still ongoing when we are halfway through 2024. No other company in the land has that kind of latitude.
I am disappointed in the attitude of the chair when he says RTÉ is in negotiations with Revenue. That does not apply. What kind of sacred cow is there in Montrose whereby RTÉ can continue to be above the law? We saw the disrespect the previous chair, Moya Doherty, and others had for female employees who were forced out, at a cost of €1 million-plus and an awful lot of money to defend in court the unfair dismissals, and that has been the culture there. It is now 2024 and it is still ongoing and has not been dealt with. I have no doubt the Minister will give the board another pile of money to allow the members to go on holidays. It is a rotten system. Nothing has been sorted out at RTÉ. It is going to get another big cash bailout and smaller groups, production teams, local radios and so on throughout the country are getting the crumbs. This has to stop. I am surprised it has not stopped-----