At a meeting of the Oireachtas media committee yesterday, RTÉ executives revealed yet more wasted spending at the State broadcaster. An IT project, specifically a channel management system, went over budget by nearly €1 million. This comes just weeks after we learned, for the first time, about a €3.6 million writedown for another botched IT project. That is nearly €5 million either overspent or wasted on IT projects alone. These are only the projects we know about because RTÉ did not volunteer this information. The revelation that €900,000 was overspent on a channel management system only came to light when I asked a direct question at the end of a two-hour session of questioning. It had to be dragged out of them, which is hugely concerning.

While RTÉ executives have been screaming from the rooftops about a €150,000 payment to Ryan Tubridy for nearly two years, they wasted more than 30 times that figure on IT cock-ups alone and did not bother telling anyone about it until very recently. Shamefully, it is ordinary workers who are bearing the brunt of this mismanagement with cutbacks and redundancies. Is the Tánaiste concerned about this latest revelation? Is he happy RTÉ is being sufficiently transparent? Is he concerned there is more waste in RTÉ that we are yet to learn about?

I thank Deputy Gibney for her work on this matter on the committee. To add to the point she made, the IT project at RTÉ, which I believe was discussed at the media committee, came to light after the Minister wrote to agencies asking them whether they had anything they wished to tell about the wastage of public money. Deputy Gibney’s point in general about being transparent and up-front would certainly be extremely helpful, particularly when RTÉ has gone through such a difficult period of time. As Deputy Gibney said, it is the ordinary, decent staff out there who are working hard and want to see this organisation go to where it needs to be. The taxpayer, the Government and the people of Ireland have rightly decided to support public service broadcasting. We have provided a way forward. In return for that, we need to see real delivery and a reform plan. A key part of that must include transparency and interacting in a very open way with Oireachtas committees.