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

Rte just trying to pass the buck imo.

And yeah minutes, actual official genuine minutes would be hand from all these meetings if board members heads are so woolly.

Not up to the job and the depth of her brief. Her biggest success has been giving a few bob every week to her pals, the 'artistes' and that's about it.

Did that few Bob include pi#s artistes?

asking for a friend!

Retired Sec Gen has no skin in the game - so probably the most reliable account of what happened.

What have SF done?

Resign so that she can't or won't be held accountable for anything now.

They all take the easy way out and the govt is allowing it.

The board of RTE don't exactly get big money for serving on the board.

Compared to Martin (another teacher/TD), Ni Raghallaigh has a very strong CV.

Regards...jmcc

From memory, she'll get a ministerial pension in the future. There's a payoff/disappointment money if she loses her seat in the next GE. Then there's always the chance she'll be appointed to some state board.

Regards...jmcc

This is the problem with the "one for everyone in the audience" approach to appointing people like Martin. The MONC would have occupuied the news cycle for a few days and when it was lost due to the FFG majority, it would have been forgotten. In moving to bring Martin before the Dail, SF has effectively sidestepped the MONC trap. PBP has also asked for Martin to be brought before the Dail for questioning.

Martin is, as has been pointed out above, a very poor communicator. The spectacle of her appearing in the Dail will be far more damaging for her, and FFG, than Ni Raghallaigh. The idea that Martin knows little of corporate politics and is completely out of her depth is reinforced every time she speaks on this issue. The only upside for FFG is that it takes the focus off the Immigration issue and the Housing issue for a while.

Regards...jmcc

The Minister is the sole shareholder in RTE i.e. the owner.

Normally where the Board of a company locks heads with the owner, there is only one outcome.

To the best of my knowledge:

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. No. I think she referred to the dept being informed about "the process". This passing of information was so insignificant to dept Sec Gen that she didn't make a note of it. RTE chair seems to attach more significance to it. It seems to be a he said/she said scenario as we have no transcript or recording of the call. (Or do we??)

4. Yes. Legal advice to RTE is to not ignore the confidentiality agreements.

5. Yes he did. He wanted a total figure. He stated that this would preserve confidentiality. Not sure RTE legal advice would agree.

6. Don't know.

Multitasking and not doing it very well. Might also need a new keyboard.

Regards...jmcc

On #3, there has been no evidence produced that information was passed to the sec gen. She has denied it happened according the Catherine martin at the press conference. The only person who says it happened is Siun ni R. Apparently the meeting minutes of the comp review committee from back in Oct state Siun's intention to notify the minister. This jogged her memory last Thursday and she claims she did notify. Who knows what really happened. The sec gen would have to be very incompetant not to attach significance to that as it would have been the first time in this whole mess that an exit package was aprroved by the head of the board. Siun ni R has thrown the ex sec gen under the bus and basically has accused her of not passing on information to the minister. Why the minister has not made a meal of this and defended her ex sec gen and her department shows how weak the minister is and how bad a communicator she is.

Thanks very much for confirming KaneToad - I'll wanted to fact-check those points before commenting further. (Probably later today, need to do a few chores first!)

One apology. I worded question 3 badly.

What I wanted to know/ask was did Martin say on Thursday that she only became aware that day (i.e. Thursday) that the information given to her by Siún (on Monday and again on Wednesday) were incorrect as a result of being told this by one of her officials on Thursday? [It's clear that it was Siún herself that told Martin on Thursday - I'm just seeking to confirm that Martin initially claimed on Thursday that she learned about the misinformation from one of her officials]