Varadkar says ‘enormous damage’ done to RTÉ over information delay

By David Young and Cillian Sherlock, PA

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar described the revelations of further RTÉ “barter” accounts as a “disquieting development”.

“It’s essential that public trust in RTÉ is restored following the revelations of the past few weeks and the Government has agreed to proposals for a root-and-branch examination of RTÉ,” he told the Dáil.

Speaking during Leaders’ Questions, Mr Varadkar said full transparency from RTÉ had been absent and he said that must change “immediately”.

He said the “drip feed” of information was doing “untold damage”.

“We absolutely understand that the erosion of confidence has done enormous damage and it’s imperative that full clarity around these and all issues is forthcoming without further delay,” he said.

Pressed by Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty on whether he believed there would be more resignations at the top of RTÉ, Mr Varadkar stressed that members of the executive board were entitled to due process.

He said it did currently retain confidence in the executive board, but he said he reserved the right to change that position as further issues arise.

Mr Doherty said RTÉ’s executives are “still giving selective information when it’s forced out of them”.

“They are not being upfront about all the facts, the revelations that we are hearing about are damning.”

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said RTÉ could “not get its story straight”.

She added: “If RTÉ screenwriters were writing the script of this as a drama, you could imagine that it might be rejected as being too far fetched.”

Mr Varadkar said it had to be established if RTÉ executives were deliberately misleading parliamentary committees or just providing information that turned out to be wrong.

He said barter accounts were used regularly within the media industry and there was no issue about that.

“It’s the misuse of barter accounts for secret payments, that’s the real issue here,” he added. “And certainly I didn’t become aware of this until the last couple of weeks and only found out last night that there were additional barter accounts.

“And I’m really bothered about that, quite frankly. I know the Tánaiste (Micheál Martin) is too, I spoke to him this morning and spoke to Minister (Catherine) Martin.

“So we’re not satisfied at all about the answers that we’ve been given by RTÉ to date, it is below the standards that you would expect, not just of people working in a public body, but of anyone working in any body, quite frankly. It is really not a satisfactory situation.

“There is a difference between giving incorrect information to a committee or the Dáil, which many of us would have done, and actually lying. So I think that has to be established.”