Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster, who is a member of both the Oireachtas Media Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, has said that Dee Forbes would be doing the staff at RTÉ a disservice if she does not appear before the Oireachtas committees this week.
“If, as she says in her resignation statement, that she cares deeply about RTÉ and the people that work for it, she needs to come and answer most of the questions. If she doesn't, she'll be doing both RTÉ and the people that work for it, that she cares deeply about, a huge disservice because it's all about accountability and transparency.”
Ms Munster told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that Ms Forbes, along with the executive board of the station and the chief financial officer and “anyone with any knowledge of what went on” all needed to come before the Oireachtas Committees.
The questions that needed to be answered, she said, included “who initiated the deal, who signed off on it, who knew about it, and who also knew that they had signed off on erroneous salary figures, knowing full well that in at least one case that those figures were not correct and that they deliberately concealed those secretive payments. We need answers to all of those questions. And Dee Forbes is a key component".
It would be doing RTÉ a disservice if Ms Forbes did not attend, she said.
Another question was why did top management get involved in a separate commercial deal? And then concealing those payments. There was “a whole series of questions” about how salary figures were published, which they knew were not correct as the actual earnings were “completely different”, Ms Munster added.
Those questions needed to be answered now, there had been a serious breach of trust. Ms Munster told Newstalk Breakfast that it would “send out the wrong message” if Ms Forbes did not come before the committee.
When asked if the committee wanted to hear from Ryan Tubridy, Ms Munster said not at this stage. “When it comes to the Public Accounts Committee and the good governance and the spending of public money, it's the RTÉ top management that are responsible for the spending of public money and good governance practices and to ensure that they are in place to ensure the highest level of corporate governance is adhered to. So it's primarily Dee Forbes and the members of the Board that we need to speak to."
The chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley has said that if Dee Forbes is medically able to attend the PAC meeting this week, then she should do so
It was important that the “central players”, the people who had been involved in dealings with agent Noel Kelly come before the committee. He wanted to know “who came up with this idea, who designed it, who put that backup system in place despite these powerful accounts, who had oversight and who knew about it?”
Mr Stanley thought it was a very strange decision commercially for RTE to step in and make the payment when the commercial agreement fell through. He added that he had been very encouraged since last Thursday by the manner in which the story had been reported by RTÉ “as diligently and impartially as anybody else.” That had been encouraging to see and he was happy that it had not been hampered.
However, he was very concerned at the lack of corporate governance within the station and called for any external review to be carried out quickly. There also needed to be full transparency about the financial assistance received by RTÉ. “The sooner that happens the better.”
Public sector broadcasting needed to be protected, but he was concerned about the approach by RTÉ management. If the attitude they had taken before previous meetings of the Committee was going to continue then that would cause further harm and damage to the brand of RTÉ.
At a later stage the committee would also consider talking with Noel Kelly, the agent who handled the deal.
Minister of State Neale Richmond has said that the Cabinet will discuss on Tuesday the controversy over the discrepancy between what Ryan Tubridy reportedly earned and what he actually did earn.Public confidence in RTÉ needed to be restored, there needed to be full transparency, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
The statement of resignation by Dee Forbes on Monday raised more questions rather than providing any answers, he said. It would be helpful if she were to come before the two Oireachtas committees this week. Senior management at RTE also had questions to answer.The priority this week was getting answers, he said.
