Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I hope the Minister will withdraw his amendment killing this Bill and support it as it stands. We ask those on the Government benches to also support this Bill as it would do what all parties agree needs to be done and bring RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I have read the media reports that the media Minister, Deputy Patrick O’Donovan, has outlined to his Government colleagues that it is his opinion that this Bill does not go as far as the Government’s proposed legislation and, therefore, the Private Members’ Bill will be opposed. I have read the media reports that his view is that our proposal differs from the approach by the Government in two substantive ways. First, he believes it does not provide for the accountability of the director general of RTÉ to the Committee of Public Accounts for RTÉ’s financial statements or value-for-money matters. If that were proposed as an amendment, we would support it.

His other objection is that it does not allow the RTÉ board the discretion to appoint a regulated private sector auditor in addition to the Comptroller and Auditor General. I would ask whether this matters. The external auditors that RTÉ had for decades did not expose or uncover any of the financial scandals or irregularities that we now know were common in RTÉ. Their ineptitude was exposed at the Committee of Public Accounts and the media committee in 2023 and 2024. RTÉ spent a whole lot of public money on these external audits for a whole lot of box-ticking and nothing else. We then had auditors’ reports on the previous auditors’ reports, or special examinations done to see why so many things were missed. This is simply throwing good money after bad. TG4 was audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General during this time and did not have the financial irregularities that RTÉ had. Again, I am not sure why the Minister would insist on a duplication of work.

This is a simple Bill that does one thing we all agree needs to happen: bring RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. I do not understand why the Minister wants to delay that. I hope that his response gives a detailed reasoning as to why he would purposely delay RTÉ coming under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

The Minister’s alternate Bill is 93 pages long and includes 31 heads of Bill. I am not here to dig into the technicalities of it or nit-pick at the minutia of the proposed Government Bill. I am not here to oppose it, tear it down or have a go at the Minister on its content. I am not here to rubbish it because it was not my idea. I am sure there are many aspects of it that we in the Sinn Féin Party would happily support. I know we would positively contribute to its passage through the various Stages. However, the reality is that that would be a long time from now and possibly anything up to two years.

The Bill we are putting forward today passed First Stage on Tuesday, 27 February 2024. The Bill was not opposed by the Government and there was no debate. We all agreed that this needed to be done. We moved to introduce this Bill in the face of Government inaction on the RTÉ debacle. Even the former RTÉ chairwoman, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, stated that the then media Minister, Catherine Martin, had a “hands-off” approach in relation to the national broadcaster. She also stated that she would like to see RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The Government had a year of evidence that RTÉ needed to be brought under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General but it did not act.

In 2023 and 2024, the media committee and the Committee of Public Accounts examined the running of RTÉ. The flip-flops may have generated the headlines but the under-the-table payments to RTÉs top star at the time, misleadingly labelled as consultancy fees, and the nonsense reasons given, exposed the misuse of the barter account. RTÉ used this separate account outside of its main financial statements to record transactions that involved goods and services exchanged for advertising. Cash payments from the barter account resulted in a punishing 35% additional cost yet the Government did not move to change anything. The complete dereliction of duty and responsibility from RTÉ executives was laid bare for months, for the nation to see, yet the Government did not move to change anything.

After reading back on the debates when this Bill was introduced last year, I was reminded of the contribution by my party colleague, Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh, that in the midst of the hearings, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, in the Minister's seat, categorically ruled out the Comptroller and Auditor General taking control of RTÉ in light of the events happening at the time. In March 2024, the Committee of Public Accounts recommended that the Government bring RTÉ back under the statutory remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General so RTÉ would become accountable to the committee, which can examine and report to Dail Éireann on the annual accounts of designated public bodies following audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Based on the evidence before it, the committee believed that decisions taken by RTÉ demonstrated a lack of rigorous financial controls, poor communication and little transparency, and amounted to a failure of governance which, combined, had damaged public trust in an organisation for which trust should be paramount. Yet again, the Government did not move to change anything.

We in Sinn Féin knew that something had to be done. In the face of Government inaction, and with more and more mismanagement of public moneys at RTÉ being exposed, we wrote this Bill and submitted it to the Bills Office. Then, in October 2024, that Government, which is essentially the same as this Government, with the Green Party then instead of the Lowry group now, announced its intention to introduce its own Bill. That was eight months after this Bill passed First Stage in the Dáil. This week, the Minister sent his general scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill to the joint committee on communications, culture, arts, sport and media for pre-legislative scrutiny, which will conclude in September. It could be two years after we introduced this Bill before his Bill will get to the same stage. I do not think this House has the time to see a duplication of work on bringing RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General, particularly when we all agree on what needs to happen.

There are 1,000 things the committee on sport, arts, media and communication could be working on instead of examining that particular aspect of the Government Bill, which will do what this Bill already does. We could use those hours to examine the RTÉ €3.6 million write-down on a failed IT system. We could be digging into RTÉ's history of bogus self-employment and what resolving that will mean for the national broadcaster's finances. We could use those hours to examine the Arts Council’s accounts and look at the €6.7 million spent on an abandoned IT system project, or the National Gallery’s purchase of an unused scanner costing almost €125,000, or whatever is the next financial scandal that will arise under this Government. If there is one thing we have learned recently, it is that there probably will be another financial scandal.

Anyone who knows me knows I want to work in collaboration with people around me for the greater good. If we did not have this Bill already before the House and ready to move to Second Stage, I would be happy to wait for the Government’s Bill. The 1990 Broadcasting Act, introduced by the Fianna Fáil Minister, Ray Burke, allowed RTÉ to appoint its own auditors instead of the Comptroller and Auditor General having oversight. We can undo that wrong today. Let us not drag our feet. Let us not duplicate our work and waste this House’s time and the committee’s time going over old ground. Let us work collaboratively and move this Bill forward now.

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