RTÉ Punished For Mismanagement With €725mn In Funding

THE CULMINATION of Oireachtas grillings and report commissioning has finally seen accountability and appropriate punishment delivered to RTÉ for its disastrous governance and secret payments scandal in the form of €725mn over the next three years.

“It’s this sort of decisive, no-nonsense approach which will bring an end to a toxic culture of consequence-free mismanagement of taxpayer’s licence fee,” assured Taoiseach Simon Harris as his coalition cabinet signed off on a funding package which keeps the licence fee in place and covers any fiscal shortcomings for the national broadcaster.

“Let this be a lesson to any organisations that receives State funding, you can’t funnel and disguise secret payments to top earners, sign off on redundancies for people not actually being made redundant, force staff into bogus self-employment to avoid paying pensions contributions and not expect a boatload of cash,” added the Fine Gael leader, who doesn’t expect favourable coverage of government parties in return for throwing €725mn RTÉ’s way.

In a bid to soften the blow for a public left frustrated and let down by RTÉ management’s poor performance, the Taoiseach confirmed more money would be put into prosecuting people who don’t pay their licence fee.

“Sure you’d barely get a flip flop with that pocket change,” countered one RTÉ executive from the old guard, clearly uphappy with the pitiful injection of funding.

Update: RTÉ have said they have not taken the funding announcement for granted and have confirmed they will do everything in their power to continue airing Killinaskully repeats in a bid to win back public trust.