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RTÉ before the Oireachtas: More insights into bad governance, arrogant culture and inadequate safeguards

The absence of key players weighed on the latest hearing as we learned more about executive exit packets and the Toy Show musical. Where do we go to from here?

'There were only glancing references at the hearing to the long history of bogus self-employment for which RTÉ has made provision of €15 million.' Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Hugh Linehan's face
Hugh Linehan
Wed Feb 14 2024 - 20:00

There were no earth-shattering revelations at Wednesday afternoon’s meeting of the Oireachtas media committee, but the return of RTÉ's leadership to Committee Room 3 in Leinster House was not without incident.

There were some significant revelations, some further insights into the much-criticised culture of the organisation and, from time to time, visible flashes of anger from the executives and board members attending at the past behaviour of absent former colleagues.

The revelations included the fact that former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe had received €450,000 as part of her controversial voluntary parting package in 2021. Another was that O’Keeffe herself had sent a solicitor’s letter to director general Kevin Bakhurst on Tuesday evening, asking him to make points to the committee on her behalf. Bakhurst said he had responded (curtly, judging by his tone) that she had also been invited to attend so could do it herself.

We also discovered that Rory Coveney, the former head of strategy and project lead on the catastrophic Toy Show the Musical, was in receipt of an “exit package” following his departure from the organisation last summer. The sum of money involved remains confidential. Bakhurst defended this as common practice at executive level.

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Proceedings kicked off in robust fashion, with Fine Gael’s Brendan Griffin and Sinn Féin’s Imelda Munster, two of the most abrasive inquisitors from earlier instalments of this now long-running series, continuing their combative approach. To be fair to them and their colleagues, the committee’s approach was more coherent than it had been previously, with less repetition and not quite as much grandstanding for the cameras.

[ Varadkar expresses ‘concern’ that SF could decide RTÉ's funding as leader sues broadcaster Taoiseach referred to Mary Lou McDonald ]

[ RTÉ media committee hearing: Former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe paid €450,000 to leave, Bakhurst says ]

Interestingly, once Munster had completed her questioning, her party colleagues Fintan Warfield and Thomas Gould seemed much more interested in laying out Sinn Féin’s newly minted proposal to scrap the licence fee, offer an amnesty to defaulters and move immediately to a model of direct exchequer funding for public service media.

Others maintained their focus on RTÉ itself. Director of human resources Eimear Cusack came under most fire with members questioning whether her position was tenable given the oversights, which she acknowledged, in her handling of O’Keeffe’s departure, and her failure to push back more strongly against former director general Dee Forbes on the matter.

“You knew it wasn’t right,” pressed Munster. “Were you afraid of Dee Forbes?”

Cusack denied being afraid, but the impression was left yet again of a corporate culture of undue deference and grossly inadequate safeguards.

Board member Anne O’Leary agreed with Mattie McGrath that she felt “completely betrayed” by how Forbes and Coveney had “deliberately circumvented” the requirement to bring Toy Show the Musical before RTÉ's audit and risk committee, which she chairs.

All the internal reports which RTÉ has commissioned into these interlinked scandals have now been delivered. But the process still seems incomplete. The glaring absence of so many key protagonists, particularly Dee Forbes, means that the motivations behind some of their actions remain opaque.

Was the bad governance which has been the subject of such intense scrutiny over the past nine months peculiar to the last regime or was it something more deeply rooted in RTÉ's history? There were several mentions of a culture of arrogance but little explanation of where that culture came from. And there were only glancing references to what is arguably a greater scandal, the long history of bogus self-employment for which RTÉ has made provision of €15 million.

[ RTÉ board ‘should have asked more questions’ on Toy Show the Musical, chair to tell Oireachtas ]

[ RTÉ controversy: Failure of key figures to face questions is a ‘farce’, committee head says ]

Where do we go from here? Minister for Media Catherine Martin is due to receive her own reports on these issues within the next few weeks. In theory, at least, these will inform any changes deemed necessary in the State’s oversight of how RTÉ goes about its business in future.

But the bigger question is how all of this might feed into the much more existential question of a sustainable funding model for public service media, now that it seems clear the Government intends to move on the issue before the end of the year.

It seems a little strange that the litany of incompetence and deceit which these proceedings have revealed should lead to RTÉ finally getting what it has wanted over the past 10 years, but perhaps it’s an appropriately ending to what has been a long-running farce.

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