Tales of high drama and farce as RTÉ tries to focus in on its future

A mixed air of anger and hopelessness now pervades Montrose and a significant number of people describe the atmosphere as toxic

It didn't seem possible for things to get any worse at RTÉ. Previous episodes in this long-running drama had a disinterested and hostile government essentially telling our national broadcaster to go swivel. The latest offerings in the series have had a comi-tragic quality with elements of farce thrown in.

There was a leaked rescue plan, that once it was leaked was generally dismissed as hardly being worth the paper it was written on. There were disastrous interactions between management and staff, tales of fallings out between senior elements of RTÉ, and a staff not just angry at some of the detail of the rationalisation plan, but completely without hope that those charged with implementation are capable of doing it.