I am against the legislation and I am a little surprised others have not stated their opposition to it. I urge people to consider opposing it. There are some good aspirations and aspects to it, which I would support. I am for greater transparency when it comes to the governance of RTÉ. I am for better financial management of RTÉ and of money put into public service broadcasting generally. I am also for more transparency - that is relevant to why I am against this Bill - and proper management of public funds going into the audiovisual sector, including the money to public service broadcasting but also the lots of money given to the audiovisual sector where there is no transparency. Some of us - me in particular - have been urging the Government to look at it and to have transparency, accountability and proper financial management, yet the Government does not do it. I do not believe this Bill is actually about achieving the things it says it is going to achieve. I think it is going to do the opposite of that. That is why I am going to be opposing it, despite the aspirations. Do not get me wrong, I am happy to have the Comptroller and Auditor General look at and audit of the accounts of RTÉ. That is fine; no problem. If the Bill was just about that, I would be in favour of it. What I am not in favour of is an obligation of a minimum of 25% of all the money that RTÉ is going to be given having to be outsourced to the private sector. It is a minimum, by the way. That is back-door privatisation. There is no transparency once we outsource to the independent sector. Therefore, we will not know what is done with that money. If we think about it, and my worst fears are being realised, the bad behaviour and obscene salaries of a small group of people at the top of RTÉ means that the ordinary workers in RTÉ, who are in no way responsible for that bad behaviour, and public service broadcasting itself are going to be the collateral damage. That is what is actually happening here. The net result will be that more money will go into areas in broadcasting and in the audiovisual sector where there will be no oversight whatsoever, namely, the independent sector. What oversight is there going to be of the independent sector? What oversight is there when the State outsources stuff? Let me give the Minister of State one example that is, in my opinion, kind of relevant. I will just set it out. I screamed about it at the time but, as usual with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, I was just wasting my time. I refer to the sale of Ardmore Studios, which was the national film studios, back in 2018. The Government had a 32% stake in Ardmore Studios when it was sold to Olcott, a private consortium that also owned Troy Studios. If we remember, a lot of money for Troy Studios had come from Limerick County Council, I think. It was owned, if I remember correctly, although I stand to be corrected, by Michael Noonan's brother. It became Troy Studios and Olcott then bought Ardmore Studios, the 32% remaining stake. Ms Siún Ní Raghallaigh was the CEO. That name should ring a bell; she was in charge of RTÉ later. Olcott got hold of what had been the national film studios and the remaining 32% Government stake. It gave commitments at the time, and some of us expressed concern about this, that it was committed to the people who were employed there and so on. I raised this at the time with the Comptroller and Auditor General, by the way. I went in and met him. In 2021, Olcott, headed up by Siún Ní Raghallaigh and a guy called Joe Devine, sold Ardmore for €100 million to Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management, which were US-based consortiums. There still is not full clarity on how much the State actually got for the 32% because it was writing off debts and so on for Ardmore. A lot of money had gone into Ardmore through section 41 and so on. I think it was in the region of €6 million. The State got €6 million and three years later, the consortium sold it for €100 million.
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Yes. That is something that was public and where we had some oversight of it. There was some accountability. It went to a private company and then ended up in the hands of vulture funds, and a huge fortune was made in the meantime. There was no transparency around any of that. We had no real control over it or no oversight. That is what is going to happen, in my opinion, slowly but surely to public service broadcasting. This is an example of the requirement to outsource to the independent sector. Who is going to check what the salaries are for the producers in the independent sector? Who is going to ensure there is not bogus self-employment, something we know was an element of what was going on in RTÉ with the disgraceful treatment of workers in there? By and large, however, most people have proper jobs. They paid tax, had pensions and so on. Some people were treated very badly and there was some route to try to resolve that and reclassify people who had been bogusly self-employed. What is happening in the independent sector in terms of employment for workers? What is going to happen is that proper paid jobs for crew in RTÉ are going to be progressively replaced by people in the independent sector. My understanding from talking to people is that the producers, that is, the members of Screen Producers Ireland, SPI, are basically telling people that if they want to work on their productions, whether they are scripted or non-scripted - a lot of the new stuff is going to be in the non-scripted sector - but in either case, these individuals will be told they have to set themselves up as private companies. This is not PAYE employment, so they will not be paying PAYE tax anymore. If they were doing that job in RTÉ and if those productions were being made in-house in RTÉ, they would be paying tax and they would have some job security. Now, once it is in the independent sector and privately owned, who is going to make sure it is not bogus self-employment? From what I hear, it is rampant. Basically, people will not get to work in that sector unless they agree to set themselves up as a private company. Therefore, individuals, whether they are plasterers, riggers or whatever it might be, have to set themselves up as individual private companies, so they are not employees. By the way, as well as getting money it seems from RTÉ, there is another source of money, which is interesting in and of itself. I think it is still going on, and maybe the Minister of State can clarify it. Certainly, a few years ago, about €400,000 or more was being paid by RTÉ to Screen Producers Ireland, which is the representative group of the private companies in the independent audiovisual sector, that is, the producer companies. Why is public money going to run a representative organisation of a series of private companies? I do not understand that. I do not think public money goes to IBEC, does it? I do not think so, unless I missed something. However, it is going to the screen producer equivalent of IBEC - I think that is been going on - which is very pleased about the commitment. I got its document. It is very pleased and very happy with the requirement in this legislation that 25% of all the money of RTÉ is going to go to it as well as the money it gets paid to run its organisation in a situation where nobody has a job in that sector and where workers are fighting to get proper employment because it is gig to gig. We have gone from people having jobs in RTÉ to this and just to reiterate, these are the workers who did not have obscene salaries whose jobs are being replaced. I am absolutely for capping the salaries of the top people in RTÉ; they were obscene. However, it is the jobs of the ordinary people - the crew, the camera operators and all these people - that are going to be replaced with people who will now work gig to gig. They will go from proper jobs into the gig economy. They will be totally vulnerable. Will they get on to the next gig? They not if they complain about the hours. I mentioned a report to the Minister. Screen Guilds of Ireland did a survey, which it never published because the responses of the people who worked in the sector were so bad that it looked bad for the industry. It never published it because it was all about the long hours, poor pay, no career progression, how people were never listened to and how it was understaffed and under-resourced. It was absolutely damning, so it was never published. That was done a couple of years ago. Is this what is going to happen to people who are working in the independent sector where more money is going to go? This is happening simultaneously when section 481, the film tax credit, which was previously for the scripted sector because it contributed to developing an industry and producing stuff in relation to Irish culture, is now going in the independent sector to stuff that does not necessarily do any of those things. I was reading an article a while ago about Gordon Ramsay's cooking show being produced in the independent sector. What does Gordon Ramsay have to do with public service broadcasting? It is Gordon Ramsay or US quiz shows. Is that contributing to Irish culture? Are they going to benefit from tax breaks and money coming in that was supposed to go to public service broadcasting? Is that where this is going? It looks to me like the bits in RTÉ that were making money are being asset-stripped out and decent jobs for ordinary people are now going to be thrown into this private sector where there is no oversight.
Sentiment score: 0.04
No, I am asking questions about what I think may be happening.
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I am entitled to ask whatever questions I like.
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What? Who did I mention?
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I am simply making-----
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A Gordon Ramsay cooking show was made a couple of years ago down in Wicklow. Did it benefit from public money? Will the independent sector benefit - because that was made by the independent sector - now that 25% of RTÉ money has to go to these people, the producers? An awful lot of the stuff that is made here is getting section 481 money or Screen Ireland money and now it is going to get RTÉ money. Screen Producers Ireland, which is the representative group of the independent sector, has for quite a number of years been getting hundreds of thousands of euro from RTÉ - private companies. This looks to me like the hollowing-out of public service broadcasting using the excuse of bad governance and bad behaviour by a small group of people at the top. I am against that. I am against throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I am against public service broadcasting, decent quality employment and training and indeed the wider public interest being thrown out because of the bad behaviour of a small group of people, which could have been dealt with by imposing a cap and everybody being placed on salary scales that are transparent. The salary scales and the pay, employment and training conditions of people in the private sector - that independent sector - will not be transparent. Who is going to be checking on them? It will not happen. All that money will just go out and we will have no control whatsoever. It is not benefiting the public, it is not generating public service broadcasting and it is not generating quality employment and training - very much the opposite - so I am very concerned. I believe hundreds of workers in RTÉ are balloting for industrial action because of their concerns about this. Where will the RTÉ orchestra going to live? I could say more.
Sentiment score: -0.03
Public service.
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