‘Freeloaders in RTÉ' lambasted by judge dealing with people who failed to pay TV licence

A judge dealing with people prosecuted over non-payment of the TV licence has said they may feel “a little hard done by” when they see public money “squandered and abused” by RTÉ.

Those personalities and executives who received “unconscionable sums of money” should “reflect on their position and do the right thing”, said District Court Judge Anthony Halpin.

The “freeloaders in RTÉ” who got loans of cars, or “received branded cars free gratis”, spouses who were “wined and dined and partook of events at the expense of RTÉ” and others “lavished with such generosity” should pay back the euro equivalent “to help this financially strapped semistate body”, he added.

It saddened him that those before the TV licence court “who are crippled with the cost of living” have to “swallow this unpalatable pill of the licence fee when they see that such a source of income is squandered and abused”.

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However, “the law is the law”, you must have a licence if you have a TV and his job was to ensure compliance, he said.

He made the comments on Friday when dealing with a list of 159 people summonsed before the An Post TV licence District Court in the Four Courts over alleged non-payment of the licence fee.

The judge said those who needed more time would be given it and An Post, “an understanding organisation”, represented by barrister Jennifer Morgan, may enter into an arrangement involving direct debits or collecting stamps to help pay the fee. Those who intended to do this would be left without a conviction, he said.

He had “no choice” but to convict those who did not turn up but would keep the fine to a minimum. He imposed fines of €150, with three months to pay, plus €100 costs, in 37 cases of non-attendance. Other cases were either adjourned to a later date or struck out for reasons including a licence had since been obtained.

In his comments at the outset, the judge said it is a criminal offence to have a TV without a TV licence and the offence on conviction carries a fine and a record of conviction for a crime.

Those before the court accused of failing to pay the licence fee “may feel a little hard done by when they see the way RTÉ has abused statutory funding which is annually provided to RTÉ” and it would be remiss of him not to refer to the recent revelations and exposures, he said.

The revelations “have rocked the very foundations of the national public service broadcaster and have sent, not ripples, but seismic shock waves throughout the organisation”, he said.

The epithet “There is something rotten in the state of Denmark”, uttered by Marcellus in Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet, “can appropriately be applied to the shenanigans and mischievous activities that have gone on in RTÉ over the past number of years of which we knew nothing”.

He was “appalled and disgusted that such clandestine, secretive and dubious goings-on would be the order of the day in respect of arrangements between RTÉ and the Godlike personalities who seem to be above scrutiny”.

The “elitism and exclusivity shown and demonstrated by the RTÉ ruling class” is “anathema” to the fundamental principles underpinning the freedom of the press and the “trust engendered thereby of an independent, professional, honest and responsible national broadcasting service which is the backbone to any democracy”, he said.

He had watched some of the proceedings of the Dáil committees concerning RTÉ and complimented the committees for their “sterling work in exposing and uncovering wrongdoing”.

That “is proof the investigative arm of our parliamentary system functions effectively and efficiently in serving our state”, he said. “They have a difficult and gruelling task in getting to the truth.”

The writer George Orwell, in his novels Animal Farm and 1984, was “preoccupied with the way language can be manipulated as an instrument of control”, he said. “The shifting positions of persons giving evidence before the committees is evidence of this.”

In Animal Farm, one pig, Squealer, “who was Comrade Napoleon’s propaganda machine”, abuses language by whatever means necessary in twisting and distorting rhetoric so as to justify behaviour, he said. “To get the right answer one must ask the right question or the facts will remain concealed unless otherwise uncovered by diligent and assiduous examination.”

“Our Dáil committees have triumphantly succeeded in this regard but there is more work to do.”