Mr Bakhurst has said he is determined to change the organisation's culture and governance.

Appearing at the Oireachtas media committee, he told TDs and senators about a number of changes he has implemented such as drafting a new leadership team, and he claims to be “driving change and transparency”. 

He told the committee that he hopes this is evident but, quite frankly, it is not so clear yet.

Before he sat down in Leinster House, Mr Bakhurst informed staff via email that he was putting in place a recruitment freeze with immediate effect and suspending all discretionary spending. 

This means hard-working journalists who have been greatly impacted by the scandal may not be able to get the equipment needed to carry out their work.

The broadcaster’s education correspondent Emma O’Kelly hit the nail on the head when she tweeted that staff were questioning if the freeze applied to “big fat car allowances”. Documents furnished to the committee revealed staff did not need to have a driving license to avail of car allowance payments of thousands of euros. 

Bakhurst announced a recruitment freeze but the dogs on the street know cutting staff needs to happen, so this announcement, as one TD on the committee said, is a distraction.

Despite the scandal that has engulfed RTÉ for months, the Irish Examiner revealed this week that the broadcaster had advertised a job and would spend €240,000 on a dedicated photographer to take still images of the soap opera Fair City. 

The three-year contract would see the photographer produce a minimum of 16 photographs a week of the show and its production.

The job was advertised only last week and Mr Bakhurst told the media committee he could not believe this had happened and was surprised. 

Yes, he cannot have oversight of every single thing that is happening at RTÉ but it is extraordinary that no one waved a red flag about this job which could very likely be carried out by someone already working at the media organisation. 

To add insult to injury, the job requirement and salary would need to have sign-off from a senior staff member at RTÉ who, you would have thought, would have panicked at the details of the advertisement, given the spotlight on the organisation.

'Blatantly misled'

Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster also drew attention to the fact the committee was “blatantly misled” previously, having been told that the exclusive Soho House in London was used for RTÉ business meetings as the organisation had no offices in the city. 

"Your documents show us that no meetings took place," she said. 

"It was used for accommodation purposes,” she said, describing it as quite shocking. 

Although Mr Bakhurst gave an indication of his thinking on how the station may make cuts in the long term, such as selling parts of the Montrose site to raise revenue and the organisation becoming much smaller, how far he goes in his cost-saving report due next month to the Government will be a defining moment not only for the broadcaster but for Mr Bakhurst himself. 

A number of Cabinet ministers have already spoken of how they felt “underwhelmed” with soundings coming from Mr Bakhurst.

It is understood senior Government figures noted that he has been speaking about putting practices in place that should already have been there at the broadcaster and the reforms he has publicly spoken of to date do not equate to radical change.

If RTÉ is going to be financially rescued with millions of taxpayers' money, Mr Bakhurst needs to move urgently.

The short-term plan needs to go beyond better accounting and governance practices.

The station chief said himself on Wednesday he still has many questions to which he would like answers.

Insufficient answers

However, his own team around him still cannot seem to provide sufficient answers to basic questions that have been asked by politicians time and time again.

Fine Gael senator Micheál Carrigy expressed the continued frustration felt by politicians when he said it was like “pulling teeth to get answers”.