Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We would all agree that RTÉ, our public, State broadcaster, has been brought into disrepute as an entire organisation by the actions of a few at top management level. The matter first came into the public domain when the Deloitte audit of RTÉ's books finally revealed the overpayment of its top presenter in March 2023. The RTÉ executive board knew of these overpayments. It stayed quiet, hoping it would not be noticed and that the auditors were as inept at their job as members of the RTÉ executive board have been found to be at their jobs. Deloitte missed the payments for almost six years. Those years' books should now be reaudited and the truth made known about how that happened. I am glad to hear the Minister announce two reviews, particularly the announcement that a forensic accountant will start going through the barter account. That is good news and it is a start.

Those overpayments have been a doorway that opened onto a scandal that gets bigger with each statement, grows wider with each discovery and shines more light on mismanagement and excesses that would shame the most extravagant of Celtic tiger era excesses. These efforts alone, to conceal top-up payments of €345,000, with false invoicing, UK-based barter accounts and a mentality of asking no questions, have destroyed RTÉ's bond with its staff and the general public.

Then we have the €1.25 million barter account, a slush fund that charges a 35% handling fee on transactions. We know the commercial section needs to do networking but the sheer extravagance is the issue. Some €110,000 was spent on travel and hotels for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. We know of the ten-year IRFU season tickets at a cost of €138,000 and the €26,000 for the 2019 soccer Champions League final in Madrid. We know of the 40 guests, mainly RTÉ staff and family members, with a few advertising agents, who enjoyed going to the U2 concert in Croke Park from the premium level after a coach was hired to take them the short distance from wining and dining in the Twenty2 restaurant in Drumcondra to Croke Park. We know of the 70 or so people who played golf in the K Club, with dinner, a drinks reception and prizes after their round of golf. There was lunch on early arrival and goody bags. There was no holding back on that do. This was at around the same time that there were reports that RTÉ was considering the future of the Lyric FM radio station. All of these events, those that we know of, were fully or partly paid for through the barter account. Other expenses were paid for using credit cards separate from the barter account. The barter account should be fully audited, from its inception to today, along with the separate credit cards used to pay for those lavish expenses, all from taxpayers' money.

RTÉ staff, past and present, have been in contact with me and my colleagues to express their anger at the mismanagement, their fury at the waste of money and their hope that maybe this time, the RTÉ executive board has been found out and the staff will be listened to, their needs will be given consideration and the unfair treatment many of them have faced will finally come to an end. That includes bogus self-employment contracts, the substandard equipment in some areas, the gender pay gap and the language pay gap. I could go on.

Many of the concerns raised by staff deserve to be investigated as part of the wider review. I think the Minister referred to that being taken on board. That will be vital if things are to change. The RTÉ executive board's culture and disconnect from staff is stark. The executive board's arrogance and self-importance are striking. Its attitude towards the rest of the staff is "Let them eat cake."

We await all of the reports and information. This cannot be buried in paperwork, reports and reviews. RTÉ is the State broadcaster, receiving State funding, and this Government has an obligation and responsibility to ensure that the inside culture of some in top management in RTÉ, which is clearly rotten to the core, is rooted out once and for all. The Government's review of governance, culture and the external contract fees has to be thorough, wide-ranging and totally transparent.

There have to be consequences for those involved.

If there are not, nothing will change. Judging by what we have learned so far, members of the executive board, including the then director general, underwrote a separate commercial deal for RTÉ's highest paid presenter and paid that out of public funds, to the value of €345,000. We also know it deliberately concealed these payments by raising false invoices and put those payments through a UK-based barter account. It deliberately published an understated salary for RTÉ's top presenter, knowing full well the salary it was publishing was false, and blew taxpayers' money through a slush fund on the most extravagant, Celtic tiger-type splurging, while all the other workers took a 15% pay cut.

The members of the executive board and any others involved need to be held to account, and it is very difficult to see how they can remain in situ, given it all happened under their watch. Again, the most important thing is that there will have to be consequences for this rotten, inside culture that existed if we are to have trust, transparency and accountability in RTÉ ever again. Without them, nothing will change and the board will have destroyed any shred of credibility the public and the workers might have.

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