Confidentiality clauses at RTÉ wrong, says Varadkar
Broadcaster could also be audited by C&AG watchdog
LEO Varadkar said in the Dáil yesterday that confidentiality clauses should be ‘avoided by public bodies’.
‘There might be cases where there’s a good reason for that, but it seems they were the norm rather than the exception in RTÉ and I think that’s not right,’ the Taoiseach said.
And addressing a meeting of the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party last night, Mr Varadkar said that the Government is considering bringing RTÉ back under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General – 34 years after it was last audited by the watchdog. The Public Accounts Committee is expected to recommend in its report into RTÉ that the public auditor have oversight of the station’s books.
This came after RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst shut down questions
‘I am not talking about this’
from the Irish Daily Mail when asked if he regrets concealing six-figure exit packages for staff.
Mr Bakhurst refused to answer questions as he left a committee hearing in Leinster House yesterday. When asked if he regretted concealing details of exit packages he granted to two recently departed executives, he said ‘I am not talking about this.’
Mr Bakhurst has received updated legal advice regarding whether he can disclose further information about two exit packages after he was hauled before Media Minister Catherine Martin earlier this week.
The director general revealed last week that RTÉ’s former director of strategy Rory Coveney received an exit package last year estimated to be worth €200,000.
Mr Bakhurst also admitted that RTÉ’s former chief financial officer Richard Collins, who ‘resigned’ in October, ‘was paid to leave’ but there was a confidentiality clause on that agreement.
A spokesman for RTÉ confirmed that the national broadcaster has received ‘full legal advice’ in relation to the exit packages, and has shared it with Media Minister Catherine Martin. A spokeswoman for the minister said she has received the updated legal advice, adding: ‘Minister Martin will not be commenting until after it is published by RTÉ.’
Finance Minister Michael McGrath said that RTÉ put itself ‘into a straitjacket’ by allowing confidentiality agreements to be attached to the exit packages.
‘The Government values transparency and it is an essential part of the recovery of the reputation of RTÉ in my mind, so I would question why the organisation put itself in that straitjacket in relation to some of the individual cases concerned.
‘My own view is that confidentiality agreements in the case of a public body that is in part dependent on taxpayer support should really only be in exceptional circumstances and certainly should not be the norm.
‘Particularly when an organisation is in a maelstrom.’
Mr Bakhurst said last week that he had never been put in a position in 30 years where he was being asked to ‘break the law’, in being asked to go against legal advice and give out details of private exit packages.
But Minister McGrath said: ‘Nobody is asking anybody to break the law or to break agreements that have been legally committed to. In general, for anybody that is dependent in part on public funding, such agreements, in my view should be kept to an absolute minimum and only used in exceptional circumstances.’ The Government has not yet decided what the future funding model for RTÉ should be and there are divisions in Cabinet amongst ministers who favour direct Exchequer funding and those who want to see a charge collected by Revenue. Mr McGrath said that the Government would decide on a future funding model ‘in a period of calm’ after the delivery of two external reports ordered later this month.
When asked if he has engaged with Revenue about collecting a broadcast charge, Minister McGrath said: ‘I haven’t... because we need to await a Government decision, on the nature of the future funding of RTÉ.’
He said that the Government’s €56million bailout granted to RTÉ has ‘stabilised the funding position’.
Meanwhile, Mr Bakhurst attended an Oireachtas committee hearing on the Irish language yesterday where he had a headset for translation, and apologised for not being able to speak as Gaeilge, saying ‘my Irish is a work in progress, very early in progress’.
He told the committee that RTÉ’s income for 2023 is around €340million, with half coming from the licence fee and half from commercial income. He said: ‘The story since 2008 is that the level of the TV licence fee has not increased, and the level of evasion has increased.’
Mr Bakhurst said that in the outline of his strategic vision for RTÉ published last year, he stated that RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta ‘is one of our absolute priorities.’ He also said ‘the ambition is to be making more programmes outside Dublin’. Mr Bakhurst was joined by representatives from RTÉ, TG4, Raidió Fáilte, and Raidió na Life to discuss Irish language representation in the media.
TG4 told the committee they would like to see the Irish language station get at least 50% of the public funding given to RTÉ.
‘No one is being asked to break law’