Terry Prone on RTÉ saga: Calls for end to drip-drip of data are at best naïve, at worst idiotic
At Rte Ireland Logos Dublin Station The In 26/06/2023
Let’s all agree that the worst thing about the RTÉ saga is the drip-drip of revelations. If RTÉ was worth a damn, goes this theory, they’d open the faucet, clear the drain, drench all of us in data and then we could all move on.
Unfortunately, this theory, frequently articulated by politicians and almost as frequently articulated by commentators, is pure drivel. It is based on the fallacious assumption that an organisation like RTÉ can at any moment get together all information about — say — who got an exit package, and vomit the findings forth in an attack of transparency. Lovely assumption. Pity about the reality.
That reality starts with Ryan Tubridy and concealed payments to him. Oireachtas committees, which, remarkably, didn’t give a sugar, at the time, about drip-drip revelations, dragged him and his agent and a whole load of RTÉ worthies in front of them, to salivate in faux-horror at the amount of money the talent was trousering.
Back then, when the mudslide started, a key obstacle stymied the nascent demand that RTÉ cough up all the details, right this minute. Dee Forbes started to send in sick notes. At this point, we state the standard hopes that she gets better from whatever ails her, before moving on to say to those who hate drip-drip feeding of data from public service bodies, that the former director general has done a lot more than defeat their aspirations. She has created a precedent which may have grave consequences for all such bodies.
Within the legal system, it’s the judiciary that decides if your illness prevents you from giving evidence. Within the public service system, post-Forbes, it’s the doctors commissioned by the central figure. Oireachtas committee members have repeatedly and pointlessly invited Ms Forbes to attend while expressing pious hopes for her recovery, but none of the legal eagles informing their thinking has come up with a way to solve the problem and prevent its future implications, which are deadly.
Moving on from Ms Forbes, we come to Breda O’Keeffe, the former chief financial officer of RTÉ, her of the flame-coloured dress and hair, who appeared before the committee looking into RTÉ and was direct, to the point, and admired by the committee because of her directness. Here’s a new health warning: Beware being praised by an Oireachtas committee for forthrightness. Like milk left in sunshine, it goes off very fast. In the case of the former CFO, she put herself in the sunshine by a casual mention of her own departure from the national broadcaster. Not to mix metaphors, but that was a hell of a loose thread, and when it got pulled, it revealed the equivalent of a Lottery win on her part, courtesy of the missing Dee Forbes.
Reverting for a moment to the “Let’s stop this drip-drip stuff” theory, here’s something nobody could have anticipated.
“Truth leakage” — the instinctive talking about things you know you shouldn’t mention — is frequent, when people are being questioned in public, but not inevitable. If she had decided, in advance, not to go near her exit package, she wouldn’t have had a problem. Instead, that package became a toxic drip which eroded the packages given to others. Could Kevin Bakhurst have anticipated this? Not really, unless he keeps a crystal ball in his ever-present shoulder bag.
On the other hand, a good crisis manager would have, early on in this serial catastrophe, said: “Folks, let’s have the detail for every package for everybody being paid over €100k.” Easy.
Except that another head gets raised at this point in the account of why organisations end up revealing sensitive data in reviled installments. A legal head or heads. You know the bright lads and lassies who, whenever the PR person or the Head of Comms or the imported crisis manager wants such detail, suck air in through their teeth, wince a bit and raise gently warning hands. NDAs may exist. It might be problematic if… Of course, it might be problematic. Court cases get upended by excessive righteous enthusiasm and reputations shredded, likewise.
Because of those legitimate concerns, the admirable desire for openness gets diluted like Mi Wadi until just a yellow trace remains. And then you know what happens? The people supposed to gain from such NDAs come under pressure from friends and enemies to reveal all, other lawyers get consulted and the truth comes out from under the door in another serving of toxic sludge.
Then another pattern emerges. VIPs who were happy to appear before Oireachtas committees at the outset, thrilled to do straight talking and fearless foot-stamping, suddenly get chills up their spine at the prospect of answering for matters about which they didn’t know or didn’t rate as important back then. Accordingly, they develop a massive desire for discretion and privacy.
In which context, reproving political statements demanding an end to the drip-drip of data are at best naïve, at worst idiotic. Shit happens. And organisational shit happens in installments. Always.