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

Must be a new entrant for the golden circle. I am sure if enough digging is done on him you will find he is politically connected to one of FG or FF. I doubt if the Greens would be allowed put one of their own crony's in there.

That's all meaningless in the public eye. The public are not going to side with any whiff of rte defenceness when we're being told we told we're not allowed to know what people get paid in a license funded service.

Exactly….In my opinion there is a concerted effort from within RTE and their aide-de-camps in the national media to divert attention

away from the swamp that is the National Broadcaster.

How one ‘agent’ got so much power in the National Broadcaster is mind boggling.

If one were to get really cynical one could be forgiven for surmising that it was an organised attempt to screw John Q TAXPAYER

for everything they could get, and then put the begging bowl out.

Its difficult to look at it any other way in my opinion.

When all this is finally over…..what is the outcome ?

• Broadcasting charge based on Leo’s preferred route this morning.
• Few RTE heads gone but most well paid off
• Politicans get their media profiles enhanced

So RTE will get their funding model enhanced ……for a fundamentally flawed service but will leave them more careful about going after politicians.

RTE and the Politicans will be the winners…..and we are the losers both financially and in terms of little reform other than cosmetic stuff.

aye i suppose...GnTs after the canapes in the private box at landsdowne road....ex top dog in KPMG,hmm..do ye mind a fews years ago that young one in a video spouting off how her dad was top man in KPMG...?wonder same person?.....yeah bit of a yachty type look to him all right,great to know where our licence fee/tax money is going to!

The Media Committee extended an invitation to herself and Forbes to appear before it. Her statement has already been submitted. If she takes up the invitation and repeats this to the committee then Martin is in a lot of trouble. There seems to be an attempt to try saving Martin by FFG but Catherine Murphy/SocDems has asked for time in the Dail for Martin to answer questions. This does not appear to be having the quiet ending for which Martin hoped.

The optics for FFG are terrible on this as it seems like a nice little old lady being bullied by an incompetent and out-of-touch minister and then blamed for that minister's incompetence. Turns out that the nice little old lady is a formidable corporate politician who is causing a lot of problems for FFG and knows how to play the game of influencing the public better than them.

Regards...jmcc

Martin won't be answering questions in the Dáil. The government will either say no and drag this out for another few days and the Dáil breaks for St Patrick's. Martin will be delighted to get out of the country.

If the Dail committee says she has to answer questions then she has to answer questions. Otherwise it looks like FFG is trying to save her at the expense of democracy. And the voters will remember.

Regards...jmcc

Right now voters believe there's a golden circle running rte and yet the public is the one threatened constantly with prosecution via rte ads for not funding the gravy train.

Siun may feel she's in the right, but in an arrangement that's not transparent.

Plus she's wasn't sacked, she flounced and this "traduce" fightback projects only privileged arrogance, a harder more entrenched tubridy tantrum.

“THE Department of Health's top civil servant is retiring on a package of €540,000 after securing a boost to his pension.

But secretary general Michael Scanlan is not availing of the early retirement scheme for the public service, which ends this month.

He is the latest in a raft of top civil servants to retire in recent months, including fellow secretary general Dermot McCarthy, who sparked controversy with his gold-plated €730,000 retirement package.”

Civil servants get packages too.

Why aren't the media probing the Chris Greene thing?

They are exit packages……

“Mr McCarthy, who was secretary general to the government for eleven years and also secretary general to three Taoisigh, retired in July.

In addition to his annual pension of €142,670, he also received a lump sum of €428,011 and a special severance package of €142,670 bringing his overall payment to €713,351.

Mr McCarthy was Bertie Ahern’s chief advisor during the Northern peace process negotiations and was in a pivotal government position, even attending Cabinet meetings, during the economic meltdown and the bailout from the EU/IMF.

All civil servants are entitled a lump sum of 1.5 times their final salary on retirement. Only the highest earners pay tax on this amount.”

So based on the above 713k, he got a special severance package of 142k

The scheme refers to 1.5 times final salary, but they didn’t apply that. He was on 208k when he left but they applied his pre crash salary of 285k so that he would get more. That benefitted him to the tune of over 110k.

So 250k of that package was a nice little sweetener.

Please remember that Mr Mc Carthy left when we were under the control of the troika, a time in which we were told about extra taxes, new taxes and here is the state trying to made the termination pay as big as they can.

My point all along since I started contributing to this thread, was that RTE behaviour was more of a learned behaviour rather than them doing something way out of kilter with the rest of the PS/Civil Service. Maybe the RTE severance payments are also made on the some contractual arrangement as with civil service terms, but we will never know as the Politicans are too busy grandstanding to ask pertinent follow up questions.

I have no interest in RTE continuing in anything like its current form, and I see this whole 8 months culminating in the PAC report today …..as yet another wasted opportunity in this state.

We are great at tribunals of inquiry, great at reports, and awful at implementing reform.

Looking at it cynically, they prevent legal problems in that the cost of defending a legal action against getting rid of someone is evaluated and they are paid to go away quietly.

Regards...jmcc

Jaysus……One of those Hardimans!!!

Theres always one.