Albert Dolan Questions RTE on €57,000 Prague Trip

Go raibh maith agat, Cathaoirleach, and thank you to the team at RT for being with us today. And just on that non-public procurement compliance, we would have absolutely as a committee anticipated that there would be some level of non-compliant public procurement as we have with all state entities, but it is something that we ask of bodies and organisations to make sure that they endeavour to reduce that to the lowest possible amount, because it is about providing that confidence to the state and to wider entities that if somebody procures something that it is done in a proper manner, and it provides confidence in public contracts as well. So just to highlight that. At the outset I just want to say, you know, there are so many people in the RT organisation who work really hard to provide fantastic content, an incredible service, great journalism, and they do really endeavour to get that out there. And you know I was thinking before we started this engagement today of over the last few years some of the big names who have retired, who would have given a lifetime of service to RT, and when you think about, you know, the lifetime of service that so many people who go into RT give, and their commitment to the role, and how proud they would be to say that they work for RT, it has been an incredibly difficult time for the organisation since the 2023 debacle and the uncovering of a lot of really poor governance that was ongoing. And so I guess at the outset I want to just kind of outline, there was a media report yesterday saying that TV licence sales declined by 200,000 in the past four years, and then you have 300 RT staff applying for the redundancy, essentially they're looking for the exit door. What have you done in the last three years to turn that around and to rebuild morale within the organisation? Well thank you Deputy, and I welcome that opportunity because this has been one of the core things that I've been trying to do and the leadership team been trying to do between us, which is to rebuild morale inside the organisation, and it's obviously it's very challenging in the middle of very significant changes, a very rapid transformation of the organisation. We've done a number of things, first of all I think at the heart of it is about staff felt they were not properly communicated with by the director general or by the leadership team, and we've introduced very regular town halls where I appear and we give a briefing to staff on the biggest things that are going on in the organisation, but also there's time in every one of those town halls for questions and answers at the end, and we take questions and answers in advance as well. I know the members of the leadership team have their own town halls with their own teams now in radio or TV or in the audience area, you know, to do that. We've introduced a significant amount of investment in learning across the organisation, and that... So just on all of that right, all of that is welcome in terms of trying to improve communication to rebuild morale, but I feel like that doesn't connect then when, you know, if I was working in RT and then I saw how some of the recruitment processes have been done in recent years to bring in, you know, external talent to head up divisions, I'm sure there's people within your organisation who feel overlooked or who feel really let down by the fact that, you know, you didn't feel that the talent was already within the organisation, and especially when you have such financial pressures to be going out to the market trying to pay top dollar for new talent. How do you square that off? Well, look, all the competitions we have now are done internally and externally, and for the key roles, particularly senior roles, we absolutely have to get the very best people to lead the organisation, and we've been extremely lucky actually with the people we've managed to recruit and bring in who've got huge, in some cases, international experience. You know, they bring in a skill set that we, you know, we did not have inside the organisation, and I think people, you know, they want to have the opportunity to apply and they want to have their chance to do the interview if they get to that stage, but I do think in every case of the people we brought in, if you ask people, they would see now exactly why we brought those people in, because they bring a new way of thinking, and frankly the organisation needed that at the highest level. We needed a new way of thinking, a new approach. And just to say, I'm not suggesting that, oh, you can't bring in new people from outside, but I just think is there not a value for money proposition for employing people internally who already have a working knowledge of how RTE functions, they have an understanding of the organisational structure and systems, and they already represent the RTE brand, so it's just kind of, you know, and prior service, so it's just something I thought I'd highlight. Yeah, just to say, you know, at least one of the members of the current leadership team, you know, came in, it was a particular time in their career, but came in at a significant discount to what they were earning in the commercial sector, because they wanted to join the turnaround of the organisation and, you know, believe in public service broadcasting, so we don't... I'm just conscious of the time, I want to move on to another issue, right, and this is regards to the World Cup qualifier in the Czech Republic. 41 staff travelled to Czechia for the World Cup qualifier. What was the total cost of that exercise? Total cost was €57,000. Okay, so that was €57,000, 41 people travelled. And then the rights, obviously, on top of that, that's the cost of that team. And can I ask then, how many people did you have to send to the World Cup? Have we sent to the World Cup? No, we've sent six. Okay, and I have to compliment RTE, the coverage has been fantastic, 104 games, I see it coming up on my Instagram feed through RTE Sport, it's fantastic, but how on earth can you send only six people and they manage to cover the entirety of the World Cup, but you had to send 41 people to do one World Cup qualifier? Because the two things are very different, so the teams that are actually out at the World Cup are pure commentary teams. We haven't done presenting from out there, we haven't done other programmes from out there. Just on the Czech thing, I would really welcome a chance to talk about this, because, first of all, you can see from the numbers of people who are consuming the coverage of the World Cup, which the sports team and the operations team have done a fantastic job delivering that, it's driven record numbers on player. The question is, did you need to send 41 people to Czechia? And how was that decision made to send that many people? Okay, the decision was made in a number of areas. First of all, we wanted to present from out there, because there were Irish fans there, and we wanted to get the voice of Irish fans as part of the coverage. You'll see from the World Cup, it's pure commentary. But even at that, say you sent the same six people out to the World Cup qualifier, and then you sent two teams of three people out on the streets meeting people. That's 12 people. Where's the extra 30 required? Can I just come back to this? So, look, to be crystal clear, this qualifier was the biggest game that Ireland have had for probably a couple of decades. It was a major national event. That's part of our job to reflect that. When we took this decision, part of the decision about some of the teams we sent, particularly for some of the radio programs, was because we were close liaising with our commercial director who said, do you know what, we can drive considerable, not just this is a huge public service event to cover it properly, we can also drive considerable commercial revenue about having bespoke teams out there for individual radio. But Kevin, do you not understand how sickening it would be for the public at home looking at this to think 41 people were sent to the World Cup qualifier because Ireland were playing and it was a great day out for the RTE team, but only six went to cover the entirety of the World Cup, and they're doing a great job. No, because it's entirely different. As I said to you, this was about actually presenting programs. So give me the justification for 41 heads having to go to Cheche. Well, it was to present individual programs, connect with parts of the audience we don't connect with quite often, to get the voices of real Irish fans. But I've told you how you could have done that with 12 people, so why did you need 41 people? You couldn't do it with 12 people. They weren't all presented. Sorry, no, and can I be fair to the people we sent there, because they're all hard-working RTE staff. There was not a single person who went on to Prague, even though one or two of us were invited, who went on a freebie or a nice to have or a jolly or whatever. All those people who went there worked extremely hard across a number of days, and if you look at the total cost, €57,000 for 41 people, and that includes flights, hotels, food, everything, transport, taxis. It was provided at good value, and all I would say to... We've had zero criticism from the audience on this. One or two people have been a bit fixated about it. We've had zero. In fact, we had the opposite. We had people absolutely, not just the numbers, but the response from the audience about the coverage across all the platforms was extremely positive, and in the end, as I said to you, we have also... RTE has, as you're well aware... I think it's just... I'm counting the time. I think it's just the disconnect here is RTE got a bailout from the government. Sorry, it wasn't a bailout. It was public funding. Public funding. The issue is, is the public believe that RTE should be as nimble and agile as possible, and I do agree with you. I accept that that €57,000 wasn't a crazy number to send 41 people abroad. It was fairly agile, but I'm just wondering, did it require the 41? I want to move on to one last point before we finish. Can I just say that? Look, we could have not presented Lifeline from there. We could have not presented 2FM from there. You could have cut the numbers back, but in the end, we would have cut our commercial revenue. I mean, the commercial revenue paid for this many times over. That's all I would say to the audience who are watching this. Okay. Now, last point before I finish. We learned today that Up for the Match, which has now been outsourced, is going to cost more than it was costing. Yeah. How on earth is that decision consistent with prudent financial management? And if there was any show that RTE presents that is successful, people get excited about, and people want to watch and tune in for, it's Up for the Match, and the format has been functioning. So, do you believe that the format of Up for the Match was failing, or what justification can you give for spending more money than you were previously spending on Up for the Match? Because you're right, the format's been functioning for many years, but you do need to look at how you refresh programs, and presenting it from Croke Park, the heart of the GAA, on the night before, is extremely attractive as an audience proposition, and creatively much more ambitious. And we're not all about, in the end, absolutely it has to be value for money, but one thing we look at in terms of value for money is, is this delivering something that is high quality and will benefit the audience. So, here's my last question. It's a creative decision. My last question. Why did you have to outsource that when you already have hundreds of highly talented people working for RTE that were successfully delivering the program, if it's just a venue change? Why did you have to outsource it? Why couldn't you do it yourselves? Well, part of the thinking on that is, I mean, first of all, whenever we use an outside broadcast, we have a contract, we don't do that ourselves. So, we have a contract that's been the same for years. We, all outside broadcasts are done through contractors. The second thing I would say is, you've almost answered the question yourself. We have a World Cup going on, we had 104 games, we had the sports department flat out be very similar people who'd be working across Up for the Match. So, there's also the availability of staff after that, and summer holidays, and so on. And we've got huge GAA games as well, by the way, at the same time. So, I would say our sports department has got steam coming out their ears. So, part of it is about who is available to do it as well. But yeah, part of it in the end is, we take creative decisions. Is this going to be potentially a better program? I don't know until we see it. If it's great, we'll do it again. If it's not great, we won't do it again. Thank you for your engagement.