RTÉ and the Government: What we learned from Leo Varadkar’s comments today

The Taoiseach has called on former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes to attend Oireachtas committees this week despite her decision to resign from the broadcaster on Monday morning.

Leo Varadkar, speaking on the fringes of the Government’s consultative forum on international security in Dublin Castle, also declared his confidence in the RTÉ board, called on stars at the broadcaster to publish details of their pay, and indicated what the Government plans to do about the controversy.

Here’s what we learned from the Taoiseach’s comments on Monday:

Oireachtas committees

Mr Varadkar called on Ms Forbes to attend in the wake of her statement and resignation on Monday morning, saying: “I think people would like to hear her side of the story and her version of events. It’s still open for her to attend the committee hearings and I believe she should.”

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He said committees “in particular” have an important role in ensuring there is full accountability and he emphasised the need to achieve accountability by finding out all the facts.

The Coalition’s governance inquiry

To the same end, he spoke about the timescale for the investigation into governance announced at the weekend. He said it would take “a few months” but that Minister for Culture Catherine Martin would have the terms of reference for it ready “within a week or two” and would brief the Cabinet on Tuesday.

As reported by The Irish Times on Saturday, he confirmed a technical group reviewing the licence fee has been suspended in the interim. “To do an in-depth and thorough governance review will take few months. We’d rather do it right than do it quickly and in the meantime we’re suspending our work on the reform of the TV licence.”

He said that “as things stand there is no suggestion that anything illegal occurred but we need to establish that for sure and also whether there were any breaches of ethics or breaches of the code of conduct”.

Disclosure of RTÉ star pay

After Claire Byrne confirmed her salary and that she had not been paid top-ups on Monday morning, Mr Varadkar said other stars will want to do similarly.

“Inevitably, they’re all going to be asked about the fees that they receive and whether they receive additional fees indirectly. It is up to them, but I think it makes sense and is sensible from their point of view for them to clarify that.”

Confidence in RTÉ's board

Mr Varadkar twice voiced confidence in the RTÉ board.

“I certainly have confidence in the board and the board are responsible for RTÉ, and I have confidence in the institution as a whole but that is different to saying what happened was okay – it wasn’t. We need to get to the bottom of that and find out exactly what the facts are,” he told reporters, later elaborating: “I do have confidence in the board based on the facts and information I have to date, and that the board is relatively new. The chair only appointed in the last two months did not make these decisions in relation to payments or indirect payments and has taken action to deal with it, so I have confidence in the board.”

Further measures

Last week, the Taoiseach floated the idea of imposing “remedial” measures on RTÉ – but didn’t elaborate on what that might mean on Monday. “The most important thing now is the governance review which the Government has commissioned and from that we’ll be able to establish whether changes need to be made in how RTÉ operates and is run,” he said.

‘Throwing the baby out with the bathwater’

The Taoiseach struck a note of caution on passing judgment on RTÉ writ large. “We need to make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater here. Public service broadcasting is important, RTÉ in very many ways plays a really important role in our society from Irish language broadcasting, children’s programmes, drama, sport, good quality news. We need to be cognisant of that,” he said, adding that the vast majority of people in the broadcaster had nothing to do with, and no knowledge of, the payments.

Should Ryan Tubridy come to committees?

Mr Varadkar said it would ultimately be a matter for the broadcaster if he should give back the payments – arguing at the same time that “every citizen in the state should be afforded the presumption of innocence”.

However, he said: “I do think it’s important people come before Oireachtas committees, tell us their side of the story, allow us all to get the facts out there and then we can determine the next steps after that ... If the committees invite him to speak, he should be willing to do so.”