THERE seems to be a dawning

– and very welcome – realisation in Government that selling off more land at Montrose to save RTÉ from going bust is pure and utter folly. Like it was in 2017 when they were permitted to sell off some of the family silver to Cairn Homes for almost €108m.

The national broadcaster netted around €80m from that staggering misstep and spent €30m on so-called ‘restructuring’ that included voluntary exit packages. That went so well that last year they ended up with 1,735 full-time-equivalent employees – an increase from 1,691 in 2018. You couldn’t make up this kind of thing.

All of this means that RTÉ simply couldn’t even be trusted to buy a box of matches for you – past performance being the best indicator for the future and all that.

For as long as corporate governance has meant anything, the cost of restructuring has always been regarded as an investment in the business. So, if a company is in trouble and needs to downsize, managers must demonstrate the business argument for spending money on job cuts and the like. And there must be a plan for a return on that capital, over a certain period.

RTÉ ignored all that the last time and there’s no reason yet to believe that if it’s allowed to gain another massive windfall by selling the rest of its leafy campus in Donnybrook, it’ll be any different this time around.

It will just postpone the inevitable.

Over the five years since 2018, RTÉ has lost around €13m – despite licence tax income of €196m for each of those years. The losses now being stacked up for next year’s annual report, with the licence fee tanking by about €1m a week, are startling.

RTÉ is now in the corporate Emergency Department and needs immediate transfusions of up to €40m – blood money taken from the rest of us by the coercive power of the State.