[AJB39]

Yes what happened was utterly wrong. Yes there needs to be full disclosure and accountability. Yes the way RTÉ is managed needs a complete overhaul.

However we absolutely need RTÉ and public service broadcasting in general. RTE’s News and current affairs output is consistently excellent including in their coverage of this story. They also produce plenty of other quality PSB programming. This should not be forgotten. I do accept that they do need to rationalise and slim down. Some of the difficult decisions that have been put off will need to be taken now.

But there does also needs to be licence fee reform not necessarily to make people pay more but to make everybody who consumes RTÉ content pay for it. It’s ridiculous that you can access the RTÉ Player without paying for it just because you don’t own a TV. The level of licence fee evasion is also damaging RTÉ and other beneficiaries of this funding. This was true before this scandal and it’s still true now.

The tragedy of this scandal is that this gives a government that never wanted to reform the licence fee the perfect excuse not too. The result will be cuts not only to the stuff RTÉ probably doesn’t need to do but also cuts to plenty of stuff it absolutely should be doing.