Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

hotmail.com

Brian Stanley tells Virgin Media that RTE told the PAC Bull*hit everytime they came into them.

Cluedo Monopoly

Who in their right mind will pay the license fee now? I am actually looking forward to getting my next reminder. I will forward it straight to Catherine Martin and demand a refund of all my previous license fees that went to O'Keefe and Coveney and other Muppets.

Downlinz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805299#Comment_121805299

If we're all just accepting it's a bottomless cash pit of waste for taxpayers money full of directors with no appetite for change and nobody knowing who's accountable then why should the public fund RTE and why is the government position to continue funding RTE?

Surely letting the organisation fend for itself and doing something else with public money on the necessary media services is the logical next step?

hotmail.com

Completely bizarre for Catherine Martin to have this big interview tonight rather than having the meeting first.

Catherine Martin is an idiot.

Why didn't she have the meeting today and sack her then.

inajock

It's been going on for ever. Big payouts for redundancy yet the head count goes up every year.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805371#Comment_121805371

It is bizarre. She was nowhere to be found when the revelations were coming out. 7 months for a report blah blah blah. Then she meets the chair on Monday and Wednesday, hits Prime Time in RTE studios on Thursday and effectively says she is going to fire the chair on Friday!! Insane manoeuvres.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805400#Comment_121805400

I wonder what her Green voters think of this strategy to effectively sack someone live on Prime Time television.

Cluedo Monopoly

Where is that absolute hero of a poster who warned us about all of the shenanigans in RTE for years??

@ButtersSuki You were right!!!

inajock

Let's not forget about the two extremely talented producers employed by RTE getting 2 pay cheques each plus artists tax exemptions for for good measure.

Real cost of TSTM to the tax payer much higher than 2,200,000. Euro.

hotmail.com

There may be some hidden reasons for this bizarre interview tonight from Catherine Martin.

What exactly is Catherine Martin hiding and why the need for this interview at all?

She's in trouble.

Windowsnut

Why have RTE staff not walked out in protest?

Martin should resign now and the board sacked, this has just ground on and on and on!

Slate needs to be wiped, shutter the station and get on with it.

Can we use their own slogan- The truth matters?

Every news program has been consumed by this.

As Pat Kenny said last Thursday, we should be discussing the national children’s hospital overspend,or I think, is it 2 billion interest a month the Irish taxpayer is still paying for the banking bailout?

Chopper Dave

This is indeed bizarre. First, RTE gives the impression that Coveney resigned and Backhurst refers to him as being eligible for ‘statutory’ payments but gives a clear impression that no other payments were made. Then, when the payments are disclosed there’s concern as to how Backhurst unilaterally approved two exit payments without running it by the Board. Then it turns out that the Board did approve at least one of them but told the Minster otherwise.

There’s no way any Govt can approve funding for RTE with all these landmines going off and worse of all this isn’t Dee and Moya it’s their two replacements

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805460#Comment_121805460

Maybe a newspaper was about to spill the beans and she wanted to get ahead of it. Strange behaviour. Both Siun and Catherine need to step down. Bakhurst too. Get a competent manager on a short term contract in to do a very quick evaluation of the remaining muppets and come up with a remediation plan with stark options. It's a basket case. I would reduce the size of it significantly, sell the assets off and repurpose RTE to a news and current affairs provider, nothing more. 1 news channel, 1 radio channel, 1 website.

Widdensushi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805462#Comment_121805462

Apparently they only resign when offered sacks of cash, whoever offers sacks of cash now is likely to be sacked so I doubt we will be seeing any more resignations.

jmcc

It doesn't look good for Martin or Ní Raghallaigh. Both seem to be completely out of their depth. Martin's use to the government is that she is a distraction to the Immigration issue and the Childrens Hospital issue. It wouldn't be suprising to see her accept the explanations tomorrow. On the other hand, this latest RTE issue has confirmed that RTE doesn't seem to have any respect for Martin to have "misinformed" her like this. Martin has to act or her own position could be in question.

Regards...jmcc.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805516#Comment_121805516

Siún Ní Raghallaigh was effectively sacked on TV tonight, I will be astonished if she remains in post by tomorrow evening.

Martins interview on PT was extraordinary. It was clearly a set up with requested questions. My guess was one of the papers was going to run with this tomorrow and she needed to get out ahead of it to prevent herself getting consumed by it.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805564#Comment_121805564

Possibly. Beaker's coverage in the Indo has been quite good on this and he does ask the right questions. The problem is that it is not just Ní Raghallaigh who is in the firing line (bad pun) for this as there are other RTE people who also had knowledge of the situation.

Regards...jmcc

Widdensushi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805564#Comment_121805564

I would have had to watch rte to see that so that's a negative, it's all getting more bizarre, throwing each other under buses, as for papers running unwanted stories, they have them fairly well censored from my limited personal experience,I wouldn't believe much in them anymore either when they were given proof of other stories being false but still printed government propaganda.

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805633#Comment_121805633

They'll turn on each other like cornered rats and while there may have been leaks to the press before now, that's likely to become a flood.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

And she's gone:

https://twitter.com/RTENewsPaulC/status/1760829234862272531

Regards...jmcc

Rubberchikken

Nearly a year later and the lies and obfuscation are still happening.

Can't and won't watch rte so no idea what happened with siun etc but clearly the whole thing is an absolute shambles that has no end.

Is 'misinformation' the new way to describe lies. Because it about time someone starting calling a shovel a shovel and send this $hitshow packing.

jmcc

As always, Beaker has an interesting take on events. It doesn't seem to be as straightforward as it seems.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rte-chair-siun-ni-raghallaigh-dramatically-resigns-but-insists-she-did-tell-ministers-officials-about-exit-package/a2058427812.html

If it turns out that she did inform the department officials, it looks like Martin herself is now in trouble. If there's a paper record confirming Ni Raghallaigh's story then Martin might be next for the high jump.

Regards...jmcc

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805698#Comment_121805698

So as I suspected, the rush to appear on PT tonight by Martin was an attempt to get ahead of the story and get her twist out first.

Martin is in peril now. No loss, she's been a completely absent minister on this.

Bit mad how two normally quiet sedate ministries ended up in Green hands and have been at the centre of controversy for a while.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805698#Comment_121805698

I am reading that right - she is contradicting herself in that statement, she did know, told the minister she didn't know, but then says she told them in October???

Atlantic Dawn

It's probably time to call in Sam Allardyce 😂

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805710#Comment_121805710

She told the dept about the package for Collins but seemingly did not say it had been approved by the board.

The question is did Martin say she had no knowledge of the package in the last few days? I can't remember myself!

fritzelly

Just after watching PT - Martin is such a weak sounding Minister

jmcc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805710#Comment_121805710

Looks like a CYA statement but it has completely stitched up Martin. The department was informed but one thing did not go through the full board. Very clever choice of words.

"I was asked if the Board knew about the exit packages for Rory Coveney and Richard Collins. I said that I was aware of them, but they had not come before the full Board. However, I neglected to recollect that Richard Collin’s exit package did go before the Renumeration Committee"

Regards...jmcc

RabbleRouser2k

Whole thing is becoming a mess, I'd say answers and accountability will be few, if any.

fritzelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121805722#Comment_121805722

The way I read that is they both came before the board, regardless if they agreed, if one package approved and another not why did both packages get paid off.

It's just another "we do what we like in RTE" - sod what anyone says, especially the board, why did HR not get approval from the board for the payment? Does someone just rock up to HR saying Hey 400k payoff has been agreed and no one bothers to check.

The gross incompetence of mismanagement seems to run through every level of RTE. Next person brought to PAC should be the head of HR since surely they are the ones approving pay offs.