Varadkar says 'culture of arrogance' among senior RTÉ staff led to poor governance

Former director general Dee Forbes, who did not attend, provided a medical certificate to the Committee.

The Taoiseach has said "a culture of arrogance" among RTÉ senior staff led to poor governance at the national broadcaster.

Leo Varadkar has also said he believes that all those who have been asked to attend Oireachtas Committees to answer questions on RTÉ should do so.

Mr Varadkar told the Dáil: "It is very clear that we have significant problems in RTÉ. We see a culture of poor governance when decisions were not made or not made properly. We see a culture of arrogance from some of the senior people who were in charge of that organisation.

"We also see a wider culture of entitlement, a belief that the revenue from the licence fee should belong to RTÉ either entirely or for the greatest part, a sense of entitlement and thinking that went back to in the era when we had to fly Aer Lingus and had to get our electricity from the ESB."

However, he said it is not fair to say that there has been no accountability as number of people have resigned from their posts and others have been questioned by politicians.

It came ahead of a Media Committee hearing into Toy Show the Musical which a number of invited indivivuals declined to attend.

Former director general Dee Forbes, who did not attend, provided a medical certificate to the Committee.

Committee chair Niamh Smyth said RTÉ's former chief financial officer Breda O'Keeffe and former chair of the RTÉ Board Moya Doherty were asked to attend but were unavailable. Former director of strategy Rory Coveney had been invited to attend the sitting but he did not take up the offer.

Mr Varadkar told the Dáil: "People have been called in before the Oireachtas committee and have accounted for their actions. Those who have not yet done so should in my view."

He added: "I want to make that very clear. If any evidence of criminality or breaches of corporate law or company law are picked up in the audits, they will be referred to the Corporate Enforcement Authority. To date, that has not occurred but it may yet occur."

The Taoiseach was responding to Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald who warned that the collapse in public confidence in RTÉ presents a serious challenge in how to fund a sustainable, vibrant and diverse public service media into the future.

Ms McDonald hit out at the Government for failing to make a decision on the future funding of RTÉ and reiterated her party's call to abolish the TV licence.

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said she did not agree with the Sinn Féin proposals to scrap the licence, but echoed the calls for a Government decision on reform of media funding.

"In its current form, it simply is not working and I think we all agree on that.

Ms Cairns added: "We need public service journalism now more than ever because of the misinformation and disinformation spreading like wildfire on social media. It is undoubtedly damaging our democracy. We believe social media companies should pay a levy to support public service journalism because trusted independent media is more important than it ever has been due to social media platforms' inability to self-moderate."