Dee Forbes banging the RTE TV licence drum again 60m uncollected fee *poll not working - pl ignore*

And she's gone:

Regards...jmcc

As always, Beaker has an interesting take on events. It doesn't seem to be as straightforward as it seems.

If it turns out that she did inform the department officials, it looks like Martin herself is now in trouble. If there's a paper record confirming Ni Raghallaigh's story then Martin might be next for the high jump.

Regards...jmcc

I am reading that right - she is contradicting herself in that statement, she did know, told the minister she didn't know, but then says she told them in October???

She told the dept about the package for Collins but seemingly did not say it had been approved by the board.

The question is did Martin say she had no knowledge of the package in the last few days? I can't remember myself!

Looks like a CYA statement but it has completely stitched up Martin. The department was informed but one thing did not go through the full board. Very clever choice of words.

"I was asked if the Board knew about the exit packages for Rory Coveney and Richard Collins. I said that I was aware of them, but they had not come before the full Board. However, I neglected to recollect that Richard Collin’s exit package did go before the Renumeration Committee"

Regards...jmcc

The way I read that is they both came before the board, regardless if they agreed, if one package approved and another not why did both packages get paid off.

It's just another "we do what we like in RTE" - sod what anyone says, especially the board, why did HR not get approval from the board for the payment? Does someone just rock up to HR saying Hey 400k payoff has been agreed and no one bothers to check.

The gross incompetence of mismanagement seems to run through every level of RTE. Next person brought to PAC should be the head of HR since surely they are the ones approving pay offs.

But Martin says she asked twice this week about it and was told nothing agreed - how Martin got a ministerial post is beyond me to start with, has been utterly useless throughout this whole thing - why are teachers thought of as good ministers in this country, if anything they have proven to be the worst

Who in their right mind would take on a task like that ?. And no matter what they were paid to clean the mess, the Politicans would moan about the cost and the package paid to the fixer.

Just shut it down. After 8 months, there is no end in sight.

Martin was on TV last night , absolutely incapable

Rte, the gift that keeps on giving.

The best entertainment that RTE has produced in years. Unfortunately, we are all paying for it.

Regards...jmcc

Is she the first big wig to actually walk away from Rte WITHOUT a big pay off?

Marie Sherlock says Catherine Martin is out of her depth.

I suspect Green voters aren't too impressed with the way Catherine Martin has gone about this. There was no need for that interview. She should have called the meeting last night and sacked her in private.

She won't be walking empty handed,if they don't give her a lump sum she has a case to take about being told she was going to be sacked the next day by watching TV, what a mess,these ministers are paying their family and friends as "advisors/ assistants" surely one of them could have have said this isn't a good idea?

Job losses rather than redundancies (meaning the position is being eliminated). They have to replace Ni Raghallaigh. At the moment, some of the other RTE management could be "exited" to use Bakhurst's term.

Regards...jmcc