Sinn Féin calls for TV licence to be scrapped as public has 'lost faith' in RTÉ

During Leaders' Questions, Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty TV licence to be scrapped as public has 'lost faith' in RTÉ. It comes after it emerged that an exit package for RTÉ's former Chief Financial Officer was not approved by its Executive Board. It is the latest revelation in the long-running payments scandal at the broadcaster. An independent report by McCann Fitzgerald has uncovered that the exit deal for Breda O'Keeffe was not considered by the board at all. The report examined the Voluntary Exit Programmes (VEPs) operated at the broadcaster in 2017 and 2021. It found that over 250 applications were submitted under the 2017 programme and 176 were successful. Cost savings of 80% or more were identified in the vast majority of successful applications, it said. The report found that Ms O'Keeffe's application "was the only one not considered and approved by the Executive Board as was required under the rules of the 2017 VEP" and that "the terms of the 2017 VEP were not complied with." The report concluded that the "failure of RTÉ to follow the rules of its scheme rests with it." In 10 cases, applications for exit under the 2017 VEP were approved and termination payments, including statutory redundancy payments, were paid. The report found that these departures "did not… satisfy the requirements of a redundancy within the meaning of the Redundancy Payments Acts." It also said there were questions over whether RTÉ "should not have applied the tax exemption applicable to statutory redundancy payments to the payments received by some or all of these individuals." It added that this question would be "a matter for the Revenue Commissioners to determine."