RTÉ board payment case
Deputy Doherty raises reports that RTÉ may pay €400,000 to an unnamed individual and criticises the lack of transparency. The Minister says he is not familiar with the case but will follow it up with the relevant Minister and officials.
I thank the Ceann Comhairle and let me also, Martin, be associated with the words of the Ceann Comhairle. I wish you all the best in your retirement and thank you, on behalf of Sinn Féin, for all the assistance you gave us and the whole team in the Oireachtas throughout the 22 years. We really appreciate that.
Yesterday, the public had a case of déjà vu, with the chair of the RTÉ board telling the Oireachtas media committee that the national broadcaster is considering paying out €400,000 to an unnamed individual. The chair of RTÉ's board said he could not name the person or say whether the person had appeared before the Oireachtas committee previously to deal with the crisis at the national broadcaster.
This comes only a few months after the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin , said confidentiality agreements should be avoided and threatened a pay cap in RTÉ's exit packages, so I am sure the Minister will agree this will not go down well with the public. We thought these days were over and I ask the Minister what the Government will do about this. Is it also not time to implement the recommendation made by the Government's independent Future of Media Commission which called for the abolition of the licence fee or maybe the Minister will elaborate to the Dáil as to whether he has been in discussions with Revenue to bring in a new charge that will apply to all households?
Comment on this
I join the Ceann Comhairle, Deputy Doherty and others in thanking Martin for his service over all of those years. He has been a thorough gentleman to everyone and I wish him the best in his retirement. Thankfully his boxing skills were not called upon here. It may have seemed to come close a few times across the floor but thankfully he never had to intervene in that way.
I am not familiar with the detail of that individual case but I am sure the Minister, Deputy Martin, and her officials will follow up with RTÉ on that and perhaps have already done so. I can say that the work of making a decision on a sustainable funding basis for RTÉ into the future is well under way. There are ongoing meetings across Government and we are anxious to make a decision on that to provide certainty not just to RTÉ but to all of those who provide public service content in the country.