Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media debate -
Tuesday, 2 Jul 2024

Colleagues and guests are all welcome here this evening. It is a late shift. We call this the graveyard shift in Leinster House, but I am sure attendees do not mind being here with us this hour of the evening. We have received apologies from Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan and Senators Shane Cassells and Fintan Warfield. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh is substituting for Deputy Chris Andrews - she is very welcome - and Senator Timmy Dooley is substituting for Senator Cassells.

The committee is meeting tonight with representatives of RTÉ to discuss the reports of the expert advisory committee commissioned by the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, on governance and culture in RTÉ, contract fees, human resources and other matters in RTÉ; the recommendations made therein; and RTÉ’s implementation plans for the recommendations made. We have many new things to talk about as well.

I warmly welcome RTÉ’s interim leadership team. With us this evening are Kevin Bakhurst, director general; Adrian Lynch, director of audiences, channels and marketing and deputy director general; Mr. Mike Fives, group financial controller; Mr. Richard Waghorn, director of operations and technology; Ms Vivienne Flood, head of public affairs, who is no stranger to this room either; Ms Niamh O’Connor, deputy director of content; Mr. Gavin Deans, director of commercial; Ms Deirdre McCarthy, director of news and current affairs; Ms Eimear Cusack, director of human resources; and Mr. Daniel Coady, director of legal affairs.

The committee welcomes all the witnesses and we look forward to discussing the recommendations made by the expert advisory committee and to hear from RTÉ how it will seek to address the recommendations made on the foot of the recent publication and its implementation plan. The format of the meeting is that I will invite the director general to deliver an opening statement, which is limited to three minutes. This will then be followed by questions from members of committee. As witnesses are probably aware, the committee may publish the opening statement on its web page.

Before we proceed to the opening statements, I wish to explain some limitations in relation to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses who are physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to the committee. Witnesses are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

With all the housekeeping out of the way, which I am sure attendees could ream off themselves at this stage, I propose we proceed to Mr. Bakhurst to deliver his opening statement. The floor is his.

I thank the committee for its invitation to attend this evening. After a challenging year for the organisation, in which we continued to deal with the fallout from the events of last year, we welcome the opportunity to discuss the RTÉ’s future. Having previously explored the various issues of the last year in depth, I know the committee is especially focussed on how RTÉ will reform, in particular our implementation of the recommendations of the expert advisory committee. As the committee members are aware, last week we published a comprehensive outline of the various ways in which RTÉ will address the 90 recommendations arising from these two reports.

Our progress will be monitored by an oversight group set up by the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media. I assure the committee that this work will build on a wide-ranging and comprehensive programme of governance and cultural reform which is already well under way.

Since July 2023, there have been substantial changes to the leadership team. We have made a number of new appointments to key roles following several public competitions. There have also been changes to the composition of the board, and there are new protocols in place to ensure the leadership team properly apprise the board of all relevant information. As director general, I now provide a full written monthly report to the board; all minutes from the meetings of the interim leadership team are now submitted for review by the team; and there is increased and regular communication between the board and the leadership team on all corporate activity. I have provided the committee with a more comprehensive list of the actions taken since my appointment.

We have published a new governance framework, which will we continue to review and develop. We have also given due priority to better standards of engagement with our colleagues. Since July 2023, the director general and representatives from the interim leadership team have maintained an ongoing dialogue with representatives from the trade union group, TUG. I hold monthly town hall briefings on a range of key organisational issues. RTÉ is embarking on a substantial programme of change, and we are resolved that this will happen in a collaborative and open manner with the various staff groups, including the newly formed staff engagement group. Our staff will play a key role in our transformation. I again put on record my thanks to them for their work and commitment to the organisation over the past year. It is thanks to the efforts of our people that RTÉ has continued to deliver a high-quality public media service for Ireland, and achieved exceptional impacts and audience connection over the past year.

In early June, coverage of the 2024 elections drew significant engagement with RTÉ radio, television and online services. Total news traffic online hit 16.4 million page views over the election weekend, significantly higher than the previous elections in 2019. Enjoyment of RTÉ's free-to-air sports coverage continues to be exceptionally strong, be that the GAA, the coverage of the Euros, or Ireland's performance in the European Athletics Championships in Rome. RTÉ Player has this month seen some of the highest viewing figures ever on the platform. The UEFA European Football Championship 2024 began on Friday, 14 June, and there have been more than 3 million streams across 32 games on RTÉ Player. That is approximately 3.5 times higher than the equivalent average in the previous European Football Championship in 2021. It is proof that, in this digital era of public broadcasting, RTÉ is not only relevant, but highly sought.

RTÉ's most recent investigative report into horse welfare standards garnered significant reaction, including at an international level, and it is likely this important programme will prompt further action. The annual Reuters "Digital News Report 2024" for Ireland revealed that public trust in RTÉ news coverage has increased by 1% since last year, despite what the report described as recent turbulence within RTÉ. At 72%, the report said that RTÉ News and The Irish Times remain the two most trusted media outlets in Ireland. These successes and our commitment to reform reflect a much broader ambition: that RTÉ's delivery for the people is strengthened and reimagined. Across almost 100 years, RTÉ has played an invaluable role in the evolution of Ireland's national identity, language and culture. RTÉ has empowered the public and the public discourse through debate, discussion and the provision of independent, essential information. RTÉ has built a broader sense of connection and community. All these elements are at the core of our new strategy, and our focus on digital transformation and financial sustainability is there to ensure these vital roles for Ireland's national public service media are not only maintained but thrive.

It is very important to be clear what this new strategy is, and also what it is not. I am aware there are some allegations that our increased commitment to commissioned content is some form of privatisation of a public good. That is simply untrue. Working in partnership with the creative sector has been a long-standing obligation in the provision of public service media, both for RTÉ and TG4. Our intention to do more with the sector is reflective of national policy, our statutory obligations, and the recommendations of the Future of Media Commission report. Many of our most-watched programmes, be they factual documentaries such as "Birdsong" or popular programmes such as "Dancing with the Stars", are made in partnership with the independent sector. We are focused on delivering more of the kind of content our audiences most value through a blend of in-house and commissioned content. This will allow us to strengthen Ireland's creative production sector while protecting the unique public service that is RTÉ. The prohibitive cost of maintaining RTÉ's significant existing ageing infrastructure means RTÉ will be a smaller organisation by the end of the strategy period. However, RTÉ will remain the largest content creator in the country by far and will continue to produce tens of thousands of in-house hours of live and recorded audio and video programming. We will retain 1,400 roles within the organisation, and there will be opportunities for staff to explore new roles and opportunities, supported by training and development where necessary. The reduction in staff numbers over the five years ahead will be achieved through a voluntary exit programme, with all relevant approvals. RTÉ has been operating with deficits for many years at this point, long before the licence fee crisis in 2023. With an aged building stock in need of large-scale investment and a workforce of a significant scale, the need to take corrective action has become very clear. We also urgently need to invest in digital products such as upgrading the RTÉ Player, the news app and a new audio app.

Some previous strategic plans have failed because they did not go far enough in terms of the reforms needed structurally to achieve sustainability into the future. This plan does go further because it must to secure the future of the 1,400 people who will still be here; to secure our services; and to protect public service media for the audiences of the future. I am confident the New Direction plan is the best way forward for RTÉ and offers not only the best value for money for our audience but also the most effective way RTÉ can remain viable, relevant and thrive. The New Direction strategy is about ensuring the future and the relevance of a transformed RTÉ. It is about delivering a strong and independent public service, available to everyone. It is about creating a trusted organisation delivering for Irish audiences. It is about backing creative ambition and digital innovation, supporting Irish culture, and bringing people together. It is about reflecting Ireland and supporting the creative industry across the island. It is a plan based on the core values of public service. We are determined to build a strong, modern RTÉ that will play a defining role in Irish life, an RTÉ that Ireland will be proud of, and one that will deliver a better outcome for the public we serve.

We can confirm we received that money yesterday. It is to make up the shortfall in TV licences which help fund our range of services across the organisation. The funding is used for current affairs, drama, and continued investment in technology. We are already investing in the RTÉ Player this year. We are also rolling out training and development opportunities to staff. It is about funding business as usual and making sure we can maintain our public commitments in terms of the delivery of programming.

Corporate governance has been at the core of our interaction with RTÉ and it is the reason we are here, 15 months later, following numerous meetings. The word "new" is in the name of the plan, and we see a lot of new faces here that were not here 15 months ago. What measures have been put in place to guarantee to the public, us, the taxpayer, and the licence payers that the corporate governance structure in RTÉ is fit for purpose going forward?

We put a range of measures in place. They are all listed in the annexe. The key changes are that, first, we have, as the Senator says, new leadership at the top of the organisation. Second, we have a much more transparent and open relationship between the interim leadership team and the board. I speak to the new chair extremely regularly - several times a week. We discuss everything. There is nothing left to discuss. We have a new company secretary in place who makes sure everything that is discussed at the leadership team is reported to the board. I furnish the board with a written report from the DG for every board meeting, which did not happen before I arrived. It is a comprehensive view of what has been going on and the significant events across the organisation, both the corporate events but also financial and programming, and content highlights as well.

Those are the main changes that have been brought in, but there is a list of about 70 or 80 smaller changes that have been brought in across the organisation to make it more transparent and more robust and to make us more accountable.

The other changes we have brought in relate to staff engagement. As Senator Carrigy will know, there was a criticism before that we did not properly engage with staff. As outlined in my opening statement, there is considerable staff engagement. That includes regular town halls, which the team and I go to and at which we discuss the main events with staff and take questions. Those are normally once a month or once every six weeks. There are regular communications from me via email; I think some members of staff might say too regular. We have surveyed staff to get their feedback on what it is like to work at RTÉ and we will repeat that survey to make sure we are improving. I set up a new staff engagement group, which was open to anybody in the organisation to join. It meets with me approximately once a month. Actually, whenever it wants to meet, it asks to meet and we arrange that. Everything is potentially on the agenda for those meetings. We have new people in place in key roles. We have a new head of commercial. As the Senator can see, Mr. Deans is here. We have just appointed a new CFO, who will arrive in September after serving out her period of notice. Mike Fives has been standing in as the CFO until Mari Hurley arrives.

Mr. Bakhurst mentioned staff engagement. Probably all our members here have received a significant number of emails over the past 24 hours from staff and people representing various elements of the staff and the organisation. There does not seem to be a lot of staff engagement there with regard to some of the proposals. Quite drastic proposals are being put forward, for example, a 50% increase in commissioning spend and new regional commitments. On the latter, Mr. Bakhurst mentions commitments to Limerick and Galway, but does that include the other studios? I refer to Athlone and Sligo. They do not seem to be mentioned. Mr. Bakhurst might flesh out the commitment to those studios. As regards the reduction in the number of staff by up to 400, it is very difficult in any organisation to achieve figures like that if there is not going to be staff engagement, so Mr. Bakhurst might flesh out what staff engagement means and what amount of staff engagement took place in putting this report together.

There has been extensive staff engagement, as the Senator will be aware. First of all, we published the framework for the strategy in November. That was available to everyone, and the key pillars of the strategy were in that framework and were made publicly available. We had a town hall at that point to discuss it with staff and take feedback. We then did a very wide consultation which involved not only members of the public and key stakeholders but also, for the first time ever, all members of staff, so we got their feedback. The feedback in that consultation from the public, the stakeholders and the staff was extremely positive about the main pillars of the strategy. In the document we published this week, those pillars are still there. The document gave a lot more detail and a timeline but, between publishing in November and this timeline, a significant number of staff have been involved in specific areas in developing the strategy. There has therefore been extensive staff engagement. Obviously, we are aware of some of the comments made in particular by some of the unions about that. We met with the unions before we published the strategy document and we met with the managers' association and with a new group we have set up of senior managers, about 90 managers, across the organisation. That was all on the day before we published the strategy. There has therefore been very extensive staff engagement.

I realise this will be a really important part of delivering this strategy because this is about ensuring the future of the organisation and the futures of 1,400 people who will be there. We understand that 400 people will be leaving, but I should emphasise that, first, we have said repeatedly that that will be through voluntary exits; second, it will be done over a period of five years; and third, we have about 186 people due to retire in that period to start with. The previous two voluntary exit schemes we opened up saw in excess of 400 applications and we let many fewer than that go. People have a high level of interest in taking the opportunity to leave the organisation because there are a lot of opportunities outside that they want.

Lastly, we made it very clear that part of the strategy is about investing in staff and providing training and learning for people in order that they can choose to move around if there are appropriate alternative jobs inside the organisation.

I mentioned that we have been discussing this here for 15 months. There are probably still some unanswered questions because individuals who should be able to answer those questions are not here and have not appeared here, despite having been written to by the committee. I will ask about one in particular. Is Jim Jennings still on official sick leave as an employee of the organisation?

He has had clear medical advice from his consultant. I have spoken to him about this. I do not want to go into personal things. I am happy to do that privately but he has had very significant and very clear medical advice about stress being an important issue as far as his medical condition is concerned. I do not hesitate to believe him because it is not a new thing. He is, however, very apologetic. He would like to come before a committee - he has said that - but he has had really clear medical advice. I was supportive of him in following that medical advice.

That is understandable, but why should we be offering a very generous exit package? Mr. Bakhurst might say something on that. I do not think we should to somebody whom we, as an Oireachtas committee, have asked to come here to discuss an important part of what we have spent the past 15 months talking about. He has not come in, notwithstanding medical advice. Should RTÉ, as an organisation, be offering him a generous exit package? Figures I have heard bandied about include €400,000. Mr. Bakhurst might confirm what it is. Is it his view that it is correct that that should be paid while that individual has not come in here to the Oireachtas committee to answer questions from us, the representatives of the people, the taxpayer?

As regards the details the Senator talks about, I do not think it has been confirmed whom that package is for. I know Terence O'Rourke was asked about it at a previous committee hearing. I think he said as much as he could. All I can say about that process, which is still ongoing with the individual, is that it has ended up in the WRC because we were unable to do a deal early on. They went to the WRC and, as the Senator will understand, because it has gone to the WRC, I am very limited in what I can say about it. I sorry about that.

I am not going to talk about that. It would not be fair to talk about it. The Senator is trying to align the two things. All I will say is that the process we are going through has been through the exact proper process as outlined and recommended in the expert reports. We have taken legal advice. The matter has gone through the remuneration committee. It has gone through the board. We tried to arrive at a settlement but could not. The matter ended up in the WRC. We took legal advice throughout on it. As I think I said before, I personally do not like making payouts to people. However, the Senator will see from the new members of this team, and more new members are joining it, that there was an expectation I would change the senior team at RTÉ. I cannot deliver change to the organisation with the same team that was in place before. If you are to exit people from any organisation, as we have seen frequently recently in the newspapers across many organisations, public sector and commercial, there is no alternative. If you just try to get rid of them with the wrong process, you end up paying more in legal fees and costing the taxpayer more. I do not like paying out large sums of money but I have to live within Irish law in trying to change the organisation.

We will publish those salaries in the annual report. They are on similar money to the other people on the leadership team. As the Senator will know, we did not replace the head of strategy, so the leadership team has stayed the same size. I wanted to split that content role into two halves because the content area of RTÉ is significant in size - 800-plus - and I did not feel that one person was able to manage TV and radio and the player and the audio app and manage people properly and communicate with people properly.

This is going to be key to delivering the strategy for the future of the organisation. We needed to have two people driving those two areas, audio and video, so that we can deliver for audiences properly over the course of this strategy and drive forward into the future in an ambitious way.

I thank the witnesses. It is fair to say that it has been a very difficult 12 months for everybody at RTÉ, but critical as part of this process is that we have a stronger RTÉ at the end of all of this, and I have confidence that we will. When Mr. Bakhurst first came before us, he said to judge him on results. With regard to the general direction of the organisation, I say well done to Mr. Bakhurst and his team. This does not mean we necessarily agree on everything, but I appreciate that it is a process of transformation in an organisation, and it is critical to involve all staff, as well as the audiences.

We cannot lose sight of the bigger picture in a digital age, and I welcome the greater commitment to digital. Having public service broadcasting will be important, and indeed that Irish voices and Irish stories continue to be told. The recent election coverage by RTÉ deserves praise. At this committee we have sometimes criticised the lack of coverage of minority sports. I have full praise for RTÉ's coverage of the European Athletics Championships in Rome. Speaking on international coverage and maintaining it, I welcome the appointment today of Tommy Meskill as London correspondent. He has been an excellent journalist around here and the fact that there is still a commitment to maintain a London correspondent is important.

We are obviously here to talk about the strategy, because this is ultimately how RTÉ will be judged. It cannot just be a report; there must also be implementation of that. I welcome the statement that was made regarding having a very vibrant content creation industry in Ireland. Ultimately, it is all about the content. Given what is going on within the Irish content creation sector more generally, do the witnesses believe that we will see a much bigger and stronger content creation sector in Ireland? I refer to pumping out content in terms of film, TV and drama, as well as public service broadcasting and being able to engage in the digital space.

Yes, I do. That is core to this strategy. I welcomed today the endorsement by Screen Producers Ireland, which is very important to us. I am very aware that we are building on great foundations. We work with many fantastic independent production companies already, as I have set out. More of our content is already produced by the independent sector around the island that people do not recognise, because we do not necessarily shout about it loudly enough. I have no doubt that an increase in spend in the independent sector, particularly if public funding is sorted out and we have a predictability of public funding, we can make multi-year deals with independents. It is very hard at present with them, because we have been living year to year. We are only able to sign a contract for a year on many of the programmes, which causes issues for the independents' abilities to make commitments to the people they employ or to find the right people.

There are two things about that. First, we need to talk about the creative sector in the context of inside and outside of RTÉ. RTÉ at the end of this period, in five years, will still be one of the biggest creators of television content in Ireland. We probably produce up to 2,000 hours. When it comes to the independent sector, for example, if we look at the average cost of a television drama hour, which Senator Byrne will be familiar with, it is about €1.2 million. We would be putting out a portion of that, but producers are also able to access money from the international market. It means from an audience point of view, for example, if €10 million is put in, with the quality that is delivered at an international level, it is probably €40 million that is returned to the audience.

For Ireland, look at the Future of Media Commission and think about the four things it pointed out that public service media does - independent journalism and bringing the nation together. The fourth one, being a platform as a public service media company, to provide a platform to export Irish culture to the world is a really important thing as well. When we think about the success of the animation companies in Ireland and Oscar nominees like Element Films, that kind of soft power in the world is very important.

I want to ask about two specific programmes, which have obviously garnered a lot of attention, which are "Fair City" and "The Late Late Show". From the point of view of the viewing public, will they notice any difference? I appreciate it is still at an early stage, but where does RTÉ see those programmes being produced? It does not have to be a physical location, but how does it see the partnership working in both of those?

I should start by saying in both cases, this is part of a holistic strategy. We said we would not come to this committee and ask for €300 million to invest in the buildings that we would not potentially need. That is the figure we would need if we were to renovate all buildings on the site in order to do those programmes on-site. In the end, there was no choice about moving some of those big programmes off-site if we are not going to spend that kind of money on the infrastructure there.

The answer is that we said to both staff and in the strategy, that we will be moving those two programmes off-site at some point over the five years. They will be made in studios in and around Dublin. We have not settled on what exactly the arrangement will be. We said it the other day at the town hall and subsequently that we need to find out what the best model is. On "Fair City", for example, we did not want to start talking to the independents until we had first made a decision and then until we had told the staff and cast about it. We did not want it leaking out, as it so often does. I think the staff understood that.

In respect of audiences, it is important to say that "Fair City", for example, is critical to RTÉ. It is one of those unique programmes that performs well on RTÉ One and the RTÉ player. "Fair City" on its own, drives approximately 5% of the audience on the RTÉ player currently. It delivers for us and for audiences across platforms. Ms O'Connor and I met the "Fair City" cast last week straight after the announcement. They were on a day off, but approximately 30 people came in. We talked through why we were doing this, what the plans were and said that we would keep them fully involved and consulted throughout the process, which we will do. We also stated that we were ambitious for the programme. If there is a bespoke studio and lot for the programme, and if it is potentially being done with an independent, it is possible to sell it to other broadcasters and invest more money in it for production and so on. English language soaps do quite well. We are committed to the programme, and the audience may end up getting a better product in the long run.

It is different for "The Late Late Show". There is a much smaller team working on it and who rotate through it. There is the operations team in the studio, and a smaller production team also. Again, we will end up with a bigger studio that is able to accommodate more people for "The Late Late Show" and for "The Late Late Toy Show", which will be welcome. Audiences will get a better product, because that studio is too small and quite old. We have not invested in it enough over the years and the crew do an incredible job, against the odds, in making the show look great.

Obviously, Mr. Bakhurst will be aware that our committee is this week publishing our report on the future of media. It is more than just a report on RTÉ. As Mr. Bakhurst will also be aware, we have been addressing this issue for a year and we will be talking in more general terms about the bigger picture in this regard. The Government will be moving to make a decision soon. Mr. Bakhurst has already expressed a view in respect of multiannual funding and our committee will be supporting a move towards the provision of such funding, which is critical for the sector. Is Mr. Bakhurst prepared to express a preference regarding the model that should be used?

I will try to be quick. The really important thing for us is the right level of funding. Our strategy is based on the recommendations of the Future of Media Commission in terms of funding and multiannual funding. Alongside this, it is important that our independence is guaranteed. In the context of these three factors, we genuinely do not have a preference. It is a matter for the Government and the Oireachtas.

Without pre-empting our report, there may be an indication in it regarding a move to multiannual and increased funding when it is published tomorrow. Combined with RTÉ's strategy, does Mr. Bakhurst think it will be possible to leverage further funding, particularly through partnering with the independent sector?

Yes. I am totally sure of it. As Mr. Lynch said, drama is a great example of that. Irish drama is flying now, especially on the back of the success of "Kin" in the UK and "The Dry". There is a lot of demand. Dermot Horan, who represents us at international conferences, has been getting an extremely high level of investors looking to see if we are going to make the next "Kin" and if more dramas are available.

No. Some are more complicated than others, as will be seen from the two reports. We are pretty confident about the vast majority of the recommendations. I think we said in our response that some of them need to be worked through. This is particularly the case concerning the recommendations relating to risk and compliance officers in the organisation. We want to do this properly and to be the best in class, so we have gone out and are engaging one of the big five accounting firms to advise on what implementing best practice looks like. We are confident we will do it but it may take a little time.

In fairness, they did. That was the only way they could exit, but they did not want to exit, in most cases. Regarding the strategy itself, the view outlined by the Deputy is not the case. We have been in talks about the nature of the voluntary exit scheme and ensuring we can make it fair so people at all levels can leave the organisation as we reshape it. The impact will absolutely not all fall on lower-paid people. In fact, I think several senior people would be part of the plan to exit.

It is not just about saving in terms of moving both these products out. Picking up on the point made by Mr. Bakhurst, the sets in RTÉ sit within the television building. Bringing those buildings up to the standard required by 2030 was going to cost €300 million. It was a prohibitive amount for us because we do not have that kind of money, so we were going to have to move off-site anyway. Additionally, Cairn Homes, which has bought some of the land to the left of the television building, is going to begin its construction work within the next year to 18 months, so we were going to have to move off-site for that reason too.

Well, it is not just the television building involved but the set of buildings as a whole, including the radio, administration and canteen buildings, because these are all listed. As soon as we have moved back to one end of the site and consolidated into the most modern building there, and we have to invest in there as well, those buildings will be available. We have already had one discussion on this, but we will need to talk to the Land Development Agency. We will also need to talk to the Government because my view, and I think that of the board too, is that if we get proper public funding to enable us to transform the organisation and move out of many of those buildings, it may well be that there will be a public or social use for them. We would like to discuss that with the Government in due course.

Taking "The Late Late Show" as an example, there is a small production team. What I said was that we are going to move the programme off the land but we have not decided how we are going to do this yet. Basically, there are two options. One of them is to put the programmes out to the independent sector, while the other is to do a hybrid model by working with the independent sector and some of our staff as well. Those are the options we need to explore.

Where people go, therefore, will depend on the outcome of the model we choose. Many operations people involved work across both programmes. I think there will be opportunities for them, potentially, to work in other areas. We will still be producing a significant amount of other coverage from RTÉ, as Mr. Lynch touched on, in respect of radio, television and sport. There will be opportunities for staff to retrain within RTÉ.

There may be opportunities for people to choose to take an exit package, leave and work for one of the independents. I touched on the previous voluntary exit schemes. A high number of people from operations applied to the last exit scheme who we were unable to let go because the organisation was not changing. There was a significant appetite last time around – I think it was in 2021 – for people to go.

-----privatise the two flagship programmes, but there was no thought to how that will operate and where the savings would be as such. Normally, when you outsource to private sector, it is automatically more expensive. The outside broadcast unit was sold some years ago. It was a good deal initially, but when they realised they had a monopoly, the price rocketed. Are we making the same mistake again this time around?

It is important to say that in respect of all the programmes RTÉ commissions for the independent sector - whether it is "Dancing with the Stars", the documentaries, "Birdsong", whatever it is - it still maintains overall editorial control and control of those productions. We would have oversight of this with the independent sector. With "The Late Late Show", there is a very good chance that whatever the solution is, we will end up with a senior editorial team from RTÉ involved in that programme because I am not sure the skills are out there. There is a very particular-----

All our drama is made by independent production companies. People would think these are RTÉ programmes and a high quality, which they are. Regarding the independents, there has been a bit of a characterisation of them in a way, which is unfair. We have a fantastic independent sector here. We have brilliant production companies that create incredible content.

On that, we said this when the "Fair City" cast came to see us. We explained to them that we did not have all the detail because we did not want to start talking to people outside RTÉ about this before we talked to our own staff about it. This is over a period of years. They were very accepting of that. We also guaranteed to them, as we will do to all staff, that everyone involved will be fully consulted with and all those opportunities I set out, whether it is inside RTÉ or outside, will be fully tested with them.

We had a team of unions and other reps in a couple months ago and I asked each of them at the end their preference of funding, and all of them said direct Exchequer funding. Given the Future of Media Commission report, that was the one recommendation left sitting on the shelf, if you like. Would Mr. Bakhurst favour direct Exchequer funding? Is he frustrated that no decision has been made? As he referred to, the decision has not been made yet because no decision has been made. I would imagine they are like ferrets in a sack behind the door, fighting over it. The Minister for media has publicly expressed that she would prefer direct Exchequer funding, in line with the Future of Media Commission. Does Mr. Bakhurst have any comment?

No. I have spoken about this with the Deputy's party leadership as well, who I know are in favour of direct taxation. There are distinct advantages to direct funding, so long as the appropriate safeguards are in place. A number of the Nordic countries have introduced it with those safeguards, like multi-annual five to seven years, with safeguards about how the level of funding is decided with annual increase of 2%. There are schemes that work but there are schemes where it can lead to political interference if the safeguards are not in place. The key, as I said before, for us is a decision where - I welcome the Taoiseach saying they will make that decision by the end of the month - it is at the right level, it is multi-annual and it provides sustainability for us.

Because of Irish law, there is quite a high threshold. We have looked at dismissing people and we have taken external legal advice, because believe me, there was some appetite in some cases. However, the legal advice was that there is an extremely high threshold and if you go down this route, you could end up costing the company an awful lot of money and end up in a position that other public organisations have recently ended up with up - someone fighting it through the courts, being paid very long time while you do it.

No. Where the legal advice is that the Department of Social Protection or its scope section has made a mistake in law or in fact, those are the only cases we have taken. They are not against workers but against the Department for making what we view on the basis of legal advice as incorrect decisions.

We look at what the audience wants. We did a lot of research about shortening "The Late Late Show". Patrick Kielty has been a huge success, as the Deputy will understand. The audience has gone up. The number of people watching has gone up. I would measure on the audience numbers and not on the length of programming.

They absolutely can. One must remember that at the end of this strategy, RTÉ is still going to be creating the most hours of any production unit in the country. It will be producing up to 2,000 hours. The strategy is based on the recommendations of the Future of Media Commission and aligns with them in terms of any increased spending in the independent sector. As I said at the beginning, I do not think we should get into a binary situation of keeping public media on one side and private media on the other side. Public service media are recognised by the Future of Media Commission. It was clear in its report that there are plenty of independent companies in Ireland that create public service media. The Deputy would be well aware of them. They include independent radio stations, local radio stations and so on.

We have all the information and we are puling it together at the moment. I thank the scores of people across RTÉ who have volunteered and contributed to that. We are currently in discussions with the Data Protection Commission on that. We have some issues that need to be resolved with it. I hope they can be resolved because the register is an important part of the transparency of the organisation.

Is RTÉ knowingly incurring losses in the way that the barter account now operates? From what I have learned in the past 12 months or so, typically when advertising space is sold through barter agencies, it is like a fire sale. The space needs to be filled at a few days' notice so it is sold at a discount. We know from last year that when a barter agency sells the advertising space, RTÉ gets a 50-50 split between cash and credit. The credit was the bit that was being used to buy the flip-flops and all that stuff. As per page 3 of appendix A that Mr. Bakhurst gave us earlier, it looks to me as if RTÉ is not using the credit at all. It is simply being converted into cash every month.

To give an example, if RTÉ had €10,000 of advertising space next week that was not yet sold, the barter account would buy the space at a discount for €8,000. RTÉ would be paid €4,000 in cash and €4,000 in agency credit. Instead of using the €4,000 credit to buy something the station needs - rather than flip-flops - the balance is simply converted into cash. The €4,000, at a rate of 65%, becomes €2,600. As a result what would have achieved €10,000 in advertising space now only achieves €6,600 and RTÉ forgoes the chance to use the barter account to acquire what it needs, and we know RTÉ needs lots of stuff. In the rush to react to what emerged in this committee room last year regarding the barter account, has RTÉ thrown the baby out with the bath water and is it losing more money as a result?

If we were to spend it on programmes, it would be at the gross amount. The cash amount would still be at 65%. It is industry standard. I worked for Virgin Media. It has the same deal, with 50-50 cash and trade credits and a 65% cash-out rate. The rates agencies negotiate across the industry vary and this is the mechanism they have. It is really a thing in the UK where there are many of opportunities to use the barters. What we earned in cash value from the barter agencies in 2023 was €1.5 million and it is another €500,000 in the year to date.

In all of the committee conversations we have had, and God knows we have been here a good deal over the past 12 months, as far as I can recall, there was never any mention of a contra account. Will the witnesses give us a bit more information on that? It is not something that came up previously as far as I can recall.

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for the significant work they have invested in the strategy. Somewhere in the strategy, or perhaps in the video Mr. Bakhurst recorded, is the phrase "the third age". For me, this is very much an ambitious plan for the delivery of that third age. Thankfully, I have lived through all three, which is great. I remember sitting on my father's lap watching "The Riordans" in black and white. I remember crowding around a radio with my teenage friends when 2FM went on air. Last Sunday, my son watched Galway prevailing over Dublin on his phone while on the move in the US. It is an extraordinary evolution in a relatively short period. I wish RTÉ every success in delivering on this. It is crucial for us, as a nation and a people, and I will speak about this, that the very essence, spirit and ethos of what RTÉ stands for remains at the heart of the organisation. From my reading of the strategy and from my perspective, I believe this is what the witnesses have in their hearts and minds as they set out on what will be an exceptionally challenging road.

Mr. Waghorn has an exciting and pivotal role to play with regard to the digital side and how people - I again reference my son - access it. I have a particular question about something that has always mystified me. The section of the strategy on programming opens with the statement that RTÉ will provide high-quality impactful programmes for all of its audiences and programmes that bring our country together. I would argue that it should replace the word "country" with the word "people". The Irish nation extends to far more than just the people who live on this island. At best guess - and nobody has ever been successful in putting a number on it - is that right now at least 1 million of our citizens are living outside the country. If we go into the realm of the diaspora, the figure is negotiable at between 60 million and 70 million.

Right now there are 1 million Irish citizens who do not live in this country. News, current affairs, sport and culture are as important to them as if they were living next door. How do we intend to connect with them in future? RTÉ speaks about a personalisation of the digital experience whereby people can curate their own RTÉ experience no matter where they live in the world. I have a very amateur understanding of how this happens. There are big licensing and distribution issues. Can they be overcome? Is this one of RTÉ's ambitions in terms of how it will connect with the people abroad? I recall the former Taoiseach Deputy Varadkar saying people do not need to reside on the island of Ireland to consider themselves to be truly Irish. I fundamentally believe this. What are RTÉ's plans to connect with our community around the world?

In technological terms, we have the RTÉ Player, the website and the radio stations. All of our content is available globally where we have the rights. Where we do not have the rights, the content is not accessible. We would need to secure the rights, if we were able to afford to do so, for some of that content. All of our in-house content does have the rights cleared. The experience with the RTÉ Player in the UK is different from the experience with it in the Republic. This is something we would need to explore.

With regard to the experience on the RTÉ Player, we need to invest more in the functionality and capabilities. Deputy Cannon made a point on personalisation with regard to providing a better and more personalised experience for audiences and users. There is a lot more functionality and more features we want to add to the RTÉ Player. We continue to develop it. Recently, we got dynamic advertisement insertion running on our linear channels. We are looking at other features with regard to downloads and other linear streams we can provide through the RTÉ Player.

We have also been upgrading the mobile apps. We have been upgrading the apps for the connected TV platform. We are also constantly evolving the web app for the RTÉ Player. We are looking to create a new audio app. Recently we received internal approval for this and we are going to procurement. There will be a new audio app to replace the mobile app we have at present. There will also be a new website for our radio services. We are also upgrading the news app. The news app has worked very well for us. It has been very reliable over the past nine years since we went to market in 2014 or 2015. Next year, we will replace the news app with a much more modern app. We hope it will continue to do well for us. Where we can make our products available internationally, we do so. However, rights issues mean that some content is held back from being made available.

Trade with independent producers is subject to rights.

As part of the work the commission will be doing in terms of setting a new public service media framework, it will review all those terms as part of that over the next six to nine months.

As some of my colleagues already mentioned, we have understandably received a very large number of emails from current employees of RTÉ - mainly based in Donnybrook - expressing some very serious concerns about the strategy and its potential impact on them as employees and individuals. Phrases like "asset stripping" and "ripping the cultural heart out of RTÉ" have been used. Change is always difficult. There is no question about that. What assurances can RTÉ give the cameraman on the set of "Fair City" who has two children in college that he or she will continue in that role for the foreseeable future? I know RTÉ is saying that it wants all the redundancies to be voluntary. How realistic is that ambition and what kind of analysis has RTÉ done in-house to be able to determine that this is a successful strategy in terms of reducing the numbers?

Regarding the cameraman on "Fair City", or many people in operations who are concerned, I would come back to the point the Deputy just made, which is really important. This is a voluntary exit scheme. Nobody is going to be thrown out the door. That is not the way we are going to run this. Second, there will be extensive continuing consultation with staff. One of the reasons we wanted to publish the strategy framework in November, which set out the key points of the strategy, was so that staff had a chance to be consulted initially, which they were. That will continue as we try to roll out the strategy. We will explore options on things like "Fair City" in terms of how we make it. Do we make it on a wholly independent basis? Do we make on an independent studio lot but use RTÉ people involved in it? Those are the sort of things we will explore and staff will be involved in those discussions. There are other options. Sometimes when organisations move content to the independent sector, they enable people to go to work for the independent for a year or two and pay and them as RTÉ staff but working for the independent so they can see what it is like and decide whether they want to take an exit package and move there or come back to RTÉ. These are the things we are exploring and will explore over five years. All we can look back at is the most recent voluntary exit schemes, the number of applications and the number of retirements we know we have coming up in the next five years. Those numbers easily exceed 400 if you look at the number who did not voluntary exit when they applied for it and add on the retirements. Not all of those people can go but a lot of people have been interested so far. For some people, it is quite tempting. We have said we are going to try to open a voluntary exit scheme this year for 40 people so we can start changing the organisation. Part of that will seeing how many people are interested initially in expressing an interest in voluntary exit.

I am particularly interested in the ambition in the strategy about regionalisation of production because I genuinely think there is an extraordinary opportunity out there. It is not like RTÉ is entering into this unknowingly or in the dark. If we look at what is being done out of Dingle, "Other Voices" is truly extraordinary and has become an iconic production for showcasing new Irish music not just in Dingle but around the country. The concept that is "Other Voices" emerged from the independent sector. There is significant opportunity for even more of that. I look at what is happening in Galway. There is an extraordinary production facility called Cue One, which TG4 uses extensively. We now have the CREW Digital creative innovation hub based in Galway city. All of the instruments and ingredients for the development of a really strong west of Ireland as a counterbalance to Dublin and Wicklow, which is important, are there. In the rolling out of this strategy and this investment, will RTÉ will have a defined proportion of spend per region or will it be a nebulous fund into which everybody will dip? Will RTÉ say it is going to invest a certain amount in Cork, a certain amount in Limerick and a certain amount in Galway? What is the thinking on that? The potential there is extraordinary. If that potential has the support, knowledge, wisdom and experience of RTÉ standing on its shoulder, what can be achieved is limitless.

I agree with the Deputy. I might hand over to Ms O'Connor in a minute. She has been working on some of this. The Deputy's comments about "Other Voices" made me smile because I have already been in contact with Philip King about the potential for investing more in that and getting more out of that partnership. We are very ambitious about the country. We have named Cork in the strategy document because we are already making a significant amount there. We know there is significant capability. I would start by saying that we do make a lot of content around Ireland. Sometimes that is not recognised. An awful lot of our dramas are based outside Dublin. We do not draw enough attention to that. Ms O'Connor has been very involved in looking at the content plan.

If we increase commission spend, that will automatically increase spend from the regions. We will have a base in Cork and our plan for Cork is that there will be a ring-fenced commissioning budget that will come from the regions. Our plan is that we would base a commissioning editor from Cork to look at the regions.

As a whole. It is not just about spend. It is also about initiatives we have outlined in the strategy, particularly with seed funding for younger companies that are just developing. All the production companies tell us that in order for them to be in a position to be able to pitch, they need funding to have their company in a place where they can spend time developing in order to put themselves in the best position to get commissioned. It would be our plan to have that ring-fenced budget for companies based outside Dublin.

Is that a zero or an actual zero? I would ask RTÉ to seriously consider creating an Irish abroad app that is specifically targeted at our people internationally similar to what The Irish Times does on a much larger scale with its Irish Times Abroad, which is always very enlightening and encouraging.

The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is an entity within RTÉ for which I have a significant affinity and for which I have great respect. It is very close to my heart. If you are aged 15 in Killarney or Letterkenny and are a cellist, violinist or saxophonist and you are thinking of making a career in music, the pinnacle of your ambition in this country is the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. What are the plans? It is a national treasure that enriches the lives of so many people in so many different contexts and settings and has become incredibly successful at revealing itself to new cohorts of people who have never been exposed to an orchestra before. What are the ambitions for that wonderful entity?

I can speak to this because if there is a bigger fan of the orchestra than the Deputy, it is me. I have been to a lot of its concerts since I have been here and am a huge supporter of it. I was at the Bord Gáis Theatre along with 2,000 people for Marty Whelan and the orchestra and it was fantastic. It is great to see that connection. We are ambitious to get it playing more around the country. That is just a question of funding. We are already doing a bit of that. We have spoken to the orchestra. It tells us that it knows it has full support from the top of the organisation and it has ambitious plans we want to back.

Mr. Bakhurst spoke about the orchestra. I like the orchestra as well. Mr. Bakhurst says the mood music is nice but the mood music from the emails I have received is that a lot of it is very out-of-step and out-of-tune. I welcome the witnesses. There are some old faces and some new faces. Anything I say here is not directed at anyone personally but I have lost all faith in RTÉ. Mr. Bakhurst mentioned its different programming, the "RTÉ Investigates" programme on the horse cruelty affair and all the different "RTÉ Investigates" programmes but who are we going to do an independent investigation into the shenanigans that went on in RTÉ? We have had two phoney reports.

Would they do phoney reports, as I call them because they are only just semantics, skipping over criminality that has gone in RTÉ? There was basic, naked criminality and I called for the fraud squad to be sent in there, or CAB. The Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 has been flouted for the last 30 years, knowingly, to the head of Revenue, the Secretary General of the Department of Finance and the Secretary General of the Department of social welfare. RTÉ has unlimited access as an entity to do deals, sit down with Revenue and discuss these issues. We see there is a figure of €15.2 million earmarked to address a portion of the settlements related to unpaid PRSI.

Without sounding repetitive, I as a businessman do not have that opportunity nor does any other businessman in the country. They pay their taxes properly, they do not have massive penalties, interest and fines and I cannot understand how the sacred cow that is out in Montrose can just do these deals with the nod and a wink to the Secretaries General of both Departments. Revenue will not take responsibility for it and neither will the Department of social welfare. The law has clearly been flouted. Any other employer attempting to do one thousandth of that could be in prison and would definitely be closed down and out of business.

The thinking and the mood music around here relates to how RTÉ is going to address that loss and that accruing bill that is out there for the workers. The workers are contractors and there are hundreds of workers. RTÉ is going to dismiss 400 of them now, or they will be voluntarily exits they have said, and many of them have already been pushed out and have no pension. Senior broadcaster who we liked from different programmes have not even got a pension because of the illegality and the malpractice that has been flourishing at RTÉ and has been nourished by both Revenue and the Department of social welfare. They are allowed to do it and have got away with it under successive Ministers. This is all a big game and they got their €20 million already from the Minister of taxpayers' money. I knew that would happen before we break up for the summer. We will have the report tomorrow and we will all go away into the sunset and everything will be fine, but it is not fine.

There is a moral compass that has been completely stamped on and the treatment of the workers has been awful; they are the backbone of the organisation and they have had their morale flattened and their jobs put at risk by a succession of scandals. This strategy here lacks a clear appreciation or respect for those workers. They have forced and coerced people and we had the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, here the last day I was here and they were in the middle of this. They were up to here with the law-breaking and corruption that went on. They were up to there with it and they are all in this together; they used other parlance but it has gone on, there are semantics happening here and I am going to fix it. I honestly feel we need a much more radical approach.

There are other parts of legislation that I am informed have been flouted as well. There is law breaking; are we going to get BBC Panorama to come in and do an investigation into RTÉ? There are some very good "RTÉ Investigates" programmes, but as I said in the past there have been very damaging ones to companies where they went over the top completely and behaved illegally in hiring drivers who were bogus drivers and were not drivers at all. That happened at a lorry company and it is disgusting that RTÉ would do that to make a presentational programme to destroy a man's livelihood and a business. The Department of Transport then came in and tried to take the licence off him because of what was put in the programme, and God rest him as he is deceased now.

Yes, public service broadcasting has a duty and we need to radically examine it here but it cannot be at the expense of somebody else. The fat cats in RTÉ, and I am not saying anyone here is one, and people coming in and there was question as to why people would not come in and give evidence and testimony. Are they going to be paid a €400,000 figure? The whole thing is filthy. A much more radical approach needs to be taken in that RTÉ needs to not only contemplate selling but sell Montrose and drive the sacred cow out past the Red Cow and put the cow out somewhere in the country where we can all have a little go at milking her. I say that in an honest parlance, we can all have a share. If people could contain their laughter I would appreciate it. Everyone could have access, including the young people who aspire to join the orchestra and aspire to become journalists. We could have it in Portlaoise or Mullingar in the midlands. Bring it back to basics where it started. Look at the tremendous success of TG4.

This tinkering and playing around that we are doing here is like rubbing butter on a fat sow's you know where.

-----we have got nowhere since we started this at the exit of Ms Dee Forbes and the whole implosion and what happened at RTÉ. The workers who I meet the many times I am out there, and Ms McCarthy who I met over the years and she was very good to me when I arrived here first, and the workers I still meet in make-up are ordinary people who are doing their best and an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. They see this law breaking going on and no one tackling it. No Department will tackle it.

I do, yes please, but I am trying to emphasise that I have absolutely no faith in what we are at here, what we have been at and the big hullabaloo tomorrow launching the report and we will all go off for our summer holidays and RTÉ will go on their merry way because they are untouchable. They have proved to be untouchable. Nobody can have that much money owed in tax and still operate as a business. Reckless trading has to be invoked on the board and the previous board and it is still reckless trading. That balance of €15.2 million is not settled with Revenue. Nobody else in the country has the luxury of being able to find a way to settle with Revenue. They pay up or they get massive penalties and fines. Whoever wants to answer that, I would appreciate it.

I am not totally clear what the question is, I am afraid. All I would say, Deputy, is that I can only answer one part of that and I feel this committee and the Committee of Public Accounts has done an extremely effective job in holding RTÉ to account, asking tough questions and has driven change. I know from what the Deputy has said he will not accept that but I can only talk from my own experience. It has asked for answers, got answers and driven change in the organisation. This is a different organisation and that is all I can say to answer that question.

That is our estimate, Deputy, of what will be owing. It is ongoing and we are in constant contact with the Department of Social Protection, DSP. They have not send us a bill for that amount of money but that is how much by the end of it that we think we may owe. That is just an estimate and we do not know yet. It is not that we have not paid a bill to the Department of Social Protection. Unlike Revenue, who go in and take a blanket approach like when they reviewed contractors previously and we paid the taxes, interest and penalties. This one with DSP goes to the individual so if it is Mike that is missing his PRSI, it has to go him, you cannot take a blanket approach. That is just our estimate at the minute and it is not a bill that we have received.

I thank Mr. Fives for that curt answer which may be true but no one else has that luxury that DSP would allow it. Nobody else does and the social welfare payments would be stopped for an ordinary person who is on unemployment benefit. This is the problem and they do not get it.

As Mr. Bakhurst mentioned public accounts, I think it was in 2019 all this evidence was presented to the Committee of Public Accounts again and the Department were well aware and are well aware of it yet nothing happened. The Committee of Public Accounts, that everybody seems to have massive respect for, brought all this to the fore about this bogus self employment, tax evasion and the corrupt practices that were going on. This all came before PAC and unfolded in these committee rooms but nothing was done about it. Absolutely zilch was done about it, nothing. The Secretaries General of the Department of social welfare and Revenue have a lot of questions to answer and they need to answer them because they are public, paid officials and law is being broken on an hourly basis when these bogus self employed people are in RTÉ. It is not only in RTÉ, to be fair, they are in a lot of other areas as well. This is all been done with ICTU and as I said all the employer organisations are in this together.

A massive plan was laid to evade tax at an enormous scale and that has happened. The saddest part of all this is the workers ag obair go crua in RTÉ who now have no pensions.

I identified the people where the buck stops. Secretaries General of Departments were made aware of this in 2019. It might have been a different at the time, but their role is to run the organisations that are under them. They come down on people and cut off their social welfare if they are defrauding, and rightly so. We all deal with cases every day of the week where there are social welfare overpayments. There are very rigours payment plans. Where is the payment plan RTÉ is entering into with the Department of Social Protection? Has there been any talk of a payment plan to repay all the money the taxpayers were robbed of?

We looked at selling the site and moving off it. The estimate for selling the site was significantly below the numbers I think I have heard in here before. It was around €100 million for the rest of the site because of all the listed buildings and the cost of moving off the site would present a huge bill to taxpayers. It is much cheaper to stay on the site and consolidate and that is one of the reasons we have arrived at that solution.

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I will be very brief. I welcome everybody and wish them well in the job they have to do. I have always been a supporter of RTÉ. I am not going to pretend, in case Deputy McGrath gets upset, that I have been praising the organisation, but we all know what went on in the last few years was a disgrace and Mr. Bakhurst has been sent in to clean it up with his new team.

Are there any more big payments to be made to people who are retiring from RTÉ or is that all finished with now?

That is fine.

The other issue is that in spite of what people will say, we get great value from RTÉ for TV licence. Sometimes RTÉ does not sell that enough. I listen to people complaining about paying their licence fee, yet the same people have Sky outside their houses. They are probably paying €1,000 a year for it. They may not realise they are doing that because they pay it monthly. With RTÉ the licence fee is what it is. I do not agree we should increase it, but we get value for money. RTÉ has very good sport, news and politics coverage.

Something we have to worry about now is an uncontrolled media, although RTÉ is controlled. I do not mean it is controlled by government, but it is controlled by libel laws and everything else. We have uncontrolled media in this world now with Facebook and all these new things, where people say terrible things about everybody and get away with it. If RTÉ makes a mistake, at least people can bring it to the High Court or other courts for libel.

One of the questions I wanted to ask was about regional coverage and an issue that arose when I was a Minister. I see Deirdre McCarthy is here. On many occasions it really upset me how some of RTÉ's regional guys could never come down when there was a good news story, but the minute there was a bad news story, they were there. When there was a good story they would come down the day before or the day after, so they would not have to interview a politician. I do not know why that was. I must have upset somebody in RTÉ along the way, because we had a lot of good news stories and what really upset me was to see them coming the day after or the day before to cover it. They would interview anybody but a politician and I would like it if RTÉ tried to correct that. As bad as we are, we are elected by the people and we are there to represent the people. If we are the cause of a good story, we should get the credit. If we are the cause of a bad story, RTÉ will be there quickly enough with the microphones outside our houses. That is just a criticism I have.

Mr. Bakhurst has done a good job since he went in. I am saying this to all his team here. This is a simple thing and it is a bit like with An Post. I will say two things about An Post. The first is it never thought it would have to go out and deliver parcels. It never really wanted to get into that, but that was the saving of An Post in the end. I did a report on post offices and the number one item was that people could not get parcels delivered to them and now it is the one thing keeping An Post profitable and keeping it going. With RTÉ and the licence fee, the Government must look at another way for this to be collected. Whether we like it or not, the way it is being collected has failed. I was at a meeting, and Deputy Conway-Walsh was there as well, about the closing of a post office. The place was packed and I asked a very simple question. I had checked with An Post before I went and I asked how many TV licences were bought in that particular area. I asked people to put up their hands, but they did not, of course. At that time it was a very small number. There was about 20 times more people living in the area and I said three things were happening, which were that some of them had a licence, some did not and the others did not buy it in the local post office. That finished the conversation on the post office. Everything just switched then and we talked about how we could save the post office. The meeting was called to try to crucify the TD and the Minister who were there on the night, but that did not work because of the point I made.

Why will RTÉ not do something about country music when it is so popular here? People go abroad for it. We see what happens when we have American artists coming here. People pay thousands of euro to see them. What is wrong with RTÉ that it will not put on a country music show once a week, once a month or six times a year? I am asking that RTÉ give a commitment to put some of this music on. People want to watch it. People enjoy it. RTÉ does not want to put it on. Mr. Bakhurst might answer that question, if he can.

I will answer the Deputy as someone whose son lives in Nashville. I thank the Deputy for his comments. He has had a long-standing interest in sport and I am very proud we provide more free-to-air sport than any other European broadcaster, with that all included in the licence fee, obviously.

On country music, I might make a hospital pass to Ms O'Connor, but there have been some discussions. When "The Late Late Show" does the country evenings they are hugely popular and there were some discussions about possibly doing it twice next year. I do not know whether we have already taken that decision, but we recognise the importance of country music. I take the Deputy's point. I cannot give him a cast-iron commitment, but Ms O'Connor may want to talk a little more about it.

I agree with the Deputy. Radio 1 would argue it features a lot of country music within its wider music shows, but we do not have a specific radio series on country music and I agree with the Deputy it would do very well and there is an appetite for it. We bring it to the biggest shows we have. We do a country night on "Dancing with the Stars" and on "The Late Late Show" and we get huge audiences for that. I think the strategy around it was we would bring it to the biggest shows we have and place it there. I agree with the Deputy we could do more, especially on radio, and specifically on country music shows. I will talk to the radio team when I go back, but what they will say to me is they play loads of country music in all their music shows. The Deputy has a point about a show just for country music.

We have superb Irish artists. Thousands of people go to see them every weekend. They would watch it on RTÉ if they got the opportunity. Ms O'Connor mentioned "The Late Late Show" special. I will not talk about "The Late Late Show". I could but I will not. There was an imbalance there too. Some of the people who presented these shows thought they were bigger than RTÉ, but things have moved on.

The next question is about funding. The witnesses might not be able to answer it now, but they can send me the figures. What are the figures on State agencies that are providing funding for coverage from RTÉ?

When I was Minister for Rural and Community Affairs, we used provide a little funding to RTÉ to make sure that it covered various things and made wildlife programmes to show the beauty of Ireland. What kind of funding does RTÉ get from other State agencies, such as Fáilte Ireland, to cover events? When I was in the Department of sport, the Sports Council provided funding in respect of the coverage of minority sports. I understand that outside broadcasts are costly. They have to be paid for. Wherever RTÉ gets funding, that is fine. I would just like to know what kind of funding RTÉ gets from the State agencies.

I can give the Deputy an overview. Mr. Deans is closer to this on a daily basis. It tends to be on a programme-by-programme or project-by-project basis. We are very grateful. We have very supportive partners, including Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland and so on. Without their support, we would not be able to make some of the programmes and show Ireland the way we do. It enables us to fund those kind of programmes we would not be able to do otherwise.

Different State agencies do different things. Fáilte Ireland, for example, sponsors weather across RTÉ and that revenue goes back into programming. Ms O'Connor, myself and the teams work across a number of different options to see what we can use or work with the different agencies to bring programming. Co-funding and sponsorship are a big part of what we do as well in terms of looking at that from a sponsor to initiate a programme.

We have many partnerships as well in the context of young people's programmes and arts and culture, specifically, in terms of Creative Ireland. They would not just be linear broadcasts or a play or a broadcast, they would also involve event-type stuff relating to education or whatever. With Creative Ireland, we can do Culture Night across the whole of Ireland. We do a large number of events. Our head of young people's programming does many children's events in partnership with some of the State agencies. They tend to lean more towards those type of programmes.

My final question relates to staffing. I hope Mr. Bakhurst and the team remember that they have loyal people working in the organisation. They are not the public face of the organisation but they work in the organisation. I hope Mr. Bakhurst and his team will protect as many of their jobs as possible, particularly as these people have been loyal to RTÉ. They are very upset at what went on in RTÉ. I hope that many of their jobs can be protected, particularly in the context of any outsourcing of work.

Broadcasting is changing. I was in Belmullet again recently. It is funny. There is a crew there. They have a little shed, which they are looking to extend, and they are producing programmes for German television. Everything has changed. I am aware of the online stuff. Everything in the world is changing. Everything is getting faster and easier, but maybe not cheaper, to do. If RTÉ is outsourcing work, I would like it to look at Irish companies or companies based in Ireland rather than going outside the State. I hope that the staff in RTÉ, as I say, not the broadcasting staff but the staff who have been loyal to RTÉ since its foundation - they love RTÉ, they work in RTÉ and they have given their lives to RTÉ - will be protected and looked after in every way possible.

Can I reassure the Deputy on that? The whole team here wholeheartedly values all the people who work at RTÉ. They do a fantastic job day in, day out. They are committed to RTÉ. This strategy is about trying to ensure the future of the organisation. If the organisation does not change, RTÉ will not have a future. It will not be relevant. We will be smaller, but there will be 1,400 people still there.

The Deputy referred to outsourcing. I would not put it that way. Investing and working with the independent sector results in really good jobs across Ireland - outside RTÉ as well - across the creative sector. There are jobs inside and outside RTÉ that we have a responsibility for.

I will begin by stating that Deputy Mattie McGrath's comments are his own personal ones, not those of the committee.

I want to come to some questions. Ms O'Connor stated that she assisted with Mr. Bakhurst to meet the staff of "Fair City" and "The Late Late Show". I appreciate that plans and strategies involve a settling-in period. I wonder if Ms O'Connor could describe the mood of the staff. Maybe it is too early to ask that question, but I wonder if it is something Ms O'Connor can speak to.

Within RTÉ, there are different types of workers. You have the editorial teams. You also have the operations teams and technical teams. I suppose each division has different concerns in terms of the strategy. I work primarily with all the editorial teams - the creatives across all genres. They understand the strategy. They understand why we are doing it. They also understand that their jobs may change. For example, editorial people who we have working in television have the skill set that can work across the entire organisation. They can go to news and current affairs. They can go to sport. They can go to radio. There are myriad areas that they can opt for because their skill set is-----

It has not. We have been quite siloed. To Mr. Lynch's point, we will be making - they are saying 2,000 hours - nearer 3,000 hours of television within RTÉ. There will be major opportunities for people who work on the editorial side across the organisation.

In terms of live programmes such as "The Late Late Show" and "Dancing with the Stars", editorial experience would probably be lacking within the independent sector. We would see some of our teams in RTÉ working in a hybrid model with the independent sector, because they have the skill set that may not be there yet. It would take time for them to work with the staff of the production companies involved to bring their skill set along.

The people who work in the studios are fully aware that those studios are not really fit for the type of programming we need to do in order to meet the audience needs. This comes down to the idea of being able to go into bespoke studios that are built to meet our needs as opposed to what we are trying to do now, which is put programmes into studios that are really too small for the type of programmes we want to shoot.

We have seen a lot of exits from 2FM. I spoke to all the individuals involved, either before or when they went, about why they were leaving. They all had different reasons, and they were largely personal reasons. Their contracts were coming up. Their reasons were different. One thing is true. All of the ones who left were in a position to do so because they had successful work outside RTÉ as well as inside it. They did not have any financial worries about leaving 2FM. All of them have been hugely successful on 2FM. They have been massive assets to the station.

It is new territory. Dan Healy, who is the fantastic leader of 2FM, and I have spoken a fair bit. He has also spoken to other members of the team here. This is a real opportunity to refresh 2FM, to bring through new talent and to give opportunities inside and outside RTÉ. Some people are already getting those opportunities and are doing really well. We will come up with a fresh schedule. In my view, 2FM is a really important station for us in terms of connecting with younger audiences that are not always easy to connect with.

I should say that this has clearly been difficult and destabilising for the team on 2FM because they worked really closely with these presenters, but they have done a fantastic job. They are brilliant. I always enjoy going over there because they are full of energy. They are full of ideas. Even with people leaving, they were asking should they be doing a bit more on social media and move their efforts a bit that way, which they should be for young audiences. This is a real opportunity.

There will be a opportunity in the months ahead to potentially put a bit more emphasis on original Irish music, new talent and things like that, which we should be doing.

We should actually be taking a bit more of a risk.

Turning to Ms McCarthy, the head of news and current affairs, I commend the work of Laura Hogan. I am thinking about the Border area and North of Ireland too, where Vincent Kearney does great work reporting and broadcasting. We are particularly interested in the context of elections, etc., but on an ongoing basis too. In terms of the future strategy for RTÉ, and not just in news and current affairs but also in drama, children or culture, is the Border region and North of Ireland part of that vision? Will the State broadcaster be taking this area into consideration as well?

Well, just from a news and current affairs perspective, we have nine regions, including Dublin and our Belfast office. Our regional offices are a priority for us. An editor, a correspondent and crews are based in Belfast and cover Northern Ireland for us. We also have our north-east team. In the next few weeks, we will be announcing our new north-west correspondent too. The regions are a priority for us, certainly from a news and current affairs perspective.

What is growing in terms of reaching audiences, because we are an all-island PSM, which is key, even if we look to the British elections taking place this week, is that we will have extra special programmes on Thursday night, including an extended "Prime Time" overnight programme because we will be covering the 18 constituencies in Northern Ireland. These are key to us and our audiences as well. From our news app, it will also be noticed that we have constituency profiles of all 18 areas. Northern Ireland, for us, therefore, is one of our regions, and we treat all our regions equally. It is really important to us, therefore, from a news and current affairs perspective.

We have worked with many Northern-based independent production companies. Some of them do some of our biggest factual journalistic series. We also do a great deal of work with the ILBF funds. We have co-productions with BBC Northern Ireland. Producers like these are key partners in all genres but tend to be more in the areas of popular and factual programmes. We are also looking at undertaking co-productions in drama. We do quite a lot of Irish-language programmes in this context as well.

I will add two points. First, one of the glowing successes of the last year has been Patrick Kielty on "The Late Late Show". He has certainly brought a different perspective to bear. There was a little bit of criticism early on regarding there being too many Northern guests and so on but this has gone away completely now and he has been a great success there. I also point to our new head of video. As the committee will be aware, we have just appointed Steve Carson to this post, who I am sure will not let Northern Ireland slip down the agenda.

Okay. That is all from me. I wish everyone the best of luck. I appreciate that it is and continues to be a challenging time for RTÉ. It is difficult when strategies and plans are being introduced and I think we all have to give these plans a chance to bed in, as they will. Senator Byrne will now take the Chair if I can be excused. Two more of my colleagues have questions for the witnesses and there may be more. I thank the witnesses very much.

I thank Mr. Bakhurst for his statement. The first thing I want to do is to express my condolences to all the staff in RTÉ on the passing of the late Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Tommie Gorman. I acknowledge the major and unique contribution they made to public broadcasting in this country. This is the first time we have been here since they passed away. I was at Tommie Gorman's funeral on Saturday, and what was unique was that everybody was there together, including everybody from all communities and all the parties who played a role in the peace process and working for peace and reconciliation. It is important to acknowledge this point. I also wish Tommy Meskill well in his new role as London correspondent. It is certainly an interesting week to be there. We will see what happens by the end of this week.

Turning back to the subject at hand, was Mr. Bakhurst led to believe that the Government was going to put forward a sustainable funding model within the next week and before the end of this Dáil term?

Well, as Mr. Bakhurst said regarding the 14% decrease in the licence fee revenue, the sooner the sustainable funding model is done, the better. Going hand-in-hand with this development, though, is the fact that RTÉ will be coming under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Does Mr. Bakhurst have any fears or concerns about this happening?

Yes. Potentially, the solution that may be emerging now is a combination of that type of oversight and the commercial auditor. I say this because we have commercial parts of the business that I am not sure the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General is necessarily best equipped to oversee. I think a combination would work better. If the involvement of the Comptroller and Auditor General and vigorous oversight would help to restore trust, then that is something we would be happy with.

It has been a year, so it has changed over that time. People at the beginning of the year were extremely angry and upset by what was emerging about RTÉ. For the first few months, it was about me trying to get out to explain what we had discovered and what we were trying to do to ensure this never happened again. This feeling has lessened a bit now because the staff have seen the changes and know those we have made in terms of governance and so on.

The second aspect concerned communication. I think people felt they had not been communicated with properly and there was a gap and a gulf between the senior levels of the organisation and the rest of it, if you like. We have all worked exceptionally hard on this issue within our own teams, including me personally and the communications team, to ensure we are listening and sharing information. I have tried to make it a principle, as far as possible, that staff find out everything from me and the team first, before they find things out from the press or elsewhere.

No, I absolutely would not. Our legal director, Mr. Coady, is here too and he would not stand for that kind of treatment either. We must be fair. A surprising amount of litigation goes on here, though, I find. I was quite surprised by it. We must try to deal with it fairly.

Some cases are straightforward. Frankly, I am quite surprised when people resort to legal action but I believe that RTÉ needs to fight its corner because we need to be robust where we have to be robust and we need to be fair where we have to be fair. Mr. Coady might talk more about our approach.

It is simply that we have invested heavily in Irish language services and the approach we want to take in the strategy this time around is actually to be really clear about what we think is core public service value. I would include in that RnaG, and the Nuacht. We are spending more now on our general Irish language content and producing more hours. In Niamh Ní Churnáin we have an excellent head of Irish language content in RTÉ. As the Deputy will be aware, we are showing more Irish language programmes on RTÉ One in high audience slots early in the evening. It is a core part of what we do. This strategy is about actually doubling down on our public service remit, whether that is news, current affairs and investigations, arts, culture, the orchestra and so on, or Irish language. They are core pillars and they are called out in the strategy as being absolutely critical for the future.

I will finish up by referring to Wild Atlantic Studios, which Deputy Ring also mentioned. I do not know if Mr. Bakhurst is familiar with it. It is in the gteic hub in Belmullet. It is a broadcasting studio and a film and television production company. It works with partners in Germany and throughout the EU. That would be a really good partnership that perhaps Mr. Bakhurst might look at in terms of how RTÉ can reach into the regions. It is very important.

I thank the Deputy for her comments on Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Tommie O'Gorman. I was at Mícheál's removal and I was at Tommie's funeral as well. It was quite exceptional to see the senior leaders from Northern Ireland all sitting in one aisle next to one other. I could not believe it. That spoke volumes about Tommie's role over the years.

I will start where the last contributions concluded, with expressions of sympathy to the organisation on the loss of two greats. I did not get to Sligo even though I knew Tommie for many years. I did get to Dingle on Saturday for the funeral of the late Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. They were clearly two wonderful ambassadors of RTÉ and great representatives of what Irish culture and Irish society is about. Sometimes in the middle and the morass of all this a lot of the good people get lost, missed and forgotten about because of the actions or misdeeds of some.

I have advocated for quite some time that we need to move on from the blame game. The damage has been done. I compliment Mr. Bakhurst and his interim leadership team. Perhaps he will tell us when it is not going to be an interim leadership team anymore. It is important to recognise what Mr. Bakhurst has achieved. If Deputy McGrath was still here, I am sure he would say that we are attempting to flatter Mr. Bakhurst, but we are not. We are trying to protect an organisation that is really important to the democratic institutions of this State and is there to hold Government and all aspects of society to account. As Deputy Ring might say, we not might like when we do not feature in certain positive stories but this is a feature of what the whole thing is actually about. I compliment Mr. Bakhurst on what he has done in the stabilisation.

In his opening statement Mr. Bakhurst said that notwithstanding everything that has happened, the Irish public trusts RTÉ from a news and current affairs perspective. They put RTÉ up there with The Irish Times. I believe this is justified. I mentioned here before that we saw the best and the worst of RTÉ in the context of what happened. We saw news and current affairs holding elements of the organisation to account. That is as it should be. This clearly demonstrates to me that notwithstanding what has happened, the Irish people still trust the content RTÉ provides. It goes back to my initial point that this is really important given RTÉ's role in a truly democratic society.

This brings me on to my next point about funding. I will not push Mr. Bakhurst on it because he clearly does not want me to do so, but it is an important point to make when we are talking about funding public service broadcasting. If one believes in the principle of public service broadcasting then one must pay for it. I like the idea of linking it to a licence fee or a contribution. I know there will not be enough collected through the licence fee and there has to be a hybrid model but it would be foolhardy of any Government to put the entirety of the responsibility on the Exchequer at a time when there clearly is a trust among the Irish people. Some people have decided not to pay. I have heard people saying they will not pay because others are not paying or they do not believe that they will have to pay and they will get away with it. That was the same with some of the household charges when they came in first. When that charge moved to Revenue people got over any concerns they had because they just do not like that letter with the harp coming in. Compliance skyrocketed when it moved from the local authorities to Revenue.

I ask Mr. Bakhurst to talk a little bit about the quantum of money that RTÉ needs and how he might see that growing over time. The strategy document is a five-year document and Mr. Bakhurst said it is hoped to reduce the numbers by 400 over five years. What kind of financial firepower will RTÉ need over that period to achieve that rectification?

I thank the Senator for his comments. They are much appreciated. On the interim leadership team, we made the two appointments announced in the last day or so. When they and the new chief financial officer arrive, that will be the permanent leadership team. We are pretty much in place now. We will talk to the board about it and that will be confirmed.

With regard to the level of funding, we based the strategy on the recommendations of the Future of Media Commission. The amount it recommended, adjusted for inflation, gives a starting figure of €255 million. Then we said we would ideally need approximately 2% a year so that we do not get stuck in an unsustainable position again in a few years' time because inflation has run away but the funding stayed at the same level. That sum in itself, on this strategy, would be enough to reshape the organisation. In the early years, there would be some investments in new technologies and new products. We would need to fund the voluntary exit scheme across the period. We would have to co-ordinate with that as we move some production off site. We think that level of funding is sufficient to deliver this level of quite transformational change and make the organisation ready for the future by the end of five years. It is important to say that by the end of five years, once it is smaller and once we have reduced the site and reduced overheads, it will put the organisation, for the first time in decades, in a financially sustainable position if that correct level of funding is actually delivered.

Does Mr. Bakhurst believe this will be enough to assist in the exit packages associated with the 400 staff, whatever way they move? The plan is in place, the organisation has been stabilised, the team has been changed and the structures, oversight and governance are in place. The rubber hits the road now in terms of the difficult task of actually implementing that plan. I can only wish Mr. Bakhurst well. I will not ask him detailed questions about it because obviously it is an iterative process through which management will have to work its way. The only concern I have is the level of what appears to be disenchantment among staff generally, given the rate at which they are contacting people here, at the Department and elsewhere outside RTÉ.

I note Mr. Bakhurst has regularly explained to us his open and transparent approach with staff. I am sure Ms Cusack, who is head of HR, will be more than well aware of this. The difficult piece now is trying to manage that in order that there is not too much discord, too much back fighting, too much leakage of information and so on, which undermines confidence in the organisation. That is the important piece. Perhaps Mr. Bakhurst wishes to express some comments on how he hopes to proceed in that regard.

I recognise fully that people are facing up to the strategy now and the reality, even though we published it in November. The main pillars were there. This is the reality now and they see the reality. They have seen the reality that we will be shrinking back significantly on site, and that is a physical manifestation that we will be smaller as an organisation.

The Senator is totally right. It is about communicating and giving reassurance. I keep reassuring on the voluntary nature of the exit scheme. It is about talking this through with staff.

I understand members of the committee have been contacted and I will not downplay it. There are areas of the organisation that are concerned more than others, as we discussed before. However, a significant number of members of the organisation also know this is the only way to stabilise the organisation. There are no easy choices.

Is anyone seriously saying we should spend €300 million over a 12-year period on the old buildings on Donnybrook? I could not come into this committee and say that is a plan I can present to the Government or the committee and say it is money well spent from taxpayers’ hard-earned money when we do not really need those buildings and there is a better way of doing it.

We are not alone in this strategy. I was talking to an old colleague at the BBC. The BBC spends 33% of its money on independent productions. Under this strategy, we will not be quite to that level. It will be in excess of what the Future of Media Commission stated. We will not be spending the same on independent productions as someone like the BBC. This is the way organisations are moving – a hybrid model of spending in-house and spending with independent partners, who bring in all sorts of new ideas, new thinking, diversity of thought and so on, which would be refreshing for our schedules and content.

I wish Mr. Bakhurst well with it. I remember being on this committee a good few years ago and there was a similar encounter where projections were made and the organisation was getting smaller, and ultimately it never happened. I know it is an entirely different context now and that latitude is not there. It will not be easy.

It is important to say that I have heard one or two comments that people are paying the price for the mistakes of the past year. That simply is not the case. This strategy would have been necessary whether the last year happened or not. Probably what is new is the enhanced governance framework. We have more emphasis on that. There is no doubt that RTÉ is behind the timeline in investing in digital products. It needs to be more agile. We need to meet the Future of Media Commission. That has not changed in the past year. We would have had to change like this to-----

That was actually going to be my next point. In trying to transition from that legacy organisation, this was attempted before and, sadly, it failed. It took a crisis like what happened for the rubber to hit the road for everybody to say “Stop, we need to go.” We know what the reason is. The legacy media organisation that was there is no longer relevant in today’s society. We have been afforded an opportunity now. Let us work with Mr. Bakhurst to try to get there.

I might like to hear a little bit more from Mr. Waghorn if we have time. In the context of digital media, to what extent does he hope to transform the organisation? What are the early wins? We regularly hear about issues with the RTÉ Player. I spend a lot of time on the road – more than most people. For example, I want to watch the news at 6 p.m. and I go to the app, but something else is playing from sometime earlier and I do not get to see the 6 o’clock news or the “Nine O’Clock News”. I am sure he cannot be on top of everything. We want to see a timeframe and plan where we will get to that robust interaction on the digital platform. I am sure it is not easy but we have to get there.

I compliment the regional strategy, as was done earlier. Those of us who come from the regions - I am from the mid-west - really value what can be done. With the changes in technology, to bring people closer to the stories in their area, you perhaps do not need the same level of technology because much more stuff can get shot on an iPhone. Not too long ago, I did an interview on the way from Ukraine on my iPhone. The quality looked good - so far as making this look enhanced. Much more can be done with much less rig and technology. It would be interesting to see if Mr. Waghorn has any plans in that area.

Yes. We continually invest in our digital products, because that is the nature of the beast. The reliability of the RTÉ Player over the past few years has definitely gotten much better. We have been focused on improving its performance since it was relaunched in 2018.

What is exciting about this strategy is that, with the consolidation on site, we can think differently around some of the facilities we need to provide on site. We can invest in more modern technology that would help us to be more efficient, introduce new workflows and be much more flexible.

This is all in the context of the fact we only spend about €9 million a year on capital within the organisation on technology, digital projects and including the transmission network. With €9 million, when there is an asset base including transmission close to €200 million, you have to sweat your assets and infrastructure. With this strategy, we will be rethinking how we supply much of the technology to the organisation with the new facilities and try to do it at a slightly smaller footprint of our technology estate than we have today. It is an area we need to continually invest in. I have been saying to Mr. Bakhurst and the team that we need to have more resources in the technology space, and the strategy sets that out.

I will conclude. At the outset, the Leas-Chathaoirleach wished a Clare man all the best on being appointed to London. His dad is from Wexford and that is where he got that touch in. I wish Tommy Meskill well. He was a trusted member of RTÉ's staff around this House and he will be a loss, but I am sure it opens up an opportunity for somebody else.

I wish to add one piece on the technology side. One of the things Mr. Waghorn and his team have done and invested significantly in over the past couple of years, despite the constraints, is the digitisation of the archive. One of the things in the strategy that has not been called out hugely is, once that digitisation is complete, our plans to make that archive fully available to the Irish public so there is a real living museum or archive that people can access online. We have this fantastic archive and I think one of the greatest public services we can do is make that available. We know people are interested in it.

It is an exchange for services. We changed and updated the policy in May – just recently. When we came in and I joined in February, we looked at the policy. We changed the guards around it. The financial controller has ultimate sign-off. It is not within the commercial department. That has changed. It has also gone in front of the board. I report on that every six months to the ILT and to the board following that. For example, when we have long deals going on with the likes of the major promoters, part of their arrangement is part cash and part contra. That would be standard practice across a number of different areas.

It is similar but it is not because it tends to not come through an agency. There are barter agencies. Barter agencies plan on behalf of clients and use that. Usually, you would tend to deal with the direct clients themselves and you would do a deal. You will have long-term agreements with regard to what you will do, for example, it is something like the festivals we do that are currently going on.

I have done the sums and I have worked out that when RTÉ is cashing it out, it is losing about 54% in purchasing power. I sat here and held up the list. I had many places highlighted, but no one was arguing that with the barter account, not everything there was surplus to requirements. There were certain things that were useful and would be used in the ordinary day-to-day running. I refer to things that could reasonably be expected to be incurred for the ordinary day-to-day running of the organisation. By taking the policy that RTÉ has taken now, if we are starting with over €1 million, is it effectively losing out on significant purchasing power of possibly €500,000? This goes back to the baby with the bathwater analogy mentioned earlier.

No, that is not the case. It works on the basis of the cash value. Let us work it out. If you were to buy something with the trade credits, the barter agency would charge you €100 but you would only get €65 worth of value for those credits. It ends up as a one-to-one euro. That is just the mechanism that they use and that is part of their trade agreements.

It would never be 100% like for like. That 65% is always going to be 65%, whether that is for a service or for cash. We spoke about barter agencies earlier. Every agency and different clients have different rates, based on the commitment that they spend, the long-term agreements that they have with us, the size of the agencies and different things. The barter is different because that tends to be coming from a client that will not spend it any other way, unless it is through these barter agencies. They have created a new currency in barter agencies. It is mainly being driven from those agencies in the UK. If we did not take that revenue, we would be down a lot. The difference when I refer to the contra account is that in that case, we get tickets or something of value in equivalent for the advertising space that we currently have. Where the barter is different is that it is an agency set-up, and is based on the clients they have. We will only get that amount of revenue for it. I would be happy to bring Deputy Griffin through the details of the numbers.

It is more than €154 million. When we talk about how we performed last year with everything going on, one of the big things was that advertisers and the advertising agencies supported RTÉ in a major way. They supported RTÉ and the people who worked within RTÉ - I was not there then - based on the programming and the type of programming. When we look at this year-----

Okay. Thank you. I received a call today about television licences being demanded in respect of the pyrite houses. These houses are being knocked down and the televisions have been put away in boxes, yet the television licence is still being charged. Does RTÉ think it is fair to take that money on a direct debit? There is still a demand on people to pay a television licence even though they do not have a house, never mind a television.

-----grossly unfair to charge you.

Obviously, we advocate for multi-annual Exchequer funding, which is linked with the Comptroller and Auditor General. We think that is going to be the future and the best way for us to move forward. The witnesses talked earlier about the safeguards, and safeguards absolutely have to be in there. Is there any particular safeguards that the witnesses would like to see? Are those safeguards surmountable with regard to any concerns the witnesses might have for independence?

There are some very effective safeguards, particularly in the Nordic countries. We have touched on Sweden. One of them is multi-annual. It could be set outside the electoral cycle and that is an advantage. In Sweden, it is five years and they are planning to extend to seven. When the decision is taken, it would be preferable to have an independent regulator involved and for that regulator's recommendations to have real weight in terms of delivery, rather than simply being taken by the Government of the day. That is another safeguard we could have in place.

I will say that in general, all of us realise the critical role that is played by RTÉ in the national discourse. I might touch quickly on something that is mentioned in the strategy in the context of contributing to policy debates on technology and the digital space. There is a specific mention of net neutrality and AI, but only in respect of contributing toward the policy debates. Does RTÉ envisage the use of artificial intelligence in the creation of content, either by RTÉ or through independent commissioning, over the coming years?

Mr. Waghorn is a living expert on this. We have a framework which we are finalising about the use of AI in the organisation. Mr. Waghorn and his team have done great work on that.

We already use AI but there need to be appropriate safeguards around it. That might be human oversight. Particularly in the field of journalism, it is really important that humans make the final decisions. There is no doubt that AI can lead to efficiencies. It is already doing so within the organisation but we need to be transparent about where we are using it and it must be properly overseen by human beings.

We will be publishing those principles internally this week. As Mr. Bakhurst has said, transparency is key in the use of AI. We can use AI for back-end processes. We are already using it in some instances. We can also look to use AI tools to create richer metadata for our content. This enables improved search and discovery of that content for audiences. With particular regard to the digitisation of the archive that Mr. Bakhurst talked about earlier, AI can be used to create a lot more metadata to drive that service. If we were to use generative AI to create content that we were to use, as Mr. Bakhurst has said, it would all have to be very transparent and we would have to be very open and honest about it. However, we do not see any situation at the moment wherein AI-driven avatars, voice presenters or promos would replace the work we currently do. It is a question of AI adding value to what we do in the content space as opposed to replacing it.

The journalist Mark Coughlan, who has done some work in this area, has been superb in informing this debate. It will also be critical for us in the political space to address misinformation and disinformation arising from the misuse of AI. From a political perspective, it will be essential to deal with deepfakes, particularly coming into an election. I am aware that guidelines were published in advance of the local and European locations. How will RTÉ apply those in the context of the electoral cycle?

We will have a new strand called "RTÉ Clarity" very shortly. This will specifically target misinformation and disinformation. To the Leas-Chathaoirleach's point, because news is now 24-7 and can be accessed in so many locations, it will also target verification and sourcing. Critical to building trust and ensuring that the news is accurate, fair and impartial is sourcing and verifying what we publish so that we can stand over it. That feeds into our principles on generative AI. Journalists will also have a key role in providing 24-7 news.

It might be a sign of diminishing numbers. I got Mr. Bakhurst's earlier point about licence fee payment rates being linked to particular committee hearings. To share Senator Dooley's point, things have moved on significantly. Members of the committee will know how difficult it is to transform an organisation. I think the majority of committee members have always felt, as have I, that while we are not going to agree with everything, RTÉ has a critical role in Irish society. As one of the major players in public service broadcasting, although not the only one, it is important that RTÉ holds us to account in the same way that we ask questions of RTÉ. We look forward to seeing the strategy being implemented. It is important that happen in partnership with staff and, most importantly, with audiences. I am quite certain that RTÉ will remain in the headlines for the next few weeks for a variety of reasons but, moving on, we want to see more content being created and more quality public service broadcasting so that we can have a sense of value for money, regardless of how the public pays for it. I thank the witnesses very much for coming this evening. We look forward to continuing to work with them.

That concludes our business for today. The committee stands adjourned until Wednesday, 10 July, although we are to launch a minor report tomorrow afternoon. On Thursday of next week, we will launch our report on regional and community arts, which is not generating the same level of interest.