Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I am against the legislation and I am a little surprised others have not stated their opposition to it. I urge people to consider opposing it. There are some good aspirations and aspects to it, which I would support. I am for greater transparency when it comes to the governance of RTÉ. I am for better financial management of RTÉ and of money put into public service broadcasting generally. I am also for more transparency - that is relevant to why I am against this Bill - and proper management of public funds going into the audiovisual sector, including the money to public service broadcasting but also the lots of money given to the audiovisual sector where there is no transparency. Some of us - me in particular - have been urging the Government to look at it and to have transparency, accountability and proper financial management, yet the Government does not do it. I do not believe this Bill is actually about achieving the things it says it is going to achieve.
I think it is going to do the opposite of that. That is why I am going to be opposing it, despite the aspirations. Do not get me wrong, I am happy to have the Comptroller and Auditor General look at and audit of the accounts of RTÉ. That is fine; no problem. If the Bill was just about that, I would be in favour of it. What I am not in favour of is an obligation of a minimum of 25% of all the money that RTÉ is going to be given having to be outsourced to the private sector. It is a minimum, by the way. That is back-door privatisation. There is no transparency once we outsource to the independent sector. Therefore, we will not know what is done with that money. If we think about it, and my worst fears are being realised, the bad behaviour and obscene salaries of a small group of people at the top of RTÉ means that the ordinary workers in RTÉ, who are in no way responsible for that bad behaviour, and public service broadcasting itself are going to be the collateral damage. That is what is actually happening here. The net result will be that more money will go into areas in broadcasting and in the audiovisual sector where there will be no oversight whatsoever, namely, the independent sector. What oversight is there going to be of the independent sector? What oversight is there when the State outsources stuff?
Let me give the Minister of State one example that is, in my opinion, kind of relevant. I will just set it out. I screamed about it at the time but, as usual with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, I was just wasting my time. I refer to the sale of Ardmore Studios, which was the national film studios, back in 2018. The Government had a 32% stake in Ardmore Studios when it was sold to Olcott, a private consortium that also owned Troy Studios. If we remember, a lot of money for Troy Studios had come from Limerick County Council, I think. It was owned, if I remember correctly, although I stand to be corrected, by Michael Noonan's brother. It became Troy Studios and Olcott then bought Ardmore Studios, the 32% remaining stake. Ms Siún Ní Raghallaigh was the CEO. That name should ring a bell; she was in charge of RTÉ later. Olcott got hold of what had been the national film studios and the remaining 32% Government stake. It gave commitments at the time, and some of us expressed concern about this, that it was committed to the people who were employed there and so on. I raised this at the time with the Comptroller and Auditor General, by the way. I went in and met him. In 2021, Olcott, headed up by Siún Ní Raghallaigh and a guy called Joe Devine, sold Ardmore for €100 million to Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management, which were US-based consortiums. There still is not full clarity on how much the State actually got for the 32% because it was writing off debts and so on for Ardmore. A lot of money had gone into Ardmore through section 41 and so on. I think it was in the region of €6 million. The State got €6 million and three years later, the consortium sold it for €100 million.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28