Mattie McGrath: Calls for fraud squad, accuses RT of criminality

I had to go in and cover for the chair in the door chamber. It's interesting I come back at this time and you're talking about the orchestra, and I like the orchestra as well, and the mood music. Mr. Backhouse, the mood music is nice, you're saying, but the mood music from the emails I'm getting, Conaghy I'm getting, isn't that well synchronised at all. A lot of it is out of step and out of tune. And at the outset I want to welcome you all, some old faces, some new faces, and thank you for coming, and anything I say here is not too rich to anyone personally, but I have no faith, I've lost all faith in RT, and the shenanigans, the flagship as we recognised it, and you mentioned there in your different programming and the RT supposedly on the horse situation, cruelty, and all the different RT investigators, who's going, who are we going to get through an investigation that's independent of the shenanigans that went on in RT? Who's going to do? We've had two phony reports, I call them, they're only just semantics, it's getting over criminality that has gone on in RT. Basic, naked criminality. I've called out of hand for the fraud squad to be sent into our cab. The 2005 Consolidation Social Welfare Act has been flouted for the last 30 years, knowingly to the head of revenue, and the Secretary General of Revenue, and the Secretary General of the Department of Finance, sorry, and the Secretary General of the Department of Social Welfare. And you have unlimited access, RT as an entity, to do deals and sit down with revenue and to discuss these issues. And we see there's a figure of 15.2 million has been earmarked to address a portion of the settlements related to unpaid PRSI. Without sounding repetitive, I'm a businessman, any other businessman in the country, doesn't have that opportunity. They pay their taxes properly. They don't have massive penalties, and massive penalties and fines. Interest and penalties. And how the sacred coverage you have out in Montrose can just do these deals, and with the nod and the wink of a set of Secretary General's, both departments, revenue won't take responsibility for it, neither will social welfare. The law has clearly been flouted. Any other employer attempt to do 1,000 bits of that, he'd be, he'd be, he could be in prison, he'd be definitely closed down out of business. So, what you're thinking about around here, and how does RT as said, going to address that loss, and that accruing bill is out there for the workers. And indeed, the workers have contacted us, and there are hundreds of workers, just, you're going to dismiss 400 of them now, or voluntary, you said. And many of them have already been pushed out, and have no pensions. Senior broadcasters that we liked, and different programmes, they haven't even a pension, because of the illegality, and their malpractice, that has been flourishing at RT, and been nourished, by both revenue, and by social welfare, and you're allowed to do it, and get away with a successful minister. So, this is all a big game. You've got your 20 million now, already, from the minister, of taxpayers money. I knew that would happen before we break up for the summer. And you'll have the report tomorrow, and we'll all go in, into the sunset, and everything is fine. But it's not fine. Because there's a moral compass that has been completely, just, stamped on. And the workers, as I said out there, you know what I mean, the treatment of the workers, who are the backbone of the organisation, have been, have had their morale flattened, and their jobs put at risk by succession of scandals. And this strategy here, likes a clear appreciation for those workers, or respect for those workers. That you've forced and coerced people, and I said, with the TUG last day I was here, trade union group, and they were in the middle of this, up to the heritage, with the law-breaking and corruption that went on. Full stop, up to the heritage. You're all in this together. Saying that was, in many other parlances, but it has gone on, and semantics are going on here, I'm going to fix it. And I honestly feel we need it much more radical, and there are other parts of legislation that I'm informed have been flouted as well. Law-breaking. And where are we going to get it? We're going to get the BBC of Pamarama to come in and do an investigation for RT. You can, and there's some very good RT investigative programmes, but as I said in the past, you've had some very damaging ones, the companies that you went over the top completely, and behaved illegally, in hiring drivers, bogus drivers, money that wouldn't drive us at all, at a lorry company. That happened. That's disgusting, that you do that to make a good presentation in a programme, to destroy a man's livelihood in a business, and the pattern of transport then come in, God rest him, he's deceased now, come in and try and take the licence of him, because of what you put in the programme. Public service projects, yes, it has a duty, and we need to radically look at it here, but it can't be, you know, at the expense of it, yes, and the fat cats in RT in any year, and people coming in, and there were questions earlier when I was here, but why wouldn't people come in and give evidence and testimony, and you're going to pay them out for a hundred thousand figures? Look at the haunting. It's filthy. And can I just say, I believe that a much more radical approach needs to be taken, in that you need to contemplate? Not only contemplate, but sell Montrose, and drive the sacred cow out past the red cow, and put the cow out somewhere up in the country, and I'll have a little go at Milkenau. And Milkenau, I say that in an honest parlance, we can all have a, we can all have a, have a share. And people can't, people can't, if I could continue, I'd appreciate it. If we could, um, have access to everybody, and the young people that aspire to join the Oxford, and aspire to become journalists, have it in Port Leach, or have it in the Midlands. Back to basics. Well, standard. We've hugely, look at the success of T.J. Carroll. Look at that. Tremendous success. So we need to, this, this, this tinkering that we've done here, and this playing around, it's like rubbing, as I said, butter to a fat sow, as you know where. There's a controversy TV show in that. Isn't it? Thank you. Listen, I know your role here is to court RT, and get on every second programme as a senator, so that's your own business. You have, if you have business. And you're not, and you're not bad at either, Senator Dooley. But look. Okay, colleagues, colleagues. Please, if I could continue. I know Deputy McBride, still have five minutes, maybe you want to ask a question? Well, I've asked the questions. Sorry? I've asked the questions. Oh, sorry. Beg your pardon. And your question is for who? I've asked how they're going. No, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry colleagues. I need to be able to hear him. If I could do without the cheerleaders. That's what has this, that's what has this committee, and this whole process, in such a low basis, that the public looking in, can see what's going on. A shred of the political parties come in here, ask phony questions, soft answers, back then. Deputy McBride. No, no. With respect, I would just say, in your absence, there was some... Of course there was, and I was here, and I didn't interrupt any... No, no, no. I'm just saying, there has been robust interrogation here. It has to be... But I'm just saying, we've gotten nowhere, since we started this, at the exit of the forearms, and the whole implosion of what happened at RT. The workers who I meet, the real times I'm out there, and Miss McCatley, I've met her over the years, and she's very good to be here first, and the workers I still meet, in make-up, and ordinary people out there, doing their best, the honest day's work for the honest day's pay, and to see this, as I said, law-breaking going on, and nobody attacking it. No department, neither of them won't attack this. Do you want to leave a little bit of time for a response? I do, yes, please. But I'm just trying to emphasize... Can I respond? I'm trying to emphasize that I have absolutely no faith in what we're at here, what we have been at, and the big hullabaloo tomorrow, launching the report, and back to one, we'll all go off for summer holidays and RT, in a merry way. Because they're untouchable. They prove to be untouchable. Nobody can have that much money owing in tax, and be still operating as a business. Reckless trading has to be invoked on the board, and the previous board, and it's still reckless trading, because that balance of £21 million, sorry, £15.2 million, is there in front to settle with revenue. Nobody else in the country has that luxury of being able to have a fund away to settle with revenue. They pay up, and they have massive penalties and fines. So whoever wants to answer, I appreciate it. Good morning. I'm not totally clear what the question is, I'm afraid, but I... All I would say, Deputy, is, you know, I can only answer one part of that, and then I feel that this committee, and the Public Accounts Committee, has done an extremely effective job in holding RT to account, and asking tough questions, and has driven change. You know, and I know, you know, I know from what you said, you won't accept that, but I can only talk from my own experience. It has asked for answers, it's got answers, and it's driven change in the organisation, and this is a different organisation. And that's all I can say to answer that question. Is there anything of our witnesses here would like to respond? Yeah, Mike? Yeah. Deputy, that's our estimate of what we'll be owing. It's ongoing. We're in constant contact with the DSP. They haven't sent us a bill for that amount of money. That's how much we think by the end of it, that we may owe. That's just an estimate. We don't know yet. So it's not that we haven't paid a bill to the Department of Social Protection. Unlike revenue, revenue win and take a blanket approach, like they did when they reviewed contractors previously, and we paid the taxes over and the interest and the penalties. This one with DSP goes to the individual. So if it's Mike that's missing his PRSI, it has to go to him. You can't take a blanket approach. So that's just our estimate at the minute. So it's not a bill that we've received. Thanks for your court answer, but nobody else has that luxury that DSP would allow that. Nobody else. Social welfare payments will be stopped. For an ordinary person that's on unemployment benefits. So nobody, this is the problem. You don't get it. And to mention public accounts, Mr. Backhouse, you mentioned it. I think in 2019 public accounts all this evidence was presented again and the departments were well aware of it and are well aware of it and nothing happened. A pact that everybody seems to have massive respect for. Brought all this to the fore about this bogus self-employment, about the tax evasion and about the practices that came before PAC was unfolded in these committee rooms and nothing was done about it. Absolutely zilch. Nothing. So the Secretary General of Social Welfare, Department of Social Welfare and Revenue have a lot of questions to answer and they need to answer because they're public paid officials and law has been broken on a narrowly basis when these bogus self-employed people are in RT. And it's not only in RT, to be fair to you, there's a lot of other areas as well. And this has all been done with ICTU and with, as I said, the employer organisations where they were all in this together. All of them. And massive plan was led to evade tax at an enormous scale and has happened. But the saddest part of all this is the workers, they now have no pensions. And some of them I have... You've been assisted by the clerk that you've identified some officials and that you need to withdraw that. I have identified the people with the bookstops, the Secretary General of the Department that were brought, made aware of this in 2019. It might have been different people at the time, but their role is to run the organisations they're under. They come down on people and cut off the social welfare if they're defrauding and rightly so. Our bank payments and I... We all deal with cases every day a week where overpayments, social welfare, and there's very rigorous payments. This payment plan is paid out. Where's the payment plan that you're entering into with social welfare? There's only been talk of a payment plan to repay all the money that was robbed from the taxpayers. We're dealing with the Department of Social Protection for all the individuals. And I'm pleased to say that we're making substantial progress for them. In fact, around 50% of the cases they've been looking at are either resolved or close to being resolved. And could you answer one final question on how much time I have? But what would be the problem with having a lovely big auction for the Grand... to take a cow out in Montrose and relocate and use the money that you have to restructure RT not to be putting the bacon ball out to the unfortunate tax bills? We, Deputy, we looked at selling the site and moving off it. The estimate for selling the site was significantly below the numbers that I think I've heard in here before. It was around 100 million for the rest of the site because of all the listed buildings. And the cost of moving off the site would present a huge bill to taxpayers. It's much cheaper to stay on the site and consolidate and that's one of the reasons we've arrived at that solution. Sounds very simplistic to me anyway, but... Oh, I'm sorry to be simplistic, but it's the fact. Well, maybe... I don't know how factual it is with the property values that part of Dublin. That part of Dublin... I'm not gonna... You know, we've had it valued by a professional who knows what they're talking about. Sorry? We've had it valued by a professional who knows what they're talking about, Deputy. So, you know, we wanted to get a proper valuation and we got one... So you might stay in the sacred ground and keep everything... admit to taxpayers... No, we're making significant... We're making significant changes to the organisation. Well, the workers don't feel that. Well, they do feel that. That's one of the reasons they're concerned. We've all got emails from them. Yeah. Okay. So you've used your time... We've kept them out... wild estimates and it's something... well, this is absolutely unexpected. And they havelaivat people and they know they care, and they have prayers, zombies, and they haveirmi gaan moms. So you've spread the way to them. They've got nothing to do. And that's in the end. Okay. Yeah. What do they need? And that's the way to work on this side. Now, can we say something? Yeah. Well, I don't know. It's different to the ground and not a little bit