Communications Minister claims he was dropped from RTÉ interview with minutes' notice

Vivienne Clarke

Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan has claimed that he was dropped from an interview with RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Tuesday with only a few minutes' notice.

“I was due to be on RTÉ, but a minute to being on RTÉ, for some reason, I was declined,” he told Newstalk Breakfast with Anton Savage.

The public should know what everyone in RTÉ is earning, he said, which was why RTÉ was “coming under” the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

This was being “taken care of today under the Broadcasting Amendment Bill.

“I'm bringing forward proposals to have the CNAG appointed as the Auditor. So I think that in many ways we'll arrest an awful lot of these questions that continue to come up time in, time out. Why is it that the Auditor didn't see this, that or the other thing?," O'Donovan said.

“From now on, the members of the Public Accounts Committee will have direct engagement with the Auditor, who will be the CNAG and the Comptroller and Auditor General will on an annualised basis go to the accounts, present them and any outstanding issues.

"It'll be up to the members of the Public Accounts Committee then to dissect them, which should be the case for every penny of public money that's been put, as I said a while ago.”

Meanwhile, on his way into Cabinet, Tánaiste Simon Harris said there needed to be an end to the drip-feeding of information from RTÉ.

“What we need now is none of this drip feed, none of this will there be another revelation, no salacious detail, we just need facts, information and transparency.

"That is in the interest of public service broadcasting, I believe it's in the interest of RTÉ and I believe it's in the interest of fairness and transparency and I think the Broadcasting Bill by empowering the CNAG to have a role here will actually help strengthen RTÉ in time and will help I suppose, provide that assurance, that external assurance that I think is needed too.”