Senator criticises suggestion ‘Oireachtas Report’ may move online

RTÉ director general Dee Forbes has come under fire in the Seanad about plans to outsource children’s television.

She was also criticised for “oblique references” to halting the television broadcast of Oireachtas Report, the nightly roundup of Dáil and Seanad proceedings and streaming it online instead.

This was being considered “when we’re giving them €180 million as a remit for public broadcasting”, the Seanad heard.

Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys said it was “utterly unacceptable” that the director general was in front of the Oireachtas broadcasting committee on Tuesday and “made absolutely no mention that they would outsource children’s TV”.

On Wednesday it emerged that RTÉ would outsource all of its TV programmes for young people to independent production companies.

Mr Humphreys said young people’s programming had been “the incubator of talent for the broadcasting community and the arts in RTÉ”.

“I find it totally unacceptable that the DG should sit down in committee . . . knowing the announcement was coming about and not inform the committee.”

He demanded that the director general should be called before the committee again to explain why she did not notify members about the decision to outsource programming.

The Labour Senator said the national broadcaster talked about a challenging financial environment and reducing operation costs.

"Can I suggest one reduction in their operation costs is €4,300 they're paying on a monthly basis to the Phoenix for full-page ads," he said.

RTÉ received “a huge amount of money” and “they’re sitting on a huge, valuable property site”. Mr Humphreys said that before they started cutting services they should look at “liquefying their asset out in Donnybrook on the acres that are there – we’re in the middle of a housing crisis and a lot of land out there could be used”.

Serious questions

There were serious questions to be asked, he said, about the way RTÉ “is treating its own staff, how it’s treating the future of broadcasting, how talent will be nurtured and brought forward through the broadcasting service” and about how it was going to cover politics.

The director general also made an “oblique reference of RTÉ’s coverage of the Dáil and Seanad. We’re giving them €180 million as a remit for public broadcast.”

Mr Humphreys said: “I know there’s very little viewing figures but they receive €180 million to cover politics and to cover the arts.”

He said Ms Forbes told the committee “she had one of her journalists lobbying about the removal of coverage and moving the coverage of this House and the Dáil to the digital format.”

The Labour Senator also criticised Minister for Communications Denis Naughten and claimed he was putting off decisions about funding of public broadcasting. “We have a do-nothing Dáil. We now have do-nothing Minister in relation to this.”

Mr Humphreys claimed the Minister was getting “a lot of soft coverage” by RTÉ and asked if he was being “softened up for these decisions”.