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'It's not good enough': Committee says better oversight of how RTÉ spends taxpayers' money is needed

It called on RTÉ to sign up to new service-level agreement to ensure there is transparency in how it spends the licence fee money.

THERE NEEDS TO be better oversight of how RTÉ spends taxpayers’ money, according to members of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Launching their periodic report, the cross-party committee queried the lack of a service level agreement between the national broadcaster and the Department of Communications.

The report summarises its conclusions on a number of issues it dealt with last year, such as IBRC, RTÉ, and the account audits of a number of third level institutions.

Today the committee urged RTÉ bosses to sign up to transparency deals in return for government money due to ongoing concerns over how they pay their top broadcasters.

It also called on RTÉ to sign up to new service-level agreement contracts to ensure there is transparency in how it spends the licence fee money.

PAC chair Fianna Fáil TD Sean Fleming said there is no legal requirement on RTÉ to agree to such a contract, adding that there are concerns about individual presenters setting up their own private companies.

Taxpayers’ money 

The committee said it was informed by the Secretary General that there are regular meetings between the department and chief financial officer for RTÉ, however, these are on an “informal basis”.

Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane said “it is not good enough” that nearly 50% of the department’s spending goes to the national broadcaster, yet public representatives, like himself, can’t put questions to the station bosses as to how it spends the money.

“I don’t think that is good enough and for that reason we have asked RTÉ to come before the PAC,” he said, adding that he hopes the accept the invitation.

While he said RTÉ must remain independent in terms of policy, “equally it should be held to account for the use of taxpayers’ money. At this point in time there is no mechanism to allow RTÉ to be publicly held to account, not by the PAC or anybody else in my view”, said the Waterford TD.

He added that there were also concerns about bogus-self employment arrangements in use at the national broadcaster, an issue that has been highlighted in the past by its own reporters.

The department’s largest area of expenditure for 2016 was broadcasting, which accounted for €241 million. Over €179.3 million in grant funding went to RTÉ in 2016.

Here is a breakdown of how licence fee money was spent in that year:

IMG_0822 - Edited

The committee said it was told that a formal oversight agreement between the broadcaster and the department would be in place by the end of 2017, with the Secretary General of the department adding that it was their view that there is sufficient control mechanisms in place.

While the PAC is one of the most important Oireachtas Committees in terms of holding State bodies to account, its members raised concerns about the lack of sanctions imposed on those who fail to take on their recommendations.

“I don’t believe there are adequate sanctions,” said Fianna Fáil’s Marc McSharry, adding that there is nothing binding to ensure changes are made following their findings.

He said this serves to undermine the value of the committee’s work.

While the majority of those invited to appear before the committee do attend, a number of invitees from the private sector and international companies have chosen not to.

Fleming said people are asked to attend on a voluntary basis and those working in the private sector, who do not receive public monies, are not required to attend.

Cullinane said the majority of accounting officers that do appear before the committee are from government departments and state bodies. He added that the committee’s work in the past has been frustrated by some officials who have failed to supply sufficient documentation and information.

“The lack of candour from some of the accounting officers – and these are people that are well-paid – has been found wanting at times,” he concluded.

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    Mute Michael Russell
    Favourite Michael Russell
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:57 PM

    Forgive my ignorance of science & biology , but genuine question: just because earth life forms produce methane…. Does it necessarily mean alien life forms do? Can we base the fundamentals of all possible life on what we have seen on earth? (Earth is a very small sample to use in the context of the universe!)

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:09 PM

    I don’t care what they do or don’t find tbh. They continuously blow my mind in what they achieve. They make me feel proud of men.

    44
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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:36 PM

    A tad sexist don’t you think?

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:57 PM

    No. I don’t think it’s sexist really as I’ve had an interest in space exploration for 30 years and I know the stories and names of many people involved from reading about it for years and they’re all men.

    I see your point though.

    29
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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:10 AM

    All men? Niall? Here’s a link for you:
    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_female_astronauts
    Valentina Tereschkova? (Apologies for the spelling!)
    And the last several times I saw a launch there were a number of women in the control room, none of whom were handing round coffee or acting as secretaries!

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:23 AM

    I’m talking historically Mary. From landing on the moon to designing the rockets and shuttles – all the way back to the Wright sisters in fact :)

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    Mute Pádraig O'hEidhin
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    Sep 20th 2013, 7:23 AM

    Mary, a little lady like you would be best placed catering to your husbands needs, rather than commenting on mens issues like this.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:08 AM

    @Michael

    No it doesn’t. However, life as it is on earth is the only kind we have to go on. If you want to search for another kind of life you’ll first have to come up with a hypothesis of what form it would take and then what indicators that life would produce. Have fun with that!

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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 20th 2013, 11:58 AM

    No point arguing in troll’s Mary

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    Mute Mary Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:00 PM

    Wouldn’t waste my breath on ‘em.

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    Mute John Pepper
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:16 PM

    Lol historically speaking that is.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:28 PM

    Good. Time to have a look at Europa and Titan!

    36
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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:53 PM

    The Martians are underground here waiting. Do you guys not watch good quality cinema???

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    Mute Niall Sullivan
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:11 PM

    Some great documentaries on YouTube bout that but you’ve probably seen them. On a proxy iPhone right now so I can’t link them. Mind blowing stuff.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:15 PM

    Some good documentaries about the structures and pyramids on mars in the area known as cydonia

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:23 PM

    And the face looking at you from Cydonia.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:29 PM

    Richard C Hoagland is the leading investigator on the face , pyramids mars in general dozens of interviews n lectures out there for those who find the topic interesting

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    Mute Brendan Harlowe
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:57 PM

    Yeah , the face disappeared on higher resolution images! Just a mountain after all!

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:12 AM

    Killjoy ….

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    Mute Graham Kavanagh
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    Sep 20th 2013, 2:51 AM

    Yeah they took the picture with the mons Olympus camera…

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:11 AM

    OMFG, we’ve regressed to the face on mars dumb-arsery.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:18 AM

    you need to watch this…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Sep 20th 2013, 9:20 AM
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    Mute Jack Mc Connoron
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:17 PM

    Bet the martians are saying the exact same thing about earth!

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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:23 PM

    No, they are saying “that rover you bought on ebay is outside Ted”.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:03 PM

    Yes but the real question is whether life existed on Mars in the past, not now. If it can be shown that life existed there a long time ago, it opens questions about the origin of life on this planet.

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    Mute Chopstix
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:32 PM

    I doubt the powers that be would tell us if they found proof of life

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:23 AM

    That’s the problem, they treat us like mushrooms.. keep us in the dark and feed us shite.

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    Mute Burch Barlow
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    Sep 20th 2013, 8:04 AM

    And fluoride!!!!

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    Mute Jason Culligan
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    Sep 20th 2013, 10:34 AM

    They’ve already come to the conclusion that it is possible Mars held life at one point. The problem is finding the concrete evidence is quite hard to achieve, especially when your only way of searching for the evidence is by firing probes in the direction of Mars and hoping they work if they get there.

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    Mute Barry Aston
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:15 PM

    Really! Bollix.

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    Mute Sean Mac Gabhann
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:51 PM

    No point going back to paddy power then.

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    Mute Steve501
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:28 PM

    Interesting. Ur I bet there is life in a galaxy far far away.

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:13 PM

    With such a thin atmosphere, it’s no wonder that no methane was found. Any life that ever existed would’ve had to have come into being way back when Mars had an active core and magnetic field. Those days are long past, billions of years gone.

    Titan’s our best bet in this solar system.

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    Mute Ronan Stokes
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:32 PM

    Europa.

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    Mute Mark O Flaherty
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    Sep 20th 2013, 3:32 AM

    Martians don’t fart…that’s what’s going on. A Dutch oven is impossible for them…..women of earth would love a Martian man

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    Mute John king
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:05 PM

    Live on Mars already migrated long ago to a place we call China today ;-.) Not too long now and those aliens (we call them Chinese) soon will take over the world…

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    Mute Fergal Reid
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:11 PM

    What?

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    Mute Stephen McMahon
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:47 PM

    That’s not true, the Chinese are a great bunch of lads!

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    Mute Jazz O'Gorman
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    Sep 19th 2013, 10:17 PM

    Obviously.

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    Mute Virginia Black
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    Sep 20th 2013, 12:20 AM

    This is interesting. It’ll be a while still before it reaches Mount Sharp to calculate when life may have been possible. I remember reading about early astronomers who thought they saw canals on Mars’ surface but they were actually just scratches on their lenses they were looking at.

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    Mute Jamie McCormack
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    Sep 19th 2013, 11:26 PM

    Mars looks at unhappy, maybe doesn’t like his photo being taken without permission..

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