There are some good parts in this Bill but I have some serious concerns as well. The decision in the 1990s to remove the power of the Comptroller and Auditor General and indeed direct accountability of RTÉ to the Committee of Public Accounts was a huge mistake by the Government at that time. During the four and a half years when I was Chair of the Committee of Public Accounts, when we started looking at RTE, it got worse. What we met at the first couple of hearings was every attempt to not answer questions. I am trying to be charitable when I say that what was clear by the end of those hearings and that four and a half year period of the Dáil was that there was a cabal at the top of it that was run by the cabal for the cabal and anybody who agreed with it. That had to change. The Committee of Public Accounts produced over 20 recommendations. Central to them was something I proposed way back at the start. I was amazed to find that RTÉ was not accountable to the Comptroller and Auditor General or directly accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. Indeed there was reluctance to come before the committee and we had to go to extreme lengths to actually drag the previous management of RTÉ in through the door initially, so I welcome that part of it. It is important that this second level of oversight is there and direct accountability to this House and the taxpayer in respect of public money. It is a key recommendation. It is key for the Minister of State to make sure that the board is fully functioning and has its eyes on what is going on. It was clear that the connection between board and management was not great despite the fact that there were some good people on the board doing good work. It is the same with the audit committee. Appointments and decision-making are key. Pay for top earners is very important. All that was in the recommendations. I acknowledge that progress has been made on a lot of that. A lot has been done on presenters' pay but more has to be done. Regarding the issue of producers and presenters, if somebody is known as a presenter in the public mind and that is a huge part of his or her work then he or she should be counted as a presenter. The pay of at least the top 50 earners across the board in RTÉ should be published annually regardless of what their role is. The issue of agents came up a lot. The one thing that came to light fairly quickly as the Committee of Public Accounts started a deep dive into it was the fact that one agent could get themselves into a position of being able to let the whole lot spin in the palm of their hand. That must never be allowed to happen again. The rules of engagement with agents need to be very clear. It was literally a game of bluff. If they were poker players, they would be very good at winning. To allow somebody to get that excessive control is wrong so there has to be transparency with regard to that, there need to be very clear rules of engagement and that requires continuous examination by the Minister of State and the Department to make sure that never happens again. Transparency is obviously important in terms of accounts, renumeration and performance. I welcome the provision about the monitoring role of Coimisiún na Meán in the Bill. It involves assessing and appraising performance. Regarding spend on the overall media sector, including what is going to be independent sector, I am not going to argue against independent radio stations, etc., but that does need to be monitored. Regarding outsourcing production, one of the issues we came up with actually before we started diving into management was the issue of bogus self-employment. Regarding outsourcing the fat, make no mistake about it, it is the fat of RTE that is going to be privatised. There was bogus self-employment in RTE but this will not be counted as bogus self-employment when it is in the independent sector. As outlined already, there will be contractors and individual companies, they will not have union representation or terms and conditions and they will have "if and when" contracts. That is a very uncertain way to live when the cost of a house in Dublin is so high and when someone has to have a permanent job and income to get a mortgage. Coimisiún na Meán's broadcasting levy on independent radio stations increased by 29% this year. I know it is a bit detached from this Bill but I want the Minister of State to hear this. The figure is 69% on average over two years. The figure for the radio station in my area is 2.8% of turnover - not profit. We are talking about nearly 3% of turnover. That is a huge levy and that is on top of all the other overheads that have gone up, such as wages, although it is good that they have gone up, along with insurance and energy. They are competing with tech giants and other platforms and it is important that this is reined in. Coimisiún na Meán says it is committed to ensuring value for money by maximising cost-effectiveness. The Minister of State has a responsibility to make sure of that and I would ask her to address that latest hike. Could she engage with Coimisiún na Meán on that? The outsourcing is the main issue of concern in the Bill, however.

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