After 3½ months, the multiple subdivisions of the RTÉ controversy are threatening any chance of drawing a line under the saga.
For example, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is on the verge of becoming involved in a potentially nasty legal dispute with RTÉ over a minute from a meeting detailing the moment when former director general Dee Forbes allegedly gave verbal agreement to backstop payments totalling €225,000 that would be secretly made to Ryan Tubridy under the now infamous tripartite agreement.
The broadcaster is refusing to release the minute. The PAC now plans to compel RTÉ to do so. It is unclear whether the minute is explosive and contains new information, or if it merely describes a version of events already in the public domain.
What we do know is that the conflict over it threatens to eat up time and political capital. These are in short supply and, as investigations throw more and more information into the public domain, managing the crisis may become a risk in itself.
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The financial chasm at the heart of the broadcaster was outlined in the fullest detail yet at a PAC meeting on Thursday.
Kevin Bakhurst, RTÉ's director general, and Mike Fives, its financial controller, told the committee the company has roughly €68 million on hand, and headroom to borrow another €35 million. While it sounds like big money, the truth is that the organisation is burning through cash and running out of road.
It is difficult to be precise about just how long that cash will last, as it depends on whether RTÉ can conserve money, and how its income streams perform.
There is also the question of settlements related to alleged cases of bogus self-employment for which, for the first time on Thursday, RTÉ provided a rough figure of “below €20 million”. The phrasing suggests it will not be much less, and some PAC members believe it could be far higher.
The PAC was told money is there to see RTÉ through until some point next year. The gross costs of running RTÉ are huge – €339 million last year, and a projected €350 million this year. In terms of cash on the balance sheet, RTÉ could pay for itself for about two months. The expected deficit for this year is up to €12 million.
Bakhurst identified the crunch point as some time in the early spring. It is clear that RTÉ will need a bailout before then, and will have to make significant spending cuts. The formula arrived at by New Era, the State’s financial consultancy firm, suggests €61 million, split between €40 million of a bailout and €21 million in cuts, is needed.
That bailout will ultimately come, and the national broadcaster will not be allowed go to the wall. The problem is that since the scandal erupted, it has split into multiple threads, each with dizzying subordinate controversies. In its wake it has left a financial crisis and a deepening sense that what started as a controversy over payments to Tubridy is a long way from being resolved.
RTÉ and the political system need to begin tying down these threads before it is too late.
