RTÉ has said a write-down relating to a partially failed IT system was discussed with a State body when they were included in the broadcaster’s accounts from 2020 to 2023.
It was confirmed yesterday that RTÉ had written down a figure of €3.6 million on the IT system, which was one of the projects funded from the proceeds of the sale of land at its Dublin site in 2017.
In this evening’s statement, RTÉ said it told NewERA about the impairments.
NewERA is part of the National Treasury Management Agency, which provides advice to the Government on its shareholdings in State bodies, including RTÉ, An Post, daa and ESB.
In a statement this evening, the broadcaster said that “prior to publication of RTÉ’s annual accounts, the department and its advisers queried the impairments in June 2022 when they were reviewing RTÉ’s 2021 accounts”.
“RTÉ confirmed the impairments related to the ERP project. The queries also noted impairments relating to the ERP project in RTÉ’s 2020 annual accounts.”
The ERP project relates to Enterprise Resource Planning – which was the title given to the project to replace outdated finance and HR systems.
While last night RTÉ confirmed that it had noted the write-downs in its annual accounts of 2020 through to 2023, there had been concern expressed today that they had not been properly highlighted or discussed with officials.
It comes after Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan had expressed disappointment earlier that they had not previously been notified about the write-downs.
Meanwhile Labour TD, and incoming chair of the Oireachtas Media Committee, Alan Kelly said RTÉ had “ample opportunities” to point to the write-downs, but had failed to do so, which added to the view that RTÉ had lacked transparency.
Watch: Alan Kelly says RTÉ has questions to answer
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‘Ample opportunity’ to flag write-down – minister
Earlier, Minister O’Donovan said RTÉ had “ample opportunity” to flag the write-down to the Government, adding that he was “disappointed” the broadcaster did not do so.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Mr O’Donovan said he was surprised that knowledge of the situation had not emerged publicly before now, adding that while it was in RTÉ’s accounts, it was “not in the accounts with an explanation”.
He said: “RTÉ were before the Public Accounts Committee and the Committee with regard to Arts and Media on a number of occasions and none of the officials in my own department had any knowledge of the detail with regard to this impairment.
“What surprised me and disappointed me was that there was ample opportunity on more than one occasion for the organisation to say, with regard to all of the other well-documented difficulties that there were, to say ‘we also have an impairment that is being carried forward from a set of accounts a number of years ago which we need to bring to the committee’s and the Government’s attention’. That unfortunately didn’t happen.
“What I would say is that all of this predates the current management and the current Director General.
“Nonetheless, it did disappoint me and it did surprise me when my own head of finance and my own secretary general brought to my attention that there was a significant financial impairment of the order of €3m in the RTÉ accounts going back a number of years which hadn’t really been explained to the Government, which hadn’t been explained to the licence fee payers and which hadn’t been explained to the public.”
Minister Donohoe said it should have been made clear at the point in time at which the issue occurred.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, he said: “Millions of euro, for any of us, are still huge amounts of money, particularly when they’re invested in projects that don’t actually then happen in the way that was intended.”
The minister said it is important that Mr O’Donovan continues with his work to ensure he, his department and the public are aware of these issues, and for the reform agenda in RTÉ to be completed.
He said State funding for layoffs at RTÉ has been made available “in recognition of the fundamental importance of public broadcasting to the health of our society and democracy”.
