Tag Archives: RTE

Last night.

Fine Gael Senator Kieran O’Donnell, from Limerick, announced that he had written to the Oireachtas communications committee and asked it to invite RTÉ Board chair Moya Doherty and RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes to appear before the committee and answer questions about the future of Lyric FM.

It follows the Limerick Leader exclusively reporting yesterday that, in late September, the University of Limerick president Dr Des Fitzgerald wrote to Ms Forbes offering to “help sustain” Lyric FM by accommodating the station on the university’s campus.

EXCLUSIVE: University of Limerick offered to accommodate RTE Lyric FM on-campus (Fintan Walsh, Limerick Leader)

Yesterday: Moya’s Merry Dance

Rollingnews

From top: Chair of the RTÉ Board Moya Doherty (right) and RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes; Marian Finucance

On Saturday.

Chairwoman of the RTÉ Board Moya Doherty was interviewed by Marian Finucane in regards to the financial situation facing the State broadcaster.

Ms Doherty spoke about “transformation”, “strategy” and “being nimble”.

She also raised the water charges protests.

During the interview Ms Finucane informed Ms Doherty that she had attempted to watch an item on the RTÉ Player three times on Friday night before giving up – because, after playing a stream of ad, it cut out.

It follows the Director-General of RTÉ Dee Forbes telling Mary Wilson on RTÉ’s Drivetime on Thursday night that the RTÉ Player is going to be a “huge part” of RTÉ’s future and that, in five years’ time, the player will be “more important to a certain generation of people than RTÉ One or RTÉ Two”.

From Ms Doherty’s interview…

Marian Finucane: “I’m joined this morning by Moya Doherty who’s chairwoman of the RTÉ Board. Now you wrote an opinion piece Moya, in the paper [The Irish Times] about the licence fee. And you’re talking about the responsibility of the Government.

“But what about, ultimately, the responsibility of the executive board and the authority.”

Moya Doherty: “Good morning, good afternoon actually, Marian and thank you for inviting me in this morning. I think it’s important to contextualise what has happened in the last week and what has been happening for months and years within public service media globally.

“There is contestant change and it will be in a constant state of reform. It is impossible to predict where public crevice media will exist in five years let alone 10 years. What our job is, as a board, and as an executive is to ensure that the infrastructure is right, the funding is right, the skills are contemporary and flexible to meet the rapid change.”

Finucane: “But with the kindest will in the world, there’s little evidence of that. I mean, obviously, as the authority and the chair, it is your responsibility to support the executive but I’ve, we hear people talking about public service broadcasting, public service broadcasting, where’s our destination?”

Doherty: “Well, I mean, I think Marian nobody has a crystal ball around destination. The cataclysmic change in the industry globally is quite frightening. Right across the media, people are losing jobs. It is painful, it is incredibly difficult but we cannot not change. You stand still and you are history.

“So, just let me clarify firstly the role of the board. It used to be called the authority, it’s now the board.”

Finucane: “Yeah.”

Doherty: “The board is nominated and appointed by Government. It is not the job of the board to do the role of the RTE Executive. It is the job of the board to represent Government, to stand over the Broadcasting Act of 2009, which is a dinosaur piece of legislation at this time, which cripples the organisation…”

Finucane: “In what way?”

Doherty: “In terms of the commitments it puts on to the organisation when the funding isn’t there to meet those commitments. So that indeed needs to be looked at. So I think that, and also our most important person in the room are the people you are speaking to out there. The audience.”

Finucane: “Absolutely. Yeah.”

Doherty: “They ultimately own public service media. They are ultimately the ones who need to know in five years’ time where their solid, truthful sense of news and current affairs will come from. That is the most important thing.”

Finucane: “Well I want to go into a lot of individual detail but let’s stick with the broad brush for the moment. If you say that there is no crystal ball, the truth is that the internet is not new anymore.

“And if you take youngsters – we had a group in on one of our Sunday programmes and I think to a man or a woman, none of their children watch television in the way, in the old-fashioned way that people sat down to watch The Late Late Show years ago. It just doesn’t happen. And they choose different ways to find their media.

Continue reading →

Top from left: Mike Murphy with Ryan Turbridy (back) Pat Kenny, Moya Doherty, John McColgan and Joe Duffy on a special live edition of The Late Late Show broadcast in tribute to Gay Byrne last Tuesday night on RTÉ One; Vanessa Foran

This might surprise you, but I am opening this RTÉ special with something I wrote about INM from back when;

The most important asset I have as someone who works in professional practice is my independence which includes the perception of that independence.

As a director you are responsible for the welfare of the company, followed by the shareholders, and you must make decisions in the best interests of the company, at all times, and you must never allow that be questioned or mistrusted.

Over the last day you have being caught up into a spin cycle about Dee Forbes and RTÉ operations, cuts, sell offs, closures and NUJ crying games.

Yet all I see is a cloud of silt rising from the boots of shop floor employees as it poises a murky veil around the failure of its board.

You may think that it’s current board weren’t around when ridiculous salaries were being signed off, and their mandate for news and current affairs programming got riddled with propaganda, and you might be inclined to rebut me with it’s not their fault.

Yet you would be wrong, the board and every single one of its directors assume the responsibility of Stewardship and Governance when they accept the baton in a Going Concern entity.

Stewardship and Governance of both a State Asset and a Responsibility.  RTÉ got the gift of their infrastructure and their licence to operate as they liked for free.  RTÉ are responsible for public service broadcasting, specifically news reporting and current affairs; and its board of directors are responsible for RTÉ.

They have failed.

Over the weekend just past, I attended an event where the PRA and the Central Bank gave presentations about Governance and the roles and responsibilities of both Directors and Board Oversight/ Supervisors.  I accept regulated financial institutions are not the point here, but Governance is, and one very simple but significant point the PRA were keen to establish was about Relatives.

Relatives on a board of directors, or relatives of senior management, or indeed employees at any level within the operations of the organisation, or relatives of material suppliers, contributors and stakeholders on a Board of Directors is bad Governance.

It is harmful Governance and it puts organisations at risk, and way beyond what we should accept as a naturally occurring consequence of our feckless attitude to Conflict of Interest.

The jobs-for-the-boys norm we’ve all adjusted to can be blamed for the damage to this Country and its future, yet in RTÉ we are being charged a licence fee to watch it from our own front rooms.

RTÉ is not a family business.

Stop whimpering over job losses and the end of an era, it is time to accept that its failure, and it happened on our watch, that its failure starts and ends at its Governance level.

I don’t care how sexy it is to talk about Dee Forbes’ salary and car allowance, its board of directors at some point bred a Celtic Tiger culture into the organisation that it hasn’t shifted, it’s like the crash was only something that happened to other people, so they just tipped their hat at it by reporting it as it unfolded for ten years.

Over this week we are been fed reels and reels of archive footage containing Gay Byrne and maybe some of us might have dawdled some thoughts about what RTÉ might have been without him.  Or indeed this Country.  We could still be watching reruns of the Papal Visit while Fr D’Arcy hosts the Late Debate.

So let me say this; those great moments in television and the trigger for change they were to become don’t deserve to be used as cover for the abject and shameless failure of RTÉ.

The failure is both Financial and Operational; and it was all under the jurisdiction of its strategic level decision makers, its board of directors.

They agreed the current Strategy while Dee Forbes is employed to implement it.

Look up and note again what I said about relatives; Renewing RTÉ for the next generation was doomed to fail by page three; RTÉ will be outward looking, creative, respectful, sustainable and accountable, collaborative and transparent.

It’s hard to know if they had their fingers crossed when adopted it into the minutes, or whether they were laughing, or whether they were just too full of themselves for their next appointment to know it never stood a chance.

I commented on their Financial Statements here for Year Ends 2016 2017 and 2018 ; and I think I can get away with saying that everything I flagged here over those three columns is coming home to roost today.

Yet that expensive looking strategy wasn’t just a road map for RTÉ and DG Dee Forbes, it was also a promise to us, the Licence Payer, The Viewer, The Citizen, that they were going to get it right and do right my us.

We’ve all been had. 

And there is no gaudier example than the Late Wake Tribute last Tuesday; the current Chair of the RTÉ board and her husband, right in the centre of proceedings.

I don’t begrudge them a bit of their success so don’t pick on it.  But I do take their very presence on our national screen to lick themselves while Moya Doherty chaired the organisation into what ye are seeing today; and she was paid to do it.

I am particularly irritated by an itch that can’t be scratched; RTÉ served all those it employed and engaged, fattened flattered and flaunted, far better than it served any of us, its strategy or is mandated function.

RTÉ are supposed to answer to its Licence Payers and its viewers, and most of all its Public Broadcasting Mandate.  And it doesn’t.

So when DG Dee Forbes says the future of public service broadcasting is at risk, I find myself insulted. Do not blame the source of over half your income (YE18 56%) the Licence Payer,  for the collapse of the organisation both financially and operationally.  

Look again at that Renewing RTÉ for the the next generation , the most important Strategic Plan in the lifetime of the organisation, that within two years has been replaced by “A Plan.”

So even when it was developed, adopted, and probably got a fancy launch; it never stood a chance.  You really have to ask what sort of projections they were playing around with when the Board developed that Strategic Plan and signed it off.

The weekend ahead is going to be filled with Gay Byrne eulogies and RTÉ crisis management spin; and most of it from people who would either qualify as Relatives or Related Parties.

So from this someone, who is a no-one really, but can promise you independence that you could stir your tea with; here is my RTÉ Reboot Receipe

  • All Board and Board Oversight (if any) should be Voluntary

  • All Board and Board Oversight are banned from any programming, unless it is Board / Governance related reporting

  • All Department Heads have to go, and agree not to seek further opportunity from the organisation

  • Relocate the entire facility in Montrose out of Dublin 4

  • Immediately ban News and Current Affairs staff/ contractors from appearing in any Entertainment Division programming, and vice versa.

  • No outside employment for any staff member engaged in any programming department and or division

  • Future HR Ban on employment of Relatives and Related Parties unless signed off by external Auditors

  • Salary Cap of 145K for senior management

  • Dump everyone on over €100k on the wireless, and cap Names; Tubridy, O’Callaghan etc to €225K

  • Move all sports, both News & Current Affairs, and Special Events onto Network 2 & 2fm; SpórTÉ or something

  • Ban on all purchased content from other Television Networks.

  • No series renewal unless export market identified

  • RTÉ 1 and Radio 1 to be main news and current affairs, and special event telly, ie Debates, Toy Show, Elections; introduce more music.  Ban on employees working both divisions, unless engaged in special event, and signed off by two senior producers and DG.

Can it be done; of course it can.

Vanessa Foran is a principal at Recovery Partners.

Rollingnews

Yesterday: Everything Must Go

From pic 3 : Secretary of the National Union of Journalist Seamus Dooley at RTÉ: this morning Dee Forbes, RTE Director General at The Late Late Show Gay Byrnes special last Tuesday night

This morning.

On RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, secretary of the National Union of Journalists Seamus Dooley spoke to Bryan Dobson about the RTÉ 200 job cuts leak to The Irish Times last night.

Mr Dooley described the manner in which RTÉ’s staff and workforce learned about the cuts via media reports as “shocking”.

This morning, Will Leahy who presents RTÉ GOLD from Limerick told his listeners:

“The service you’re listening to now will cease to exist…Today could be our last day. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be the 31st of December. All I know is what I read in the papers.”

From this morning’s interview…

Seamus Dooley: “As secretary of the NUJ, I’m not going to criticise any journalist for getting a good story. But the reality is that people are waking up to to, this morning, in Limerick, in digital services, finding out that their livelihood is under threat.

“And what I’m getting from staff on campus this morning is how can we trust these people to deliver a plan if they’re not even capable of delivering a message properly.”

Bryan Dobson: “What about the questions that you have about the plan itself. Because there are a lot of questions left unanswered, are there not?”

Dooley: “There are a huge amount of questions left unanswered and members of RTÉ, well all the trade unions, are caught between two abject failures. The failure of Government upon public service broadcasting and the failure, as admitted by the Director-General [Dee Forbes] herself this morning, the failure of executive management to deliver a plan.

“She has admitted here this morning that it has taken three years and the plan is not delivering. And the hames that has been made of this so far is proof of that. The reorganisation hasn’t worked.

“We were up for the plan. Remember that trade union group in RTÉ were the first workers in the public service to volunteer a pay cut. We have a document, guiding principles, which will, is the framework for all of the changes that can be delivered. Could we deliver it now? RTÉ have failed to implement changes using the existing collective agreements and I’m not going to listen to guff about agreements because they’re there.

“It’s up to management to manage – they haven’t been doing it.”

Dobson: “Key elements of this are that any redundancies will be voluntary so nobody is going to be make it compulsory to lose their job. The pay cuts will apply to the highest earners whether that be presenters or indeed at the executive level and there’s a pay freeze for the rest of staff.”

Dooley: “Well, first of all, we have, we only learned about this document through The Irish Times. Every proposal will be independently evaluated by an independent [inaudible] on our behalf. I’m very reluctant to take any promises at face value. We will absolutely interrogate them. I certainly welcome the statement in relation to voluntary redundancies.”I would say that I’m very worried about grand gestures. The DG herself admitted that the high pay issue, which can be a bit of a distraction really, is, would make an insignificant amount. So grand gestures like selling bits of art, or the board of RTÉ waving fees, they’re superficial.

“What we want and what we’ve been looking for for three years is the delivery of a plan which tells us the future of RTÉ.

“And one other thing I would say to your listeners is we represent what Gay Byrne used to call, the worker bees who keep the factory humming – low paid and who will be very hard hit by some of those…”

Dobson: “How concerned would you be that this plan mightn’t be enough. That if it’s not matched, as Dee Forbes seemed to be arguing earlier by reform of the licence fee, we’ll be back in the same situation in maybe just a couple of years time.”

Dooley: “I think the evidence is that redundancy packages of this type do not work. The proposals which RTÉ have implemented haven’t been enough and what we need is meaningful engagement which actually shows us the vision that RTÉ have in relation to what kind of public service broadcasting we want. So I would have a concern.

“And I would also worry about, I mean the atmosphere here is very poor. The moral is very low because since September, RTÉ have been engaged with what I refer to as ‘industrial relations striptease’ – where we get an odd email and an odd staff announcement, telling us ‘we’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan’ we have to do something’. Then they keep postponing and they postpone and then we read about it in this way.

“There is a big challenge facing us but there is also a challenge facing Government. We want public service broadcasting in Ireland, it must be paid for. It must be planned properly and that involves by both the executive of RTÉ and by Government.”

Dobson: “Right. Seamus Dooley from the NUJ thank you very much for that.”

Earlier on Morning Ireland, Director-General of RTÉ Dee Forbes said:

“It is regrettable but I think what’s also hugely important is that we sustain for the future. What’s most important in this conversation is that we sustain public service broadcasting.

“It’s never been a more important time. It’s never been more important to have that independent voice. So what we’re doing here is, is sort of changing, if you like, course and looking at the direction that it go in.”

EARLIER:

Last night.

Via RTÉ:

The RTÉ Guide is for sale

RTÉ will close its current studio in Limerick in 2020; production of RTÉ lyric fm will move to Cork and Dublin

RTÉ will continue to provide a mid-west news service in Limerick

We will close the Digital Audio Broadcast network, as well as RTÉ’s digital radio stations (RTÉ 2XM, RTÉ Pulse, RTÉ Gold, RTÉjr Radio & RTÉ Radio 1 Extra)

RTÉ Aertel will cease

The RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra will transfer to the National Concert Hall

We will develop a new integrated media centre in Donnybrook, investing in new digital infrastructure

We need to reduce projected costs by €60 million over three years (2020-2023), in addition to the reduction of 23% delivered between 2008 and 2018

We need to reduce the fees paid to our top contracted on-air presenters by15%, in addition to the 30+% cuts as agreed in previous years

We need to reduce staff costs—we will consult with staff and unions on a number of initiatives, to include pay freeze, tiered pay reductions, review of benefits, work practice reforms

The Executive Board will take a 10% reduction in pay; the Board of RTÉ will waive its fees

We need to achieve a staff headcount reduction of c. 200 in 2020

RTÉ to cut jobs, pay and some services to address financial crisis (RTÉ)

Rollingnews

RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes said:

“The challenges in front of us are real. But RTÉ does have a plan, which we are confident can address many of the challenges we face and bring Ireland’s national public broadcaster to stability.

However, Government needs to act to ensure there is a future for public service media in Ireland. I am clear about what role RTÉ should play in Irish life, but I am also clear that we cannot do it unless Government fixes the TV Licence system. We shouldn’t be under any illusions; we are in a fight – a fight to sustain a viable public media in Ireland.”

“We remain in discussions with Government. We are doing all we can to return RTÉ to a stable financial position, but we will not be able to reinvent public media for future generations, nor fulfil our remit, without immediate reform of the TV Licence system.”

FIGHT!

This afternoon.

Further to RTE’s cuts announcement

Deaf community activist Micheál Kelliher writes:

RTÉ…What’s your plans with subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing people?

If you shut down #Aertel (888 for subs) and they are not using TV setboxes, etc, how can you ensure them to have access to subtitles?

Anyone?

Earlier: Everything Must Go

Kevin Lunney

Following the abduction and torture of Quinn Industrial Holdings’ chief operations officer Kevin Lunney last month…

RTÉ reports:

The CEO of Quinn Industrial Holdings has said the latest threats against its directors are “being taken very seriously at the highest level”.

Liam McCaffrey said the PSNI and gardaí are monitoring the homes and place of work of QIH’s directors.

The threat, delivered to the Irish News, was conveyed to Quinn directors by gardaí.

In the letter, which was typed and delivered to the Irish News on Monday, QIH directors were told that it was their final warning.

Threats being taken seriously at highest level – QIH chief Liam McCaffrey (RTÉ)

Related: New threat against QIH directors by gang behind torture of Kevin Lunney (Irish News)

Previously: In Cavan

From top: Fine Gael MEP Maria Walsh and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar; vote result yesterday in the European Parliament sitting in Strasbourg

This morning.

Fine Gael MEP for Midlands–North-West Maria Walsh spoke on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland about her  and her party colleagues decision to vote against a resolution to step up search and rescue operations of asylum seekers in the Mediterranean.

The other Fine Gael MEPs who voted against the resolution were Mairead McGuinness, Maria Walsh, Frances Fitzgerald and Sean Kelly.

Green Party MEPs Ciarán Cuffe and Grace O’Sullivan, Sinn Féin’s Martina Anderson and Matt Carthy, and Independents Luke Ming Flanagan and Mick Wallace all voted in favour.

No votes were recorded for Independent Clare Daly, DUP MEP Dianne Dodds, the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long or Fianna Fáil’s Billy Kelleher.

The vote lost by two votes – to applause within the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

Ms Walsh started her interview with Dr Gavin Jennings saying that there were a number of “red flags” in the resolution which she voted against.

The resolution included the following line:

“Calls on all actors in the Mediterranean to proactively transmit information related to persons in distress at sea to the competent authorities for search and rescue operations and to, where appropriate, any potential vessels in the vicinity that could imminently engage in search and rescue.”

Dr Gavin Jennings: “Why did you vote against the resolution?”

Maria Walsh: “Well, first and foremost, based off, let me be very clear. My colleagues in Fine Gael and the European People’s Party, EPP, support search and rescue for the most vulnerable in the Mediterranean and we’ve been very clear on that. We’ve also been very clear that we want effective and workable solutions for the Mediterannean, working with our new EU Commission, working with our council and, of course, across the European party.

“Not only is it morally right but it’s legally our duty to save our most vulnerable. But this report had a number of red flags to it and you would have seen that based off the 288 voted in favour, 290 voted against.

“Couple of red flags for us so as the EPP group, we made a plan. We needed to make sure that our most vulnerable was protected. So we had four key votes and I’ll just explain one of them in particular that was the one voted down was amendment 59 which was calling, which was proposed by S&D and Greens originally and we had really fought to include this into a key vote into the report as a whole and it wanted information shared to all vessels – NGOs, Frontex, members states.

“Now what we see in Essex and what I’m reading on the reports is the fact that we have an incredible serious issue with human trafficking, incredible. That we need to solve and find a solid solution for. But sharing information of our most vulnerable when they’re at most risk, is not the way to do it.

“So, how, what was proposed by other parties was information would be shared throughout. That, that, I can’t stand over that. EPP couldn’t stand over that. That is just one call. But I do want to stress to listeners and to yourself – this report does not change, this resolution I should say, does not change, does not combat or create any other issues under international law.

“All vessels that come into contact with individuals must assist them and this vote doesn’t change that.”

Dr Gavin Jennings: “OK.”

Walsh: “But what it does is it shows that, it shows that we have to go back to the drawing board, it shows we have to bring in Ursula von der Leyen commissioner-designates in to talk about this and we have to find a solution that works for all, that member states…”

Jennings: “The resolution…”

Walsh: “….and NGOs are not at risk…”

Jennings: “Maria Walsh, the resolution called on all actors in the Mediterranean to transmit information in relation to persons in distress at sea to the competent authorities for search and rescue, all actors in the Mediterranean. Now your party, Fine Gael, as part of the European People’s Party voted alongside ultra-nationalists and far-right parties to defeat this resolution by two votes. Many of those parties were celebrating the result in the European Parliament. Are  your party proud of your achievement?”

Walsh: “Not at all. Actually, I won’t speak for, I won’t speak for any other group, except the EPP. I know the co-ordinator quite well, Roberta Metsola for the EPP, I also know the Shadow Repertoire  on this file Lena Düpont, from Germany. And I can tell you this: we, as soon as the vote was cast, and the result was shared, we were disappointed. We wanted the…”

Jennings: “Many of the parties that votes alongside you were far from disappointed.”

Silence

Walsh: “Well, like I said I can’t speak on behalf of any other group, except the EPP. But the one sentence that came out from again Roberta and Lena’s mouth is: we need to get back to the drawing board. And we need to get back fast. So that issues, and you see a lot of red flags here, that people are clinging on to the fact that four MEPs from Fine Gael voted this down.

“This report was loose in language, it was not legally binding, it was not looking at support from member states, it was actually putting NGOs, that do amazing work, most at risk.

“And we are looking at and calling for an increase in smuggling and trafficking. And any report that has any grey area with increase of trafficking, I’m sorry. I hope my listeners, your listeners, agree with this: we cannot support.

“I also just want to point out…”

Jennings: “Very briefly..”

Walsh: “Yeah, I just want to point out. This report wasn’t, wasn’t green flagged by everybody. I want to note that four S&D colleagues voted down, five were absent. Renew Europe, ten voted down and four were absent. Now the far, far right, or far left, if you want to give them names…”

Jennings: “I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave it there, Maria Walsh, MEP, thank you very much for speaking to us this morning.”

Listen back in full here

Yesterday: Meanwhile in Strasbourg

Previously: What Fresh Hell…?

Rollingnews

UPDATE:

Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly

This morning, Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly spoke to East Coast FM about the vote.

He told Declan Meehan that he and his colleagues “don’t want to put anything put in place to help the smugglers”.

Asked about the applause that rang out after the vote result emerged, Mr Kelly said: “I think it was terrible.”

He added that those who applauded “had a different reason for voting the way we did”.

East Coast FM

UPDATE:

Conor McCabe tweetz:

After he voted to let people drown in the Mediterranean, Seán Kelly ordered himself a juicy burger and side plate of chips. He even fu**ing tweeted it.

UPDATE:

Fianna Fáil MEP Billy Kelleher has tweeted:

Yesterday, I voted on over 140 amendments and resolutions.

Included in these were votes in favour of many GUE/NGL amendments supporting their position on refugees and migrants.

However, voting was slow to start and as such I had to leave at 12:45 in order to compete my 2.5 hour bus journey to Frankfurt in order catch my flight back to Dublin and then onto Cork.

I 100% would have voted in favour of this resolution. I hope that the EU Council and Commission can implement progressive proposals to protect migrants & asylum seekers and save lives.

UPDATE:

RTÉ News reports:

Speaking to RTÉ News, Ms McGuinness said the provision would have required Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, “to share information with all ships in the region, including traffickers”.

Ms McGuinness said that would not have been acceptable and said if the resolution had been passed, it would have “made the situation worse”.

“We had concerns about the actual content of it, not about the objective,” she added.

Ms McGuinness said she “will not allow anyone challenge my ethics or morality around saving lives” and she insisted the parliament “will revisit this issue again” very shortly.

McGuinness and Walsh defend vote against search and rescue resolution (RTÉ)

From top: Fianna Fáil Leader  Michéal Martín (left) and Niall Collins TD; Mr Martín and Timmy Dooley TD; Lisa Chambers TD

This morning.

Fianna Fáil TD and the party’s Brexit spokesperson Lisa Chambers spoke to Audrey Carville on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland about how she came to vote for the party’s deputy leader Dara Calleary last Thursday.

It followed the Irish Independent reporting on Saturday that Ms Chambers’ party colleague Timmy Dooley TD had voted six times last Thursday even though he wasn’t in the Dáil chamber.

Mr Dooley and Fianna Fáil Niall Collins, who voted for Mr Dooley, have been suspended from the front bench pending an investigation by the Ceann Comhairle.

Ms Carville began her interview with Ms Chambers after airing a clip from yesterday’s on RTÉ’s This Week during which Ms Chambers was asked if she ever voted for a colleague or had a colleague vote for her.

She replied: “No, I haven’t.”

From this morning’s interview…

Audrey Carville: “‘No, I havent’. So why did you say you hadn’t, when you had?”

Lisa Chambers: “Well, honestly, Audrey, I took that to be, ‘did you ever intentionally, knowingly, purposefully,  you know, go into the chamber to vote for somebody else and were ever asked to do so and the answer to that is ‘no’. And I’ve never asked somebody to do that for me either.

“What happened for me last Thursday was an honest, genuine mistake. All of the seats are side by side. We sit alphabetically. Myself and Dara Calleary’s seats are beside each other. The seats are identical, they’re not numbered.

“And when I walked in, the row was pretty empty so I mistakenly sat in Dara’s seat instead of my own, not realising. So when I voted on the very first vote, now there were lots of votes on Thursday, when I voted on the very first vote, I honest to God believed I was sitting in my seat and pressing my voting button.

“And when I looked up at the main screen where we can see the seats highlighted for voting, I realised my seat wasn’t highlighted. And that’s when I realised I was in the wrong seat with probably less than 10 seconds to go, I hopped into my own seat, beside it, and then cast my own vote which is what I should have done.

“Now, my mistake, and I hold my hands up on this. I should have told the teller that there was an error recorded in the seat beside me. I didn’t do that. The reason I didn’t was that the vote was lost by  such a huge number that I genuinely thought it was insignificant and that it was a genuine mistake. There were lots of votes. Dara missed a few votes, I only voted in the very first one and then I moved my seat.

“There are absolutely no benefits or no good reason why I would have voted for anybody else. It didn’t make any difference to the vote, as I said now, I should have still corrected the error regardless. But there’s no reason you would do that. And I hope that people will take it as a genuine, honest mistake on the day.

“Others have done the same, my mistake was not telling the teller to correct the record.”

Carville: “But if it was a genuine mistake, why did…”

Chambers: “And it was…”

Carville: “Why did you also vote for yourself though?”

Chambers: “Well I should have voted for myself. That’s because I was in the chamber, I should have recorded my own votes, that was the correct thing to do. My mistake, and what I should have done, and I hold my hands up, I should have told one of the tellers that I had recorded an error vote in the seat beside me…”

Carville: “Yes, you should have done that. But you also should have, when you recorded the vote in Dara Calleary’s seat, surely then you knew, your vote was recorded, you didn’t need to vote for yourself as well.”

Chambers: “Well, no, your vote isn’t recorded because it’s assigned to the seat you’re supposed to be sitting in. So my seat was blank, as though I wasn’t voting. So, again, you’ve got 60 seconds to take a vote. Even if you look back at the Dáil footage, you’ll see, I cast what I thought was my own vote maybe about 15 seconds in, but in Dara’s seat. I realised I was in the wrong seat. There was maybe 10 seconds left and I went, popped into the seat next door, my own seat to cast my own vote...”

Carville: “Ok. So why didn’t you tell the vote tellers or the Ceann Comhairle?”

Chambers: “Look it, I should have and…”

Carville: “But why didn’t you?”

Chambers: “I looked up, the vote was lost by such a huge margin, it didn’t make any difference. I accept I should have done it, it was a genuine error. But there was no mal-intent. I didn’t purposefully, intentionally go in to vote for somebody else. Dara never asked me to do that, he was none the wiser. This was news to him, as well. It was an honest, genuine mistake and I’m hoping that by coming on and explaining, people will take it as that.

“I think people have come to know me the last number of years, I work hard, I do my best, I put my best into my work and I’m straight. You know this was an honest mistake. Others have done it but my error and I full accept, I should have told a teller on the day that I recorded an error vote in the seat beside me…”

Carville: “When you say ‘others have done it’, who are you talking about? Are you talking about other people, other than Timmy Dooley and Niall Collins?”

Chambers: “Well, people can record error votes by mistake. You might press ‘Tá’ instead of ‘Níl’ you could press the button on the wrong side of you by mistake but what I should have done is tell the teller so that it could have been cancelled out.”

Listen back in full here

Earlier: A Limerick A Day

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Meanwhile…

Fight!

Thanks Helen O’D

From top: Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe with RTE Director General Dee Forbes; Sean O’Rourke and at a press conference following his Today show post-budget  broadcast

This morning.

Radio Centre, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

Via RTÉ:

A caller aged 68 is unhappy at recently losing his and wife’s eligibility to a medical card and seeing that in yesterday’s Budget over 70s have had the income threshold limit for medical cards increased to €1,050. He asks why under 70s didn’t have a threshold increase. Mr Donohoe says he had to make changes affordable to the funds he had available. He added that he would like to make further changes in the future when funds are available.

Meanwhile…

Mr Donohoe has defended the decision to make €16.8 million available for the greyhound industry. He was asked on Today with Sean O’Rourke why this money could not be ringfenced for carers. Mr Donohoe said that €1.4 billion overall had been put aside for carers.
He told a caller that Ministers Shane Ross and Michael Creed have looked to put significant changes in place to deal behaviour that he believed was “utterly unacceptable in the greyhound industry”.

Budget 2020: Reaction and Donohoe takes questions (RTÉ)

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