Leanann an scannal faoi íocaíochtaí ceilte RTÉ do Ryan Tubridy ar aghaidh. Tá go leor ceisteanna le freagairt go fóill. Tá sé soiléir go dtéann sé seo i bhfad níos faide ná Dee Forbes amháin. Caithfidh go leor daoine ar bhord RTÉ an t-eolas atá acu faoin méid a tharla ag an am sin a chur faoi bhráid an phobail. Níl aon rud níos lú tuillte ag an phobal.

Yesterday, a week since this scandal first broke, RTÉ finally released some selective information about hidden payments to Ryan Tubridy. However, it skirts around the issues at the heart of this fiasco. It leaves more questions than answers. Reading the RTÉ statement, you would be led to believe that Dee Forbes was the only person who knew about this, but that is simply not credible. More than half of the executive board had knowledge of the commercial contract. At a time of pay cuts for workers in RTÉ and in a cost-of-living crisis when people were struggling to pay the annual licence fee, RTÉ created a sweetheart deal to portray falsely that Ryan Tubridy was taking a pay cut and created an elaborate plan to cover it up. All too often, that is how things in this country work for people at the top. RTÉ's top brass knew there was a separate sweetheart deal in place between RTÉ executives and Ryan Tubridy's agent, hidden from the public. This sweetheart deal involved Renault paying Ryan Tubridy €75,000, to be reimbursed by RTÉ through a separate account. Ryan Tubridy was to attend private events at Renault while RTÉ would pick up all the cost.

We now know it was the commercial director who negotiated the side deal with Renault. She was the person who agreed with Ryan Tubridy's agent that the invoices would be paid through the barter account. She organised the payment through the barter account, and none of this would be known if we were just to read the RTÉ statement. The fact is that RTÉ's executives knew the contract was being negotiated. RTÉ's chief financial officer, the director of content and the director of audiences all had some knowledge of these negotiations. Many of them knew about the commercial arrangement between Ryan Tubridy and Renault, bizarrely underwritten by RTÉ. They knew it was in place.

The former director general was responsible – there is no doubt about that – but she was not the only one with knowledge of taxpayers' money being spent without recourse to the board, the Oireachtas, the Minister or the taxpayer. At the heart of it is public money. We have got to get to the bottom of this and do so quickly.

Arising from the board's statement yesterday, we have absolutely no idea about what happened in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in respect of all the extra payments to Ryan Tubridy in those years. We do not know who cleared them, how they were made or what they were about. The RTÉ board has published nothing concerning these payments. If there is to be full transparency, the public needs to know about the payments. It is not acceptable that we are being asked to wait another month for more information to be released. This scandal first came to light a week ago. Therefore, this is not transparency. We need answers now. We need all the documents, all the arrangements, all the signed contracts and all the secret deals and all the side letters from the relevant time period published without delay. If RTÉ does not release all the documents and is not transparent, will the Taoiseach use his powers to request the Minister to use her power under the Broadcasting Act to send in a relevant person so all the information will be available to the public and so there will be full transparency regarding this scandal?

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter again. The revelations from RTÉ last week are deeply unsettling and have shaken public trust in what is an important institution. We want to see trust restored quickly because we need to have a strong and effective public service broadcaster for our State. It is important once again to acknowledge that the vast majority of staff in RTÉ would have known nothing about this and certainly did not benefit from it in any way. The relevant Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, wrote to the chairperson of RTÉ to set out her expectation that any statement provided by the deputy director general would answer questions about who signed off on the payments of €75,000 and who else was aware of or involved in them. The Minister also asked for a timeline for the completion of the further Grant Thornton report into the understatement by RTÉ of the additional €120,000 paid between 2017 and 2019. RTÉ has provided an update to the effect that a further Grant Thornton review into the period from 2017 to 2019 will be concluded within four weeks. We do not believe that timeline is satisfactory and have asked that the report be provided more quickly. The Minister is engaging with RTÉ in that regard.

While the RTÉ statement from yesterday sheds some light on what has transpired, many questions remain open, so we expect to see full and open engagement at the Oireachtas committee meetings today and tomorrow. Certainly, we do not believe it is credible that the former director general, Dee Forbes, was the only person with knowledge of the events. The Government and public expect nothing but full and open transparency from RTÉ executives and board members when they attend meetings of committees of these Houses today and tomorrow.

I thank the Taoiseach. There is no doubt that Dee Forbes was not the only person who knew about these events. We can see that from the Grant Thornton report. We know that the commercial director is the person who operated the barter account and negotiated the secret deal with Renault that allowed RTÉ to reimburse Renault and cover all the costs of the Renault events organised with Ryan Tubridy. We know she was the person who authorised for the invoice to be raised by Ryan Tubridy's agent, and we also know she was the person who organised the making of the payment through the barter account. We would not have known any of this from the RTÉ statement. We have to read the grant Thornton report to get it. There are numerous other executives on the board who also had knowledge of this secret deal. This is the problem because at the core of this is the insider culture at the top. It involves the highest-paid people in RTÉ and secret, shady deals and elaborate mechanisms to keep them out of the public eye and away from public scrutiny. The people at the top are looked after and ordinary other workers have to suffer through pay cuts or pay freezes. It is not acceptable.

RTÉ had a chance to disclose all the information but has not done so. The Taoiseach has asked it to fast-track the Grant Thornton report. RTÉ knows where the €120,000 payment in 2017 to 2019 arose from. It discovered it. Does the Taoiseach agree that it should put the information on the record today and not have us wait for days or weeks? The information should be available today.

If RTÉ is not transparent at the committee meetings over the course of today and tomorrow, will the Taoiseach use his power to appoint somebody to go into RTÉ to make the information available to the public?

I thank the Deputy very much for his questions. I acknowledge what he is saying about double standards in RTÉ, with people at the top applying one set of rules to some among them and a different set to others in the organisation. I want to point out two relevant facts of importance.

From the information we have to date, of the top ten or top 20 personalities in RTÉ it appears that only one received a clandestine payment. It is important that we do not cast aspersions on the other nine or ten people who could be described as being at the top of the organisation. It is also important to point out that this matter was exposed by the external auditors hired by RTÉ to look at its own accounts. This is not a whistleblower situation. This is a situation of an external audit actually functioning. It is important to make that point too.

I do not believe four weeks is adequate. The executives at the committee today should explain why it should take four weeks to put this information in the public domain or at least explain why it should take four weeks, because I do not understand that and the Minister does not understand that either. We have made that clear. The proposal of the Government is to establish an external review to look at the governance and culture of the RTÉ organisation. The Minister reserves her position as to whether that will take the form of somebody being appointed to do that or whether she will use those particular powers under the Act to appoint a relevant person.

I have used up all my indulgences in regard to time limits. I call Deputy Bacik.

I felt that was personally directed.

No, not at all.

Despite the publication yesterday of a lengthy statement from RTÉ we still lack clarity on a number of important questions. We have no clarification, for example, as to why the payments made to Ryan Tubridy were consistently understated. We have been asked to believe the incredible allegation, which the Taoiseach said he does not believe to be credible, that out of all the senior management at RTÉ, only Dee Forbes knew the full picture regarding additional payments made. Yesterday, I noted that we are all in the dark, including, it seems, the Government and the Taoiseach, and we are still in the dark today. However, what I want to focus on today are the people who are most hurt by this breach of trust, namely, the workers at RTÉ, the staff and employees who give their all to deliver accurate, impartial information to all of us, because public service broadcasting matters. It matters to us as democrats, as citizens, as taxpayers and as members of a society with a fundamental stake in knowing that a trusted media organisation can provide us with accurate reporting. It matters to the RTÉ employees. The heartbreak was audible in the voices of those who so bravely spoke out at the solidarity protest organised by RTÉ employees yesterday. I offer my own solidarity and that of the Labour Party with all of those employees, with the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, and its representatives in RTÉ, and the workers who spoke so eloquently about their sense of betrayal at the breach of trust. As the Taoiseach said, they spoke about the double standard apparently operating and the fact there appear to be special payments for special people within RTÉ while others languish on bogus self-employment contracts or on poor terms and conditions. As Emma O’Kelly put it, it is unbelievable that someone who was earning €440,000 per year needed to get more money and to get it in secret. Paul Cunningham spoke about how freelancers in RTÉ are paid a pittance, by contrast. They are continually told, “We do not have the money to support you - take it or leave it.”

My first question related to workers' rights is, will the external review focus on the need to ensure equity within RTÉ? Will it focus on an end to special payments for special people, an end to third-party presenter negotiations and a cap on presenters' pay? My second question also relates to workers' rights. It is about the apparently widespread use of bogus self-employment contracts, about which Deputy Nash and Senator Sherlock and I have raised issues for years. Such contracts deprive workers of security, maternity pay, benefits and holiday entitlements. They are simply wrong in an institution, particularly where we see this level of inequity. Will the external review focus on that too? We know now there were repeated attempts by management at RTÉ to block the delivery to trade unions of a report into culture at RTÉ. A report was produced last year with alarming findings, especially on gender discrimination. The report was finally released only after the NUJ went to the information commissioner in regard to multiple requests. I understand none of its important recommendations, including those on gender, have yet been implemented. Will the external review also look at the need to implement the recommendations of that report into culture in RTÉ?

I thank Deputy Bacik. In my view, the people who are perhaps most hurt by all of this are the public, the vast majority of whom dutifully pay their licence fee every year when some people around them do not. Many people who have paid their licence fee every year for ten, 20, 30 or 40 years are extremely annoyed, quite frankly, about what has transpired. I acknowledge, of course, that the general staff in RTÉ feel harmed and hurt by this as well. There are industrial relations issues within RTÉ, as there are within any organisation in the State. With that in mind, the Minister, Deputy Martin, will meet today with the RTÉ trade union group to hear from it and discuss its concerns and thoughts on the best way forward. She will also meet with screenwriters and screen producers because they too are affected by this as people who do not work for RTÉ but receive a lot of contracts from RTÉ for the work they do.

We have not finalised the terms of reference for the external review just yet. It will focus on culture and governance. We will take into consideration whether the gender aspect of that should be considered. I know that the Minister, Deputy Martin, has a strong interest in gender equality and has promoted it in her role. We will also give consideration to a recommendation of the media commission that pay in RTÉ should be compared with pay in other member organisations of the European Broadcasting Union, EBU. We do not know what might come out of that. We do not know how pay of the main personalities in RTÉ compares internationally with other EBU members. We do not know how the pay of the general staff in RTÉ compares with other EBU members. However, it may be appropriate now to bring forward that recommendation of the media commission and see how pay in RTÉ stands relative to other public service broadcasters in countries of a similar size.

In regard to alleged bogus self-employment, the Department of Social Protection has a scope section within it. It carries out investigations into whether somebody is self-employed and encourages anyone who feels they are being bogusly classified as self-employed to contact the Department of Social Protection with any information they have.

I thank the Taoiseach for the response. He is right, of course. Members of the public are very hurt by this. We all hear this across our constituencies. However, the direct impact on those who work within RTÉ cannot be overestimated. We heard that yesterday from those who spoke out, who believe passionately, as we all do, in the importance of public service broadcasting. I thank the Taoiseach for pointing out that the Minister, Deputy Martin, will meet the trade union group today. That is welcome. However, I urge the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Martin, to ensure the terms of the review include those issues I raised relating to workers' rights. It is essential. It is simply not enough for those employees who believe they may be on bogus contracts to themselves have to go to the Department about it. That is simply not a reality for those who feel vulnerable. Again, yesterday, at the NUJ protest, we heard from Trevor Keegan, a so-called "evershed" employee, one of those who had to fight tooth and nail for decent conditions. The Revenue Commissioners were on to him, telling him he was staff and that RTÉ should pay PRSI. It took years to resolve that issue. This is a serious issue. It contributes to the sense of betrayal felt by those within RTÉ. It also contributes to that sense of immense inequity that ten presenters might be so-called talent, rather than the vast bulk of the staff in RTÉ who are doing their best. I urge the Taoiseach to include workers' rights and give them priority within the terms of the review.

We will certainly give that consideration. As I said, the terms of reference have yet to be agreed by the Government. The more that is included in the terms of reference of any review, the longer the review will take. As I have also said, it is better to do it properly and thoroughly than to do it quickly and not well. Regarding self-employment, which is an area I know well from my roles in the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and having been an employee, an office holder and self-employed at various periods in my life, this is not always a straightforward issue. Bear in mind that the vast majority of the talent in RTÉ are actually self-employed. Even though they get no pensions or redundancy rights, it suits them to be self-employed for other reasons. We often need to tease that out with people as to the benefits and disbenefits of being self-employed.