Five new things we learned about RTÉ from the Oireachtas committee meeting

After another marathon session between RTÉ and the politicians, what do we know now that we didn’t before?

Cost cutting

RTÉ's hiring freeze and slamming the brakes on discretionary spending was the most eye-catching development, with the broadcaster explaining that it has to buy itself time, or “runway”, to keep turning over under its current model, while juggling the impact of a shortfall in licence revenue.

RTÉ's staff costs are high and while its balance sheet is healthy, the committee heard that it does not have a lot of liquid assets – basically, things that can be turned into cash at short notice. That means the picture is actually worse than the balance sheet suggests, and so it is taking steps to conserve cash.

What will this mean? A cutback in outside broadcasts, commissioning content and investment in the online player; a voluntary redundancy scheme (although it doesn’t even have cash on hand to pay people off at the moment); and limits on covering events such as sports and political party conferences were all mentioned as possibilities, with RTÉ giving itself enough cash to go into the middle of next year as things stand – but also anticipating a €28 million deficit for this year.

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Tubridy’s legal challenge

Details were sparse, but both Kevin Bakhurst and head of legal Paula Mullooly confirmed that legal letters had been exchanged with Ryan Tubridy’s representatives following the decision to abandon negotiations over his return to the station. There is now no plan for Tubridy to return the €150,000 he was given under the infamous tripartite agreement between Renault, RTÉ and the presenter, despite moves to arrange for its return during negotiations.

The future of Montrose

Bakhurst again confirmed that the future of the station’s Dublin 4 home is in the balance, and that a full valuation of the Montrose site has been commissioned. He also said alternative sites in Dublin had been scouted, but warned that the sale of the asset was not a magic bullet – and that there would be a lot of complexity to work through, not least how the presence of listed buildings on the site would impact the value, as well as the cost of moving. However, he said he thought that doing nothing was not an option.

More grovelling

It fell to Bakhurst again to admonish past practices at RTÉ – saying he could not stand over a variety of past sins, including the decision not to tell Minister for Arts and Media Catherine Martin about the decision to restore pay cuts to top executives. He also said there are “too many allowances” at RTÉ and too many grades of employment (164 to be precise) and castigated the system of car allowances, which he said weren’t car allowances at all, but more properly were management allowances or part of pay. When it came to the membership of Soho House, an exclusive London club, held by RTÉ – where, apparently, no meetings were held despite the stated purpose of the membership being to have a space to do so – Bakhurst was again sharply critical, saying it was “shocking” that RTÉ even had the membership

Board culture

Today was the first time we heard from a lot of board members – many of whom were highly critical of the culture of information-sharing with the board that existed in the past. David Harvey said he found the practices very troubling and that information was presented to the board as a “fait accompli”, with things “left to chance”. Others spoke of a “sea change” in recent months. However, there were difficult moments for the board as well, as they were forced to admit they should have held more meetings of the remuneration committee, as well as appointed external assessors of their performance.