Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Bacik. In my view, the people who are perhaps most hurt by all of this are the public, the vast majority of whom dutifully pay their licence fee every year when some people around them do not. Many people who have paid their licence fee every year for ten, 20, 30 or 40 years are extremely annoyed, quite frankly, about what has transpired. I acknowledge, of course, that the general staff in RTÉ feel harmed and hurt by this as well. There are industrial relations issues within RTÉ, as there are within any organisation in the State. With that in mind, the Minister, Deputy Martin, will meet today with the RTÉ trade union group to hear from it and discuss its concerns and thoughts on the best way forward. She will also meet with screenwriters and screen producers because they too are affected by this as people who do not work for RTÉ but receive a lot of contracts from RTÉ for the work they do.

We have not finalised the terms of reference for the external review just yet. It will focus on culture and governance. We will take into consideration whether the gender aspect of that should be considered. I know that the Minister, Deputy Martin, has a strong interest in gender equality and has promoted it in her role. We will also give consideration to a recommendation of the media commission that pay in RTÉ should be compared with pay in other member organisations of the European Broadcasting Union, EBU. We do not know what might come out of that. We do not know how pay of the main personalities in RTÉ compares internationally with other EBU members. We do not know how the pay of the general staff in RTÉ compares with other EBU members. However, it may be appropriate now to bring forward that recommendation of the media commission and see how pay in RTÉ stands relative to other public service broadcasters in countries of a similar size.

In regard to alleged bogus self-employment, the Department of Social Protection has a scope section within it. It carries out investigations into whether somebody is self-employed and encourages anyone who feels they are being bogusly classified as self-employed to contact the Department of Social Protection with any information they have.

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