You have six weeks to answer 20 questions, Mr Bakhurst – over to you
THIS week’s three damning reports on RTÉ speak of an organisation run without adequate corporate governance, and with procedures – or, more accurately, a lack of them – that would not be tolerated in the solely commercial world.
We believe that RTÉ, as a public service broadcaster, has a significant role to play in the cultural life of our proud nation, and that everything possible must be done to ensure its future. Many of its documentaries have led to significant change and, as a newspaper also dedicated to exposing malpractice and corruption in public life, we believe such exposés are vital.
But almost a year after the payments and accounting scandals in Montrose first came to public attention, it is quite clear that public trust in RTÉ is fractured at best.
Today, we ask 20 key questions the station simply must answer if any degree of confidence is to be restored.
Why was the existence of the barter accounts only ever discussed verbally, and not noted and minuted? Why did former director general Dee Forbes not include barter account balances in her annual management representation letters to auditors? How did hard copy accounts simply disappear, instead of being stored digitally on computers? How come no one knows who ordered certain transactions, or why?
Who approved a courtesy trip to the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019, why are the flight and hotel invoices missing, and why are hotel invoices for a separate trip to the Champions League final in Madrid missing too? Someone knows the answers to these questions.
But with many of the key personnel now having left RTÉ, or unable to cooperate with any inquiry because of illness, the hope of finding them recedes by the day.
The new DG, Kevin Bakhurst, has made extravagant promises to get to the root of these issues, and has assured us that there has been a fundamental shift in the way business in Montrose is conducted.
We can only take him at his word, but we must also stress that, in the six weeks RTÉ has to respond to the reports, he must fully endeavour to answer the questions we ask today.
Not one or two of them either, but all of them.
There is much discussion about how RTÉ will be funded in future – whether a licence fee, household broadcasting levy collected by the Revenue Commissioners, direct Exchequer funding, or some other method will keep it going.
Before anything new is introduced, we must fully understand the old, to ensure that no public money given to the organisation is ever again used with such whimsical disregard for accounting – and for accountability.
AWESOME LIGHTS IN THE DARKNESS
At a time of gloom and doom, how lovely it was to welcome light on Friday night. The spectacular display of the aurora borealis was visible across the entire country, streaking the sky with wave after wave of luminous green and pink wisps of light that reawakened childhood wonder in hundreds of thousands of us.
A strong solar storm pushed the Northern Lights much further south than usual, treating us to a spectacle more usually seen only closer to the pole. While the natural fireworks show was thrilling to witness, it also was a reminder of the beauty of our planet, why we need to protect it, and how, on this small rock in the cosmos, such a phenomenon unites all of us in awe at one of life’s rarest natural wonders.