Mary Lou McDonald: RTE scandal exposes culture of privilege

So, Fáilte Austen, Deputy Carthy is telling me that he's a Monaghan man. You missed the most important element of the story. So, go góraidh agus agus fáilte. Taoiseach, just three years on from the financial scandals that rocked RTE, the state broadcaster is once again embroiled in controversy. The latest debacle centres on RTE revising the list of its top 10 highest earning presenters to include Mr Derek Mooney. It transpires that Mr Mooney should have been on the list for the last five years, but his salary of almost 200,000 euros was kept a secret by the top brass at RTE. Strangely, in 2020, Mr Mooney's role was reclassified as a producer rather than a presenter, although the dogs in the street know that Derek Mooney is a presenter. RTE's top earners list was incorrect eight years in a row. Transparency out the window again. People will remember the secret payments and the slush fund controversies, scandals which revealed a shocking absence of oversight and governance, exposing a culture of arrogance and entitlement. RTE top brass flawhulach with the use of public money. And despite a massive bailout and big promises from government and from RTE, what really has changed? Once again, the minister in charge of all of this, Minister O'Donovan, knows nothing. All of this latest debacle is news to him. This morning he brought legislation to cabinet to put the broadcaster under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General, but this is years after the Public Accounts Committee said that this should happen. Government in slow motion. The Irish public bailed out RTE to the tune of 725 million euros. That's almost three quarters of a billion euro. That's a lot of taxpayers' money. But there is little evidence of the change that people expected. Top management still play fast and loose, not reporting accurately the big salaries of the high flyers. And why is this? Well because you have failed to take on the prevailing culture of arrogance and privilege. The privilege is gifted by government to RTE stand in stark contrast to how you treat working people and families. A budget of 9.4 billion euro last October that left working people worse off. Forced to watch every euro that they spend. Backs to the wall trying to keep up with rising prices. Doing all of the right things and yet still struggling to just get by. There's no bailout for them. No help from government. But RTE top management is handed three quarters of a billion in public money and continues to take the taxpayers for fools. We have here a tale of two islands. Working people playing by the rules, abandoned by government and told to tighten their belts. And top brass executives at RTE who believe the rules don't apply to them. Who believe they can do what they want without consequence. This needs to be nipped in the bud. Your government needs to sort this out Taoiseach and fast. Bringing RTE under the remit of the CNAG is long overdue but it cannot stop there. People want accountability and consequences. Do you accept Taoiseach that your failure to act decisively has allowed this bad behaviour at RTE, this culture of entitlement to continue? First of all I do not agree with your assertions once again because no matter what any state agency does or anybody does anything now out there you're going to blame the government. That's your standard practice. You're going to blame the government. The government's at fault at everything. So the government must now run RTE apparently is your latest assertion. Just think about and reflect on that. Is that what you are actually saying the politicians should actually go in there and run the national public service broadcaster? That's what you're saying. Like I know you have to do this for electoral reasons and politics and play the game. But there's a serious undercurrent here and coming from the Sinn Féin party that creates its own challenges in good time as well. Just put that on the record. And I would say it is unacceptable in terms of what has happened. And the minister is out of meeting or has met with the director general. Today is the day that he's meeting with them. You made a comment in terms of legislation. The minister brought that before cabinet today and you again implied that he was at fault for the delay in terms of bringing that legislation. Not true. Not true because I think the Oireachtas had a pre-legislation that took considerable length of time. And you were involved in pre-legislation. When I say you, your party wasn't. Your members were. Legitimately. But please don't come in here you having taken your time at pre-legislation and then say the minister is acting in slow motion. That's the kind of dishonesty that is characterising every one of your presentations here in recent times at Leaders Questions. You don't really care about the truth anymore. It's just whenever something breaks out let's have a go at the government. Let's blame the government and that's it. Simple formula. And that's what you are about. No, I accept. And by the way I don't believe the current management is laissez-faire. I do think they want to get to grips with this. That's my assessment. I think the board does as well. And yes everybody knew that Derek Mooney was a presenter, not a producer. When you said the dogs in the street, I'd say the dogs in the wild knew it. In terms of these roles. But also there are others maybe. And what it speaks to in my view is a lack of structure in terms of how people are recruited, how people are designated, how people are treated from a human resource point of view within RT. And that's the wider issue that needs to be, the bonnet needs to be lifted up on. That is there consistency across the organisation in respect of the treatment of people and the treatment of employees of the company. And there is a real disparity in terms of how some are treated compared to how others have been treated. And that's a problem for RT that needs to be sorted out. And there needs to be far more transparency than we've experienced in recent years in terms of that issue. In terms of the funding issue, we either collectively as an Oireachtas make up our mind, do we want public service broadcasting? Do we want the national broadcaster or not? These are options that politics can take. We could decide to abandon public service broadcasting altogether and just let it free for all. I don't agree with that. But I'm just saying when you kind of have a go at the 700 million or not, there are choices facing government. You either cut it down, undermine it, let it go to waste or let it go private. What are you saying? Are you saying the 700 million shouldn't have gone? That's what the minister is doing. It's going in before public accounts, CNHE, and it'll be for the public accounts now. And it took some time to get through the house. But the minister is doing that. It took some time because you guys, rightly, I don't have no issue with the pre-ledge, but you can't blame the minister for delays of pre-ledge. You just can't do that. You can't get away with that kind of stuff. And I'm not going to let you get away with that kind of stuff. Agus, an roidus táchtaí ná, go maith silé rú an mara l'Artaí ar córsaí pál, córsaí chostaíachtaí, caidáin, na cunílechaítaí, abhuinan leis, agus go bhfuil cotair na phéine a bhfuilt go chéine a tá agobair leis díg an Artaí. Tá se sin ríochachtach. Tá mhaidne ar an dórum go gathaidh Artaí í sin a dhéanamh, agus tá mhaidh táimh moiníneach as an ara, go bhfuil seisin láir ar an dórum sin a chomhaibh. Thank you Taoiseach. Deputy MacDonald to respond. Time is up Taoiseach. Deputy MacDonald. So unfortunately Taoiseach is very touchy about the idea that you might be expected to do your job and to do it competently and a key function of your government is to ensure that state agencies including Artaí are accountable, that an agency such as Artaí that has been bailed out to the tune of almost three quarters of a billion euro, that that agency behaves in a manner that is transparent and appropriate, that we do not see again a rerun of the scandals that rocked Artaí only a very short time ago. All of us were led to believe that the bargain with Artaí was as follows, that they would be bailed out, that they would be funded, that public broadcasting would be absolutely supported and that by way of return there would be a change in behaviour and culture, there would be appropriate standards, accurate and transparent reporting and we now know that that is not the case. Time is up Deputy. Taoiseach will respond. Deputy your time is up. Taoiseach will respond. Deputy MacDonald your time is up. The Taoiseach will respond. Taoiseach please. Well first of all the minister has brought through the legislation which will bring Artaí under the remit of the Comptroller-General which is a stronger regime of public accountability for Artaí than hitherto had been the case and there's always been sensitivity in terms of the relationship between the political system and Artaí and in the midst of all the turmoil and the noise just need to keep an eye on that too but it will go before public accounts. I know you can laugh away Deputy Carter because it would be of no concern to you. If you could run Artaí you'd run it in the interest of your party as to where you guys operate and would operate. But the point I'm trying to make is this that Deputy O'Donoghue, Minister O'Donoghue is also meeting with the Director-General today and with the Chairman of Artaí. I do believe they're making a sincere effort to try and get this reorganised and there has been some progress made but this is unacceptable what has happened. I think what's more important is that there is consistency across the board within Artaí in terms of how people are treated from a human resource point of view and in terms of rights and conditions that they apply to everybody in Artaí and not just some.