Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

For more than two weeks now, political debate has been utterly dominated by the controversy within our national broadcaster with the revelation of secret payments and cover-ups there. The reason it has commanded so much attention is because RTÉ is so central to our day-to-day lives and to our society. As our public service broadcaster, it sets the day-to-day news agenda. It is central to our democracy, being outside the control of profit-driven shareholders or billionaires, like so much other national and international media.

It is our public service broadcaster. I recall the Minister's predecessor, Michael D. Higgins saying during the 2008 debate on the Broadcasting Act, that we must recall the clear distinction between public service broadcasting, on the one hand, and the public service broadcaster on the other. There is a crucial difference between licence obligations imposed on private media organisations to provide news, weather and other public information roles. There is a distinction between that and the separate and vital role played by the State-sanctioned national broadcaster that is supposed to reflect all the diversity in Ireland, and which is supposed to represent our best values. RTÉ lists its values as outward looking, creative, respectful, collaborative and transparent. That is what has caused this issue to dominate proceedings to such an extent because we see these values as being absent in the total failure of governance. An article was published on the RTÉ website today, by Oonagh Smyth from "Prime Time" referring to the total failure of corporate governance. That is the phrase that has really been dominating the discussion about the secret payments. It is not just about the payments themselves; it is about the failure of governance involved.

I wish to pay tribute to the staff of RTÉ. Within the last two weeks, while their organisation has been the focus of so much controversy, they have kept doing their jobs, particularly the staff in current affairs and in news who have covered this issue robustly and have presented strong analysis. They have spoken both publicly and privately about their sense of betrayal at the organisation and the way the organisation has behaved. We have all heard Emma O'Kelly's words as a representative of the National Union of Journalists within RTÉ. She wrote in the Irish Examineron Saturday that the low-paid staff are sickened by the revelations in RTÉ and they are talking about a them and us culture at the broadcaster. One staff member told her last week that it felt like a kick in the guts. This is why it is so important that we express our solidarity with staff within RTÉ and our solidarity with the concept of a public service broadcaster.

The Labour Party is proud to support public service broadcasting and the national broadcaster. We have done so since the foundation of what became Radio Éireann in 1926.

Indeed, the Labour Party and Michael D. Higgins established Teilifís na Gaeilge, now TG4, which was opposed by many at the time and considered an unnecessary adventure. It was described as "Teilifís DeLorean" at one stage. Of course, now we see it as a vitally important expansion of public service broadcasting through the medium of our national language, ár dteanga náisiúnta, which is so well enhanced and protected by TG4. We need to restate the crucial importance of the public service broadcaster and not allow this crisis to be used to shrink or destroy RTÉ. It must emerge stronger and better than before but to do so, many changes must take place.

During the pandemic, we were all reminded of the vital role a public service broadcaster plays. RTÉ played a critical role during lockdown, providing information, analysis and much-needed education for our children. That is it at its best. It is essential that we restore confidence and pride in RTÉ and ensure its financial future is secure. There is a requirement for absolute transparency. The drip-feed of revelations around the secret payments and around governance issues has done massive harm. The marathon sessions at the Oireachtas media committee and the Committee of Public Accounts have generated more questions that still demand answers. There are outstanding questions. Others have spoken already about the questions that are still out there. There is one illustrative example that sums it up, and that is the fact that we still do not know what the losses were from Toy Show the Musical. It may be a relatively small drop in the ocean but it is a huge one given how much advertising went into that. We need to know if the values of public service broadcasting were sacrificed in pursuit of profit, in an endeavour that was ultimately loss-making. We need to know what those losses were so we can assess what better use that money could have been put to elsewhere.

Turning to the review the Minister announced today, we very much welcome that announcement. We welcome the Minister's statement that it would be a root-and-branch examination. It is going to be conducted in two strands and chaired by Professor Niamh Brennan and Dr. Margaret Cullen. We welcome those appointments. The first strand will be about governance and culture and the second, critically, will be a separate review of contractor fees, human resources and other workplace matters. We very much welcome that second strand. This day last week during Leaders' Questions, I raised with the Taoiseach the need to ensure that workplace culture in RTÉ, employment conditions and, crucially, the issue of bogus self-employment would be considered in the review. The Taoiseach at that point seemed somewhat sceptical and thought that might be too broad but I am very glad the Minister has included it within the terms of that parallel strand because that is vital. We are hearing that from the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, and we have been hearing it for some time.

Just this afternoon, Séamus Dooley from the NUJ spoke at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, biennial delegate conference and welcomed this review. He said it was a welcome first step in restoring public confidence. It will also be greatly welcomed by those working within RTÉ, including the staff and the many freelancers who for so long have been kept at arm's length by the organisation, while providing vital work and being as much part of the talent pool as the so-called talent at the top end of the organisation. We have been hearing for years about the poor conditions for freelancers with the low fees and rounds of cost savings and redundancies, with RTÉ actually looking for more money at a time when we now know these secret payments were being made. I very much welcome, as do all in the Labour Party, the two strands of the review.

I also welcome the appointment of the forensic accountant that the Minister intends to make under section 109 of the Broadcasting Act. That will presumably happen alongside the four-week process of the further Grant Thornton report. The Minister might say when she anticipates the forensic accountant appointment will be made and how broadly drawn the remit of that accountancy exercise will be. I note the Minister has said she is reserving the right to broaden the scope depending on what else emerges from the committee hearings, and we are all conscious that there are a number of different parallel strands, but that is important.

The emergency motion put forward by the NUJ today points out that one consequence of the secret payments is that they were kept secret by the director general - it appears, or certainly by the organisation - from the trade union group and therefore, the unions within RTÉ were negotiating in good faith with management, over years it seems, despite the existence of secret undisclosed payments negotiated with a third-party agency for someone who was already highly paid. That clearly undermines trust in industrial relations machinery generally because the unions were negotiating on the basis of financial information with which they had been supplied that we now know was not accurate. What the unions are seeking, as outlined by Emma O'Kelly at the weekend, is fourfold. These are four reasonable asks that we hope the review will focus on. First is a cap on earnings within RTÉ to end this practice of extremely high earnings. The second is an end to third-party contracts. The third ask is for RTÉ to be a model of best practice and fourth, for a sustainable funding system to be put in place into the future.

The Minister set up a Future of Media Commission and some of those recommendations around reform of the licence system have been parked. We all understand that existential matters of credibility and governance have been disclosed in recent weeks that need to be resolved first. Undoubtedly, however, the decision on the future funding model must be grasped because we all know the TV licence model is outdated and no longer fit for purpose. We have looked, as I am sure the Minister has, at Finland and the progressive income tax introduced there to replace the pre-existing licence fee that was rather similar to our own. That model might be a more appropriate one as it would no longer be based on the number of TV sets in the house, which seems so outdated when people are streaming content in so many different ways.

We must ensure that what emerges from this is a public service broadcaster that has its credibility restored, that has good practice - best practice - in corporate governance, with a radical reform of internal decision-making and checks and balances structures. I am looking at comments like those of Conor Power, who said the key question for that governance audit must be why this did not come to light sooner. If we can answer that, we can see an appropriate way forward to construct a model of corporate governance that has appropriate checks and balances within it, that does not give quite so much power to the decision-making of one person and that will ensure restoration of public confidence and trust in what is a crucial part of our democracy and our democratic system, that is, our national public service broadcaster.

We very much welcome the review. We look forward to working with colleagues in government and across the House through the committee system and elsewhere. I ask that the interim reports and the final report come before the Oireachtas. I acknowledge they will be submitted to the Minister but it is important that we, as legislators and public representatives, also have an opportunity to debate the findings of both reviews.

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