Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said on Wednesday that he plans to add RTÉ to the list of commercial State sector companies subject to the formal oversight of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA)’s NewEra unit.
NewEra provides financial and commercial advice to Government ministers and departments in relation to 18 designated State-owned companies.
Speaking to reporters at the launch of the NTMA’s annual report, Mr McGrath said the Government had already been considering adding RTÉ to the list of companies designated to the NTMA. He said RTÉ’s payments scandal has “confirmed that we were making the right decision”.
The move is expected to be formally announced in the coming weeks.
“I do recognise that RTÉ would benefit from the expert advice and support of NewEra,” Mr McGrath said. “I’ve seen first hand the way in which they can provide support to ministers in making critical decisions. And I think it is certainly the case that RTÉ would benefit from having a relationship with NewEra.”
The Future of the Media Commission had recommended in its report published 12 months ago that RTÉ be designated as body under NewEra. The agency was set up more than a decade ago, when the State was subject to an international bailout, to advise the Government on the management of its shareholding in various semi-state companies, focusing on corporate governance and funding.
NewEra has in the past been given certain Government assignments on RTÉ, even though it was outside of its oversight remit.
A Government review of loss-making RTÉ's funding model has been ongoing but a final decision on the outcome has now been paused pending the completion of an external review of governance and culture at the broadcaster, which was ordered amid the furore around the underreporting of presenter Ryan Tubridy’s salary. Some €150,000 of the €345,000 of hidden top-ups between 2017 and 2022 had come from a so-called barter account.
The State-owned broadcaster was plunged into deeper crisis on Tuesday night after it confirmed it had discovered more barter accounts in advance of an Oireachtas committee hearing on Wednesday into the turmoil at the station.
Last week, RTÉ told the Public Accounts Committee there was only one barter account. A barter account is one linked to a system through which a media company uses its advertising space to pay for certain goods and services.
RTÉ is scrambling to keep pace with five separate external inquiries into its finances and governance, with the broadcaster’s board meeting this week running into the evening after it missed two deadlines to submit documents to the Oireachtas.
