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LAST UPDATE | 12 Jun 2024
THE NEW CHAIRPERSON of the RTÉ board told politicians that the broadcaster is considering making a €400,000 exit payment to an individual.
Terence O’Rourke, the new chait who took up the position following the resignation of Siún Ní Raghallaigh, confirmed to politicians that he had approved the package, when asked by Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin, but had not signed off on it yet.
He added that media minister Catherine Martin is aware of the payment, but refused to reveal to who the payment was for.
During the same Oireachtas media committee hearing today the new chair told TDs that the TV licence fee is an “archaic and out of date” funding model and stressed the importance of it to be revamped.
Terence O’Rourke took up the position following the resignation of Siún Ní Raghallaigh amid a public fall-out with Media Minister Catherine Martin.
While the former managing partner at KPMG acknowledged that it is up to the Government to decide how RTÉ’s future funding will be allocated, he emphasised that it must be “sufficient, predictable and independent”.
He later added: “A licence fee system which is depending on TV sets is archaic and out of date.”
O’Rourke said he believes the current TV levy, issues to every household who owns a television, is “not working properly” and suggested that a household charge would be another way of involving public-sector funding.
“There are different ways of doing it, but probably all of those would be better than the current system.”
The new chairman said that his biggest concern when taking the job was that for the funding model to be fixed.
In his opening statement to politicians, he stressed that a significant funding model would help the broadcaster keep up with a changing media landscape.
He told politicians that news and information media faces a challenging decade and that RTÉ must be able to deliver content and engage with audiences digitally, increase production from outside RTÉ, upgrade it’s media infrastructure, maintain their skillsets and focus on increasing its facilities outside of the capital.
O’Rourke expressed on behalf of the RTÉ board its “profound disappointment and regret” about the actions, events and behaviours that triggered “several reports”.
“The organisation has learned from what happened. The necessary controls and procedures are being put in place to make sure that those kinds of events cannot happen again,” he said.
In the statement, which is provided to politicians ahead of time, O’Rourke says that the spread of misinformation and disinformation “risks undermining public confidence in news and information”.
Last year RTÉ became scandal-hit after it emerged that the broadcaster had under-reported the salary paid to former presenter Ryan Tubridy.
The broadcaster’s spending, its use of barter accounts, and its treatment of staff on self-employment contracts which have been described as “bogus” have all come under scrutiny since.
Director General Kevin Bakhurst announced a hiring freeze when he came into the job, and has been working to make changes at the broadcaster since then.
Includes reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill
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Absolute waste, why not buy properties from Vulture funds so it’s a solid return income for the state and no more giving taxpayer HAP payments to private developers… Or would that make too much sense
@Brian Hackett: Great idea. People will get free homes paid for by the taxpayer and live next to taxpayers whom bought their own homes and pay tax. Savage stuff!
@Brian Hackett: please use the term
Vulture fund correctly. Vulture funds “swoop” down and buy distressed mortgages / severely cheap , then keep and sell on for a high profit .
@Ciaran: no they don’t they buy new builds and that stops ordinary people from getting on the property market, this has been a proven fact, Vulture funds now have up to 90% of new builds in Ireland
@Temp Stuff: nonsense, they will still have to pay rent which is a permanent income for the taxpayer saving on HAP payments also it’s a win win situation
Of course it’s a waste. But that’s the whole point. FFGs core voterbase, homeowners, have been hoodwinked into believing that property is the only way to build wealth. In other western countries, investing in equities is the way to gain wealth. FFGs high tax on equities makes this unviable, so the greedy homeowners see dollar signs while the rest of the population suffers, stuck in the rent trap that is Irish housing. They are architecting a demographic timebomb by implementing inflationary measures to increase housing prices, such as help to buy. This scheme would be good if there wasn’t a housing crisis, but, when supply is limited, adding liquidity/cash does nothing but add upwards pressure to prices. Vote anybody but FFG if you have ANY concern for your pension, or fellow citizens.
@Sean Stevenson: at last, somebody said it out loud, relation living in one of the major US cities has sold his house which over 25 years went up by about 90%, in the same period he built up an investment portfolio that allowed him retire early, he was gobsmacked how were taxed over here on investing in shares.
@Eddie Garvey: I assume it’s ETFs and the tax associated with that is what you are referring to? Otherwise buying and selling shares isn’t that expensive, Yes we have CGT but most countries do. I fail to understand why anyone would be gobsmacked at our regime.
@Sean Stevenson: What taxes on equities are you referring to exactly? The Apple money should be put into the strategic funds and nothing else. The helping of young people to buy a home is a good policy and much better that subsidies towards rent….yes more needs to be built too.
The pension stuff is laughable as pensions and financial assets have been growing for almost 10 years now post crash 2015 was the start. And if you look at the CB monthly net household reports, you’ll see that, obviously, the pandemic slowed stuff down. Most pensions are DC, and the pension holder can change the investment choices online through the introduction of Master Trusts.
I fail to see how any political party would affect pensions given most pension funds are investments are international.
Will simply push Price’s higher.. the problem is deeper than a hand out can handle.
Given that 50% of the people that use help to buy don’t actually need it in order to buy and that the scheme only pushes up prices further then I would say yes, it would be a pretty bad use of that money. Maybe build some actual houses and/or infrastructure with it instead?
@John Moore: Have you any evidence of this because the criteria seem very strict.
FG have committed to giving a handout of a half a BILLION euro to landlords rather than bring back homeownership they destroyed for our youth, basically anyone under 39 years of age. We can vote for ordinary people. Is féidir linn an rialtas a athrú. Vótáil Sinn Féin
@F1rYnpWc: FG are the single best thing to ever happen in Ireland :)
it’s not actually being funded with the apple windfall though. the Irish Times interview with Harris today said as much. the calculation is also unsound, mentioning a half sentence to the complexities of house prices with ever suggesting what better ways there are to help the squeezed middle. the author doesn’t like the HTB scheme. fair enough. but this opinion piece is not based on fact and not a fair assessment of the situation in my opinion.
Yes.
Help to buy doesn’t benefit regular people, it benefits developers.
Absolute waste
Qualifying Rules for Help to buy scheme rule out many. You must takeout a mortgage with main Irish bank covering 70% of cost.
If bank fails to approve sufficient mortgage, you have to save the difference taking you below 70% loan ratio while at the same time property prices increase by 30k.
The scheme money goes directly to t he developer.
Either give it back to Apple in the form of tax breaks or cut income taxes across the board. It most certainly shouldn’t be wasted on any sort of public spending as loony left-wing parties like Labour and the Social Democrats suggest.
Ireland has very high taxes. Help to buy allows folk to pay less (eg. UK levels) and spend the savings on a first home instead. The problem for Lefties is to avail of a tax rebate one needs to be working in the first place. They’d prefer to take this tax and redistribute it to someone else.
These shower of fools have proven they can’t be trusted with public money they don’t care about cost to the taxpayer even their unwanted ads on Facebook claim they have 16bn euros set aside for rainy day fund well 13bn euros of it came from apple money they didnt want and cost the taxpayer millions to fight the case they should be jailed nevermind not getting re elected #VOTE THEM OUT
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