Cost of televising Oireachtas proceedings went over budget by €1.5m last year, PAC told

The Public Accounts Committee also heard that, in terms of the cost overrun, 'first thing to note is that 2024 was a general election year'. File photo: Oireachtas TV/PA

The cost of televising Oireachtas proceedings in 2024 ran €1.5m over budget to €5.2m for the year, an Oireachtas committee has heard.

Addressing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Peter Finnegan, secretary general of the Oireachtas Service, said that in terms of the cost overrun “first thing to note is that 2024 was a general election year”. 

He said sundry costs were incurred over the 12 months with €1.78m spent on the repair and upgrade of equipment.

However, a value-for-money estimate compiled by Mr Finnegan for the PAC last July indicated that the current cost of retaining broadcast workers, including part-time staff, for a full year is just €1.9m.

The broadcast workers claim they are being forced to sign on for social welfare during the Oireachtas recess periods due to the poor nature of their salary and employment terms.

In a broad discussion with Labour TD Eoghan Kenny on the workers' circumstances, Mr Finnegan said he had been “constrained” from meeting them earlier this year despite their request to do so as their dispute is with their employer, PI Communications, which holds the current contract for broadcasting Oireachtas proceedings.

Mr Finnegan’s value-for-money exercise had estimated that the cost of making the Oireachtas broadcast workers full-time civil servants would be prohibitive at just under €4m per annum.

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He told the PAC that the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, which he heads, had not wanted to “encroach” on the industrial dispute between the broadcast workers and PI Communications at the Workplace Relations Commission – a process which has since collapsed - and so had declined to engage, with suggestions the workers should be made full-time workers.

A tender for a renewed broadcasting contract is currently live, with the winning bidder expected to provide Dáil video services from January 1. Mr Finnegan said it would not be possible to pause that tender pending a resolution to the dispute as “we need to have certainty for broadcasting in 2025”. 

Leinster House bike shed

Meanwhile, Mr Finnegan was told that an infamous €336,000 project to install a bike shed at Dail Eireann now represents “the number one attraction for visitors at Leinster House”. 

Fianna Fáil TD Albert Dolan claimed the expense “has taken away so much of the good work done” in preserving the historic facade of Leinster House.

Mr Finnegan acknowledged that the “public anger was fully justified” for that project, but insisted that all such projects are now fully costed before being approved by the Oireachtas Commission.