PAC to compel RTÉ to release key documents surrounding recent scandals
RTÉ interim deputy director-general Adrian Lynch and director general Kevin Bakhurst
Key documents which RTÉ has refused to release regarding the scandals enveloping it over the past four months are to be compelled for release by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Chair Brian Stanley and several committee members told RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst at a tense PAC appearance on Thursday that such compulsion would be invoked, notably with regard to a note of a Teams meeting involving former DG Dee Forbes dating from May 7 2020.
That meeting is allegedly when the controversial deal to secretly pay Ryan Tubridy €225,000 was rubberstamped. However, the note of the meeting has never been released, with RTÉ stating that it is legally privileged.
Mr Stanley said that refusing to release the note “isn’t satisfactory, there is obviously more to it than that” given the ongoing absence of Ms Forbes from committees due to ill health.
Mr Bakhurst said that RTÉ would “also like to hear from Dee Forbes on this”, but added that regarding the missing document “if we’ve taken legal advice regarding what we can and can’t disclose it would be remiss of us” to act contrary to that advice.
Mr Stanley replied: “We’ve taken legal advice, and we stand ready to compel it”, to which Mr Bakhurst replied: “We’ll stand ready for that”.
He said he would also wish to see the committee’s legal advice, a statement to which Labour’s Alan Kelly took distinct offence to.
He told Mr Bakhurst that “this is a serious moment for you” and said that the director general’s manner “is too confrontational”.
“And you said you want to see our legal advice. This isn’t a two-way relationship. You don’t get to see our legal advice,” Mr Kelly said. He added that should RTÉ continue to refuse to release the document then Mr Bakhurst should consider his position.
Mr Bakhurst replied that RTÉ has been as “cooperative as we can”, but said that releasing documents which legal advice has suggested shouldn’t be released equates to “a point of principle”.
“Where there is a point of principle at stake, we’ve discussed this at length, and I don’t think I have anything more to say on that matter,” he said.
Asked if he has a “moral imperative” to ignore legal advice to release the documents which have been refused, Mr Bakhurst said that he has “a moral imperative to do the right thing”.
“Sometimes that is not to do what is being said by some politicians,” he said.
The committee heard that RTÉ’s losses to date in RTÉ are in the range of between €10m and €12m.
Mr Bakhurst said that the broadcaster continues to work on ways to plug a €21m hole in its finances, but agreed that if RTÉ doesn’t get the €61m bailout it needs from the Government it will be insolvent, a fact he agreed “is worrying”.
Earlier, it was revealed that RTÉ is refusing to divulge details of its top earners and their contracts to two Oireachtas committees as this could cause “significant industrial relations issues” for the broadcaster.
Legal correspondence from solicitors Arthur Cox to the PAC details how divulging the details would “serve to undermine the trust and confidence” of the relationship between RTÉ and its employees.
“The consequences of this could include a disenfranchised workforce, internal complaints, stress-related claims, and referrals to the WRC and elsewhere,” the letter states, adding that the potential for “legal exposure” should details of employee contracts end up in the public domain “is borne out by correspondence RTÉ has received to date from concerned current and former employees”.
The letter states that solicitors advising RTÉ are “not aware of any contractual provision that contemplates the general publication of such information” and says that any potential personalised media coverage of employee data would likely “amplify the potential negative ramifications for the individual employee”.
Further citing GDPR and data protection issues regarding the provision of top earner information to the PAC and the Oireachtas Media Committee, the letter advises that “RTÉ should continue to consider alternative ways of co-operating, such as by the provision of aggregated or anonymised data”.
Both committees had sought details of RTÉ’s top earners as part of their trawl for information concerning a series of scandals which hit the broadcaster last summer, starting with the disclosure that €225,000 had been paid to former presenter Ryan Tubridy outside his regular contract and in a manner designed allegedly to conceal the transaction.
RTÉ will make its first appearance before PAC on Thursday morning when Director General Kevin Bakhurst is expected to say that a new strategic framework plan for the broadcaster will be delivered to the Government by the end of October.
The fact that the plan had yet to be delivered to Government was one of the reasons media minister Catherine Martin said that only interim funding of €16m would be made available to RTÉ via Tuesday’s budget.
The current total figure for the bailout required by RTÉ in the wake of the collapse of TV licence revenue is €61m.
Meanwhile, RTÉ has been informed that a review of its voluntary redundancy programmes in 2017 and 2021 is progressing, with the final report also expected to be delivered by the end of October.
A letter from McCann Fitzgerald, the firm charged with the review, to RTÉ’s head of legal Paula Mullooly states to that end that interviews are set to be held with “a number of key current and former employees of RTÉ” in the coming weeks.
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