I will touch on a few matters today, the first of which might not be popular with the public. In view of all that is going on in RTÉ and the terrible way in which some of the staff have been treated, staff who do a brilliant job, work very well and do outstanding reporting, and in light of the fact there is a crisis there at the moment, I urge the public to pay their television licence, and I will say why. I do not want what is almost €200 million to dry up. It is very important money. If we do not pay the television licence, there is a possibility that job cuts at the lower end of the scale can happen. I know it is distasteful for people to talk about paying a licence after all that has gone on. However, I make that plea and, as Oireachtas people across the board, we should all hold that line. I tell people, when they say to me they are not paying their licence, to think of the staff, many of whom I worked with in local radio, and who do not have backup or people such as camera people to help them if they are stuck. It is extraordinary. In light of that storm, I say to people not to shy away from paying their television licence because there could be consequences for people down the line who could find themselves out of a job. Certainly, we have to stand on the side of those people.

Second, I congratulate Aoife O’Rourke from Castlerea in County Roscommon. Everything that is good about Roscommon comes from people like Aoife O’Rourke. She won the gold medal in boxing at the European Games in Krakow, Poland, recently. She is a fantastic person from a fantastic family. They are great advocates for our county and all that is positive in it.

I was not here for some of the debates or the Order of Business last week. I express sympathy to my colleague, Senator Aisling Dolan, on the death of her father. That was probably done here anyway but I was not here at the time.

I need to second the amendment to the Order of Business by Senator Keogan.

The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, was set up to keep an eye on how we spend money in this country. If you want to hire a secretary now in the public service, its approval is required. Then we see RTÉ over the past couple of weeks being dragged in here and the millions of euro that have been sloshing around the place like it was going out of fashion and hundreds of thousands paid to the talent. This morning in the newspaper I read that a consultant in the HSE has been paid almost €1 million. A second consultant has been paid between €750,000 and €800,000. I read 352 people in the HSE are earning between €250,000 and €500,000 per annum. I see from a report by the Committee of Public Accounts that we paid almost €1 billion for the search and rescue service, and we have nothing to show for it. Yes, lives were saved, but we have nothing to show for it. Why did we not buy the helicopters and get 30 years out of them? Use contractors, by all means, but as we all know, the search and rescue thing has become a disaster.

Where was the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform when looking at that process? What role did it have in the procurement process that took place for search and rescue in this country? Why was the Air Corps dumped out of the search and rescue role? It offered the Agusta Westing 189 helicopter and the contractor who got the job delivers AW189 helicopters. I do not understand. Has the Department outlived its usefulness? I personally believe it has. I ask that when we return here in the fall, the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform comes in here and outlines to this House exactly what is the role of the Department. How have these State agencies got away with spending billions, millions and tens of thousands on individuals? Please tell me. Is a nurse not worth €500,000 a year? Having lain on my back in a coronary care unit, I know the nurse looked after me 24 hours a day while the consultant worked 11 hours a week. That is the contract; just 11 hours. By the way, they do not have to see a patient. They only have to take responsibility for a patient. It is a great little number if you can get it. Who is actually watching the house now? Who is minding the shop? I cannot see any sign of it. The people are absolutely outraged by the way in which money is being sloshed around. I agree with Senator Murphy. Pay the licence fee, keep the little fellow in his job, but let us start looking at the big fish that are taking millions of euro out of this country. It is time it stopped.