Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On 20 April, I asked the Minister's Department to provide me with details on all consultant contracts of public bodies, and that included RTÉ. Unlike other Departments, however, because I have been putting these questions to everybody, the Department refused to provide that information as it did not see it as the Minister's responsibility to have that level of oversight. That is a mistake. We need to look at not having that level of oversight and at how we bring that accountability to the House.

RTÉ receives most of its funding from the State. It is unacceptable that the Comptroller and Auditor General has not been auditing the accounts. There are universities in the State that rely less on State funding and are just as autonomous but are still audited every year by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Private consulting firms have proven time and again that they are simply unreliable and not up to the task of protecting public money in the way we need it to be protected. It is hugely concerning that a slush fund and secret payments could go under the radar at an organisation the size and importance of RTÉ. We need a root and branch review of how public bodies are governed beyond just RTÉ. There are hundreds of commercial and non-commercial State bodies covered by a large body of legislation, and what ties them all together and provides overarching governance is the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies.

The stated aim of the code of practice is to ensure State bodies meet the highest standards of corporate governance. This clearly has not been the case, however. A culture of secrecy and unaccountability appears to prevail. The Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies requires all organisations, commercial and non-commercial, to report the aggregate pay bill. We still need clarity from the Minister on whether the €345,000 in secret payments was included in the overall pay bill outlined in the reported financial statements, as stipulated by the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies. Those financial reports that bodies are obliged to provide are really important. If those payments are not included under pay in the financial statement, it raises serious concerns in this House.

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