AN APPALLING LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
Committees keen to quiz RTÉ execs as new reports cause fury
RTÉ bosses are to face a fresh round of grillings before Oireachtas committees on foot of the two recent damning reports into the broadcaster.
The Public Accounts Committee and the Media Committee are keen to invite in both past and present RTÉ executives and board members before them for questioning.
It comes after two separate reports revealed that the RTÉ board did not sign off on the €2.2million Toy Show The Musical flop and the former chief financial officer’s voluntary exit did not comply with the redundancy scheme.
PAC chair Brian Stanley said committee members will consider today who they will invite before them. He said the report into voluntary exit packages at RTÉ ‘shows again the appalling lack of transparency, the appalling lack of any sense of fairness, the appalling sense of proper management procedures
‘I think it’s scandalous’
at the top of RTÉ with the last executive management team.
‘It’s clear that a small number of people at the very top were looking after each other.
‘I think it’s scandalous that this was the person that was overseeing the financial arrangements for ordinary workers which has one set of rules and here she was in this case doing better out of it.’
Mr Stanley also noted that the report does not say the value of Ms O’Keeffe’s full redundancy payment and called for it to be revealed.
‘We need to know the full amount she got and if she has engaged with Revenue on it,’ he said.
The Sinn Féin TD also said the head of HR, Eimear Cusack, ‘needs to examine her position’ in light of the findings of the report.
The report found that Ms Cusack was aware of the exit package arranged for Ms O’Keeffe and issued a formal offer letter to the former CFO for her package ‘on instruction’ from then-director general Dee Forbes. Chair of the Media Committee Niamh Smyth said that members are looking to invite all members of the RTÉ board both past and present, as well as those executives who were present for the Toy Show The Musical fiasco. ‘I think a decision like that to grant an exit package to a chief financial officer and it was not even brought to the executive board shows a complete disregard for procedure,’ she said.
Media Committee vice chair, and PAC member, Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon said that the report shows this was a ‘cosy arrangement between the former DG and her CFO’.
‘It highlights the mismanagement, poor governance, lack of accountability that was rife through the organisation, at a time when the same people were coming to committee meetings looking for additional funding and reform on the television licence.
‘My heart goes out to the employees who have given a lengthy service to the broadcaster who weren’t entitled to packages of any nature and then this happened at the top level.
‘This was greed of a nature not seen before in semi-state organisations that has reputationally damaged the broadcaster in a spectacular fashion.
‘The understatement of payments to Ryan Tubridy now seems insignificant in relation to what has been exposed.’
The chair of the media committee has cleared Valentine’s Day,
February 14th, for a hearing with RTÉ bosses.
The members want to hear from both past and present members of the executive and the RTÉ board on failings of governance around the Toy Show Musical and a noncompliant exit package given to the former head of finance.
The Government has also launched two external reviews into governance and HR issues at RTÉ, which are due to be completed this month.
RTÉ has been partially granted a €56million bailout from the Government in light of plummeting TV licence fee sales due to public protest against governance failings at RTÉ.
Non-compliant exit package