In my view, the stakes are very high in the RTÉ secret payments scandal, and the impact it has on public service broadcasting. I do not want to live in a world where the only sources of news and broadcasting are Elon Musk, Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg and big for-profit corporations. At least public service broadcasting is supposed to be not-for-profit and serving the public interest and can be held accountable. This scandal has seriously jeopardised the credibility of public service broadcasting.

I sat through that committee yesterday for four and a half hours. There was a lot of detail, and in some ways you can get lost in the detail, but it seems to me that a couple of issues absolutely stand out. The vast majority of ordinary workers in RTÉ were asked to endure a 15% pay cut, in many cases on top of poor contracts and conditions of employment, low pay for huge numbers of them, bogus self-employment, stand-by contracts and buyout contracts for actors and performers. However, one performer did not want to take the pay cut and a group of people, or one person - it seems to me it has to be a group - conspired to make sure that presenter did not take the pain. They then hatched a plot to conceal that fact from the public, who, let us remember, fund RTÉ and can go to jail if they do not pay their TV licence, from the Oireachtas, and from the vast majority of RTÉ workers who work in their-----

Deputy, you are traversing the boundaries.

Will you stop-----

You are making very personal accusations.

I did not mention any names.

You do not need to mention any names. Be careful, please.

In my view, a plot was hatched to conceal these secret payments from the public, from the Oireachtas and from the workers of RTÉ, to launder that payment through Renault, and to mislabel that payment as a consultancy when it was clearly not a consultancy. It was a payment to an individual, which a group of people or individuals wished to conceal from the public. The public was always going to pay because, as we were told yesterday, Renault insisted it be cost-neutral. In other words, the public had to pay for it. We need to know who hatched that plot and why.

The other thing that came screaming out to me was the idea of what was called "the talent". There is a group called "the talent" who are on staggering salaries, multiples of what ordinary workers got, and who are treated differently from the vast majority of workers, journalists, crew and so on, who are apparently not talent but who, in actuality, make RTÉ function and provide the journalism and broadcasting on which we depend and are treated shockingly.

Time is up.

This suggests the Government and this House have to be responsible for a massive culture shift to end that sort of obnoxious inequality-----

Time is up.

-----and to restore the credibility of public service broadcasting.

I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett about the importance of public service broadcasting. It has been massively important in our history. It was particularly important, when we did not have other broadcast stations, to ensure there was a strong public service broadcasting operation in Ireland. RTÉ has provided a massive service to our citizens and country over many years. It is even more important now in a context in which it is much easier to broadcast and provide means of communication. Given the capacity for misinformation in that type of environment, it is important to have a trusted public service broadcaster.

In return for citizens paying a fee towards public service broadcasting we expect that they get fair, impartial and balanced coverage. What they also expect is transparency in the way the fees and money are paid to a public service broadcaster and are spent. The Minister, Deputy Martin, who has been strong in terms of Government response, indicated following the appearance at the committee that, in her view and that of the Government, what we saw yesterday and over the past couple of weeks was a shocking failure of governance at senior management level in RTÉ. We expect those attending the Committee of Public Accounts today to account responsibly for decisions taken which have seriously damaged the public's trust in public service broadcasting. The Minister has also asked for an accelerated timeline for the completion of the further Grant Thornton report into the understatement by RTÉ of the additional €120,000 for the period from 2017 to 2019. That is currently scheduled to take four weeks. The Minister has asked for it to be accelerated. The Grant Thornton report indicates that the €120,000 end-of-contract payment was not in fact paid. The new Grant Thornton report is seeking to establish why, if not paid, it was deducted from the published figures.

I also wish to clarify that it is my understanding the understatement only came to light during an internal review validating prior published earnings requested by the RTÉ board last week. Following the Minister's meeting with the RTÉ chair on 24 June, she announced she will commence an independent review of governance and culture at RTÉ. She has also provided an update to the Government of this review and it is intended the full details will be signed off by Cabinet in the coming days. Yesterday, the Minister also met with the RTÉ trade union group and Screen Producers Ireland to discuss the governance and culture review. She has been clear in her communications to the chair and deputy director general of RTÉ, the relevant members of the board and the executive board that all senior staff should attend and engage fully with Oireachtas committees examining these matters. It is important that the Committee of Public Accounts is having a further meeting on this today. We expect to see clear answers and transparency at that committee hearing.

Before Deputy Boyd Barrett proceeds, I am very conscious of the public anger about the current controversy, which is well reflected here by Members. I am also very conscious of the need to ensure we do not in any way abuse privilege here. Deputy, you have accused, as I read it, an identifiable individual of being involved, or perhaps being involved, in a conspiracy, that is, a deliberate attempt to distort the reality. You have accused that individual-----

I did not. The Ceann Comhairle clearly misheard me.

-----of being unwilling to take a pay cut. I do not know that we can stand over those statements.

They said it yesterday.

Can I have my time now?

Yes.

Yesterday, we were told there was significant pushback from that individual on the 15% pay cut. That is what we were told in the committee. Okay? The problem is that there were also secret payments made, and they were - I do not think there is any other way to describe it - laundered through Renault and then mislabelled as consultancy fees when they clearly were not. If we take what we heard yesterday at face value, and I am not saying we should, by the way, we need to get to the bottom of that. Is that true? We need answers and accountability to ensure this never happens again, and so people get to the truth.

It is important because at the back of it is this cultural problem.

There is a group called "the talent" who are treated in one way and then there are all the other workers in there who endured pay cuts and had to put up with pay freezes, bogus self-employment and buy-out contracts. I also heard mention of screen producers, which is another area that should be investigated. There is the €40 million which goes from RTÉ to the independent film production sector. Workers in that sector are saying that they are being abused and being robbed of proper conditions of employment.

The Deputy has made his point. Allow the Minister to reply, please.

In addition, there are issues relating to the copyright directive, and the Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Act is not being complied with. We need to address that culture.

The Government wants to see a strong future for public service broadcasting in this country. This is something we all put a very high value on. That is why it has been so disappointing to see what has emerged in the past couple of weeks in the context of the breach of trust, the lack of transparency in respect of salaries and the challenges and weaknesses with regard to governance. That is why the Government is taking this matter so seriously. The Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, is putting in place an independent external review of governance and culture at RTÉ in order to ensure that we can address the issues that exist. We expect RTÉ management and directors who are due to come before the committee today to be fully transparent with regard to answering the questions we have put to them. We need to ensure that those questions are answered, that trust is restored, that it is absolutely clear that there is a solid and strong governance structure in place into the future in RTÉ and that there is absolute transparency. Unfortunately, that has not been the case in the past couple of weeks. That is why we are taking this matter so seriously and taking steps to ensure that the matter is addressed.