Minister for Media Catherine Martin faces more than an hour-and-a-half of Dáil statements this afternoon, regarding her handling of the long-running crisis at RTÉ.
It follows three-and-a-half hours of questioning at the Oireachtas Committee on Media last night, regarding severance packages given to former RTÉ executives and why chair of the RTÉ Board Siún Ní Raghallaigh resigned.
Minister Martin provided the committee with significant detail on the breakdown of her relationship with Ms Ní Raghallaigh – although the former chair was not in attendance.
It emerged that before the minister appeared on RTÉ’s Prime Time on Thursday night, she wanted to express her disappointment in a letter to Ms Ní Raghallaigh about being misinformed twice on whether the RTÉ board had approved the exit package for former chief financial officer Richard Collins.
The minister told the committee that Ms Ní Raghallaigh indicated she might resign if the letter was sent.
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Ms Martin said Ms Ní Raghallaigh had not intentionally given her inaccurate information in two meetings last week regarding Board approval of the severance package Mr Collins.
However, Fine Gael deputy Brendan Griffin said Media department officials were told of RTÉ board oversight of exit packages at a sitting of the Public Accounts Committee on 12 October.
He said a tranche of documents on the same topic also went from RTÉ to the department the following month.
While Minister Martin contended that the issue had only been addressed “in passing” at the PAC meeting … and was then mentioned “in the future tense”… Deputy Griffin said the relevant information was with the department, and he contended the minister was “misled by her officials.”
