Cliff Taylor: The Government must protect the vital role of RTÉ

There is something about State companies and their mix of often-confused mandates, politically appointed boards and ministerial meddling which always makes for potential explosions. Over the years, we have witnessed some famous scraps, many involving tensions and bust-ups between boards and chief executives.

But I have never seen anything like the events in RTÉ, where a public chasm has now opened between the board and the executive. Once chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh told an Oireachtas committee this week about the “deeply unsatisfactory nature in which information is being provided by the executive”, the game was up. For an organisation to function, the board and the executive need to find a way to work together. They need not like each other, but there must be some kind of working relationship, ideally with some tension. Now this is clearly shattered in RTÉ. And there is no way back.

Later in the week, Ní Raghallaigh made a point of appearing behind incoming director general Kevin Bakhurst as he addressed the media, promising to announce his plans on Monday, including a shake-up of the executive. The message was clear. The board was pinning its hopes on the new man and the clear-out he was promising. Achieving this, given the legal niceties, will be no easy task. It is not a sackable offence to be pulled apart by an Oireachtas committee. We are told to expect a “reshuffle of the front bench”. But what will that mean?

What caused the board’s change of heart, or at least the hardening of its position against the executive? Probably two things. One was the gradual drip-drip of extra information. The second, we could safely speculate, will have been the classic State company story – whatever went on behind the scenes with the Government. Ministers will most likely have given the board an ultimatum: drop the executive in it, or we will have to consider other options to run RTÉ.

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Proper corporate governance requires the executive to provide the board with adequate information, but also that the board makes sure that it gets it. No doubt the forthcoming reviews will cast some light on what exactly happened in RTÉ. But there are questions here for both sides about why the board seems to have been closed out of key information and how the normal controls – internal and external audit, regular reports from the executive and questioning by board members – did not uncover what went on.

While the Government is right to demand accountability and change, it will soon see the start of a financial squeeze at RTÉ, made worse by the fact that everyone at management and board level is distracted

The breakdown between the two sides was perhaps inevitable from the moment the two €75,000 barter account invoices were queried by Deloitte. We were told that the outgoing director general, Dee Forbes, initially provided another explanation to the board about what the invoices were for, sparking the appointment of Grant Thornton. That the board felt this outside probe was needed was telling. Was there no one they could ask? The inability or unwillingness of some executive members to explain the wider background, the barter accounts and so on, led to this week’s wider collapse in the relationship.

[ RTÉ will have to ‘work hard’ to win back staff trust, journalists’ union says after meeting Kevin Backhurst ]

And while the story has now exploded in multiple directions, there are still questions about the central issue of who knew what and when about what started it all – the misreporting of Ryan Tubridy’s earnings. What about the €120,000 understatement of Tubridy’s earnings from 2017 to 2019?

Breda O’Keeffe, former chief financial officer, talked in her opening statement to the Oireachtas media committee this week about what happened when Tubridy and his agent agreed to forgo an end-of-term €120,000 bonus due on his previous contract. She said the auditors Deloitte were contacted “to consider options as to how the cancellation of the €120,000 exit fee could be treated for top talent earnings reporting”. Various options had been scoped out before O’Keeffe left, though it was finalised afterwards.

Misleading picture

The members of the Oireachtas media committee, distracted by flip-flops and cars, did not probe this. But whatever decisions were made, it led to the deduction in the publicly reported amount of Tubridy’s earnings for the three years 2017 to 2019, provided a misleading picture, and conveniently took the earnings total below €500,000 for each year. And how did Deloitte sign off on this? What was the reasoning here for what might be called some kind of reverse accrual accounting?

Ordinary RTÉ employees are right to be furious at all that has emerged. And they should be worried too. The brand has taken a hit. A financial crunch is now looming, sparked by lower advertising and commercial sponsorship income and, no doubt, a fall-off in licence-fee paying. Revenues will be squeezed on all sides.

Their annoyance is understandable. RTÉ's senior executives were simultaneously looking for more money from Government while doing special deals and spending lavishly on entertainment. But ministers need to get over themselves. Unless they support RTÉ now, the pain will be felt not only by the top earners but right across the organisation. It is always the same in restructurings. To make the necessary savings, the foot-soldiers – the ones who do the work – have to suffer as well as the smaller number of higher earners. Otherwise the numbers don’t add up.

[ The business of the barter account: How payment of high-end restaurant bills was effected by RTÉ is unclear ]

[ Stephen Collins: We should all be alarmed by how fast Tubridy went from national treasure to hate figure ]

So while the Government is right to demand accountability and change, it will soon see the start of a financial squeeze at RTÉ, made worse by the fact that everyone at management and board level is distracted. And it needs to respond. There will be time to work out the future of public sector broadcasting and the funding model and what a future RTÉ should look like. But that is going to take a while. In the meantime, the Government cannot stand back and see the organisation hollowed out.

Political bleating that it is not “politically possible” to provide more cash is not good enough. The ordinary employees of RTÉ and the concept of public sector broadcasting need to be protected through the financial storm that is now brewing. And yes, of course we need accountability and transparency as a price for all this. But we also need RTÉ to keep doing what it is doing, which is providing a generally excellent news and current affairs output, an increasingly important service in a world where disinformation is rife. Some disagree with its editorial approach, or charging for GAA matches or whatever, which is all part of normal debate. But right now those who are calling for a complete overhaul of the State broadcaster need to be careful what they wish for.