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Irish Examiner
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Gareth O'Callaghan: It's been two years since Tubridy was thrown to the lions. Is it time for RTÉ to ask him back?
'Until someone is prepared to lay out the systemic problem, we will simply go through cycles of finding corruption, finding a scapegoat, eliminating the scapegoat, and relaxing until we find the next scandal.' I'm not a fan of American politician Newt Gingrich; but as I read these words of his, I'm reminded of where I was this week two years ago when Ryan Tubridy's stellar career as Ireland's leading broadcaster started to come apart in what was a bolt out of the blue. Barely a month before, a day ahead of his final Late Late Show, he told fans: 'Tomorrow night is going to be a night of endings for sure, but beginnings for definite.' In hindsight, some might have called his words prophetic, others foreboding; but it seems certain he knew nothing about what was careering down the tracks. It would take a long hot summer before RTÉ's director general Kevin Bakhurst finally announced on August 18 that Tubridy would not be returning to his radio show, after a two-month controversy that became the most damaging crisis the broadcaster has ever faced in its almost 100-year history. It was an inglorious sacking, painfully drawn out, and made worse the previous month by the performances of some politicians on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) with their humiliation of Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly during live Oireachtas TV sessions, the first of which had more than nine million minutes of online viewing. No doubt it's a date that's etched forever in his memory, the day his career slipped from his grip and his life changed — Tuesday, July 11, 2023, when he was thrown to the lions in Leinster House, a place that's not always known for its moral compass. For the first time in its history, this online streaming channel, which most viewers to the event had never heard of, had bigger audiences than the annual Toy Show. Pubs across the country showed the televised meetings on their big screens, while clips from earlier sessions were viewed millions of times on TikTok. 'This is my first rodeo being in the public eye,' Tubridy told PAC that day. 'My name has been desperately sullied, I think my reputation has been sullied.' Strong words not used lightly, which led this writer to suspect he was being scapegoated as a result of a gargantuan cover-up — one that, it turned out, had been simmering for years. No doubt Tuesday, July 11, 2023, is a date that's etched forever in Ryan Tubridy's memory, the day his career slipped from his grip and his life changed. File photo: Oireachtas TV In the words of American diplomat Madeleine Albright, 'the cover-up, more than the initial wrongdoing, is what is most likely to bring you down.' And it did, royally. It was a scandal waiting to happen, and it was allowed to happen, not just by successive RTÉ managements, but by governments who ignored the warning signs for years. Looking back at the cast of characters who testified at the hearings, the only one thrown under the bus was Tubridy. That tells its own story. It wasn't until Grant Thornton's report was published in August two years ago that the facts became clear amidst all the convoluted evidence divulged by both sides. But by then, one man's reputation had been badly harmed. It found that RTÉ had intentionally understated Tubridy's annual salary by €120,000 across the three years from 2017-2019 by driving down payments made to him to under €500,000. In total, Tubridy was overpaid by €345,000. This conclusion cleared him of blame, which appeared at one point to be piled high and deep against him. RTÉ essentially disregarded its own payroll system so as to undervalue Tubridy's salary. Payroll software at the broadcaster clearly showed he was paid more than the €500,000 over each of the three years. According to the report, Tubridy was also entitled to a €120,000 bonus, which he chose to waive. Hindsight can be merciless. What remains foremost in public memory two years later is the side deal with Renault, which RTÉ footed the bill for. Pubs across the country showed the televised meetings on their big screens from Oireachtas TV of RTE's star presenter Ryan Tubridy. File photo: Oireachtas TV In 2020, Tubridy was paid by RTÉ in a sponsorship deal brokered by him, his agent and the broadcaster worth €225,000, in return for taking part in three corporate events for the car dealer, of which only one took place. He hasn't repaid the outstanding €150,000. Last weekend, media minister Patrick O'Donovan encouraged Tubridy to hand back the money, 'so we can move on from it,' he said. Ryan Tubridy has clearly moved on from it. He now lives in London, recently got engaged, and carving out a career for himself in radio, having been left with little choice but to leave the country, censured as the poster boy of a scandal he didn't cause. He became the fall guy as accountancy practices that had been going on for years in RTÉ finally became public. Was there any need for the public humiliation and the verbal flogging that Ryan Tubridy was subjected to two years ago? Did it serve any purpose, apart from dividing a national audience? If anything, it laid bare the banjaxed business model of RTÉ. The station posted a €9.1million loss in 2023 when its licence revenue took a massive hit as a result of the scandal, which it likely will never recover from. Its business model has never worked, so how can it hope to be self-sufficient? Government handouts are RTÉ's only hope of surviving, but for how long more? I suspect Kevin Bakhurst is keeping a close eye on the BBC, whose charter comes up for renewal in two years; when the network will have to prove its fitness in negotiations in order to take on the next 10 years of public service broadcasting. RTÉ has always fancied itself as a BBC-type replica with the additional benefit of commercial revenue income. BBC's charter comprises a trio of core objectives: the pursuit of truth with no agenda, an emphasis on its native culture and storytelling, and a mission to bring people together – not unlike RTÉ. But has RTÉ not failed in two of these objectives in the light of what happened two years ago? RTÉ has a serious public service broadcasting remit, which is becoming more and more difficult to commit to in the modern climate of content-rich competitors with very deep pockets. In television land, new content is king. Repeating old programmes in order to fill a television schedule is one sure way to drive away viewers. It's difficult not to feel a sense of fatalism about RTÉ's future. Its treatment of a presenter who is still loved the length and breadth of Ireland, along with its handling of the payment scandal, was a devastating error of judgement. RTÉ's director general said there was a 'moral' case for Tubridy to return the money. Considering the scandal was of their own making, with disclosures of indefensible accounting and governance practices, and a propensity for decades of lavish corporate hospitality, RTÉ should be careful about highlighting what they regard as other people's morals. Ryan Tubridy at the official launch of Joe Duffy's autobiography 'Just Joe' in Dublin in 2011. File photo: Gareth Chaney Collins Grant Thornton's report absolved Ryan Tubridy of any blame. Whether he should return the remainder of the private sponsorship fee he received is a matter for him to decide. Unfortunately, the role that one individual found himself unwittingly cast into as the controversy unfolded two years ago, and how that role was sensationalised to the point where he was unjustly made out to be the villain, continues to overshadow the reality of a much greater scandal in which many of those responsible will never be punished. Two years on, the least RTÉ could do is offer Ryan Tubridy his job back. Maybe then, in the minister's own words, we can move on from it. Read More Gareth O'Callaghan: Unanswered questions haunt Philip Cairns case decades later
Spectator
a day ago
- Health
- Spectator
The flaw in Wes Streeting's AI NHS app plan
Speaking at Blackpool Football Club earlier this week, Wes Streeting announced his latest bid to modernise the NHS: bold new additions to the NHS app. Artificial intelligence would be used to empower people, turning them into experts on their own conditions, while another feature would 'show patients everything from their nearest pharmacy to the best hospital for heart surgery across the country, with patients able to choose based on their preference'. These features will reportedly be introduced within the next three years, with an extra £10 billion allocated by Rachel Reeves in her spending review to fund NHS technology. How exactly will NHS providers be 'inspired' by patients being offered choice? Given the impressive capabilities of freely available AI tools, the need to spend £10 billion on bespoke NHS software appears questionable from the outset. Streeting's optimism about the NHS's skill with large IT projects is impressive. I have the NHS app on my phone, and it reliably opens without crashing. With a finger I can ask it to arrange repeat prescriptions or to show me my GP records, although in both cases it responds by saying it can't help as it can't connect to my surgery. The app also offers to transfer me seamlessly to 111 for medical advice where, after only five or six pages of warnings, it asks permission for it to pass on my medical history. With that granted, it passes me to 111 which, having received all my information, starts by asking me my sex at birth. £10 billion, coincidentally, is the amount the Public Accounts Committee said, in 2013, had been wasted on an abandoned attempt to introduce an electronic patient record system to the NHS. 'The biggest IT failure ever seen', Dan Poulter, back then a Conservative health minister, condemned Labour's incompetence and responded with 'a £1 billion technology fund to help the NHS go paperless by 2018'. Perhaps readers will be unsurprised to hear that the NHS is not, in fact, now paperless. Or to hear that we're already using artificial intelligence without the government's help. Some colleagues are shy about their use of ChatGPT for clinical knowledge but it's widespread and so it should be. Medical knowledge expanded beyond the bounds of a single person's memory generations ago, and knowing the best ways to look things up has been a key skill ever since. For patients, ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and others already help. I used to sometimes advise people not to look certain matters up, confident that a quick Google would yield them the wrong end of a needlessly frightening stick. Today's large language models are better. For all their hazards, they respond to clinical questions not only with a decent chance of accuracy, but also with a high degree of useful context. They are the best products of some of the world's finest – and most highly paid – minds. Our NHS IT experts may well be poised to do a better job, but history suggests they are more likely to take ChatGPT and ineptly make it worse, wasting another £10 billion in the process. Notably, Streeting's Blackpool speech was not chiefly about technology. He introduced the NHS App's new features as methods for tackling his real focus of inequality. Beveridge, in 1942, spoke of the need for a welfare state to fight the five giants of idleness, ignorance, disease, squalor and want. Streeting attributed today's inequality to 'poverty, a lack of good work, damp housing, dirty air, and the sporting, travel and cultural opportunities which are afforded to the privileged few being denied to the many'. The shift worth noticing, because it is society's and not just Streeting's, is that people, and particularly the less fortunate, have ceased being spoken of as though they possess responsibility or control. Both, instead, rest wholly with the state. Streeting is right to care most for the least fortunate, whose opportunities are most constrained, but encouraging them to believe that what freedom they do possess is an illusion, and that they are not active agents but helpless victims, is harmful. Compassion, when sufficiently misguided, can be unkind. When it comes to My Choice, the app's feature to 'democratise' the NHS, Streeting's thinking seems equally flawed. 'If NHS providers know that their waiting times, health outcomes of their patients and patient satisfaction ratings will all be publicly available,' he said in his speech. 'They will be inspired to respond to patient choice, raise their game and deliver services that patients value.' This sounds attractive, just as it does to hold the state responsible for everything that's wrong in the world, but it makes as little sense. How exactly will NHS providers be 'inspired' by patients being offered choice? Here in the NHS almost everyone has a job for life, and equality means that within each field we are paid the same, regardless of talent or industry. And the senior managers, the only ones whose jobs are tenuous, almost invariably seem to fail upwards, leaving one post where they've been harmful in order to take another at a higher rate. Odd, to invoke the invisible hand of market forces in a context that effectively bans them. Streeting appears to be a bright & decent man genuinely trying to improve the NHS. Against an admittedly dire collection of colleagues, he seems to be the highlight of Labour's benches. It is hard not to root for him, especially as any success he has will be our success too. Harder still, sadly, to see him pulling it off.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
Unregulated court guardian service cost €21m last year
Until the tail end of 2016, few people outside childcare and the courts were familiar with a group of people known as guardians ad litem. But then came media reports detailing how much money some of the guardians had been earning from fees, and the opacity around the set-up for what they did. It all came to a head at a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in January 2017, when it was revealed that the 65 guardians had been paid an average of more than €100,000 per year, with one individual paid €240,000 in the year being reviewed. A member of the PAC, former Fine Gael TD Josepha Madigan, upon hearing of this figure, said: 'That is more than the President of Ireland earns in a year'. READ MORE She also noted that in general, the guardians were earning 2½ times what similar guardians were earning in the North, and in England and Wales. Guardians ad litem are individuals appointed by judges to represent the voice of the child, and their best interests, in care proceedings. The role was established by the Child Care Act 1991. They play a crucial role representing the child in difficult, trying, complicated – and at times traumatic and troubled – circumstances involving family and care. However, while the role was established by the legislation, there was no structure set up to operate the service. So the system grew in an ad-hoc way. In theory every child about whom care decisions were made should have had access to a guardian but it was up to the discretion of the judge. As it happened, only half the children were being assigned guardians. There was a geographical imbalance, with children in Dublin far more likely to be assigned one than children elsewhere. In addition, the guardians often sought legal representation in court, which meant additional costs, which were not subject to independent assessment. In his report on the guardian system, Séamus McCarthy, the Comptroller and Auditor General , said there was no agency charged with formal oversight of these guardians. He said there was inadequate data to allow monitoring of expenditure and delivery of service. And in 2016, that spending came to more than €15 million in fees for guardians and for legal services. [ 'For us as a nation, these are all our children': Court-appointed guardians fight for services for youth in care Opens in new window ] There was also opacity about how guardians came to be assigned. There were no formal requirements for minimum standard of qualifications, nor was there a limit in relation to the caseload being taken on by them. Most were former social workers. A few child-centred agencies such as Barnardos did establish guardian panels and had laid down strong protocols with insistence on minimum qualifications and experience. But the overall system was unsatisfactory. Everybody acknowledged that, including the then minister for children Katherine Zappone and the secretary general of the department, Fergal Lynch. Urgent reforms were promised. Zappone announced new legislation . Almost 10 years since the initial revelations, despite the promises of urgent change, that unregulated, ad-hoc system is still in place, with no oversight or governance, and with only half the children in care proceedings actually being assigned guardians. In 2023, a total of €10.5 million was paid to the 100 or so guardians ad litem, with a further €7 million in legal fees. Last year, the overall bill topped €21 million, with roughly half being paid in legal fees. The average annual cost per guardian is €100,000 although some earn far more, as it is understood more than 40 of the guardians do the role part-time. As independent contractors, the guardians are entitled to a fee of €125 per hour, a rate set in 2014. As recently as May 2024, the former Fianna Fáil TD Joe Flaherty raised concerns about the system with then minister for children, Roderic O'Gorman . In his reply, Mr O'Gorman said: 'The existing legislative provisions do not set out the criteria for appointing GALs [guardians ad litem] or legal representation to a GAL. Tusla is obliged to pay GALs and their legal fees but has little oversight of how these roles are fulfilled. Currently all GALs operating in the courts are self-employed individuals with many supported through network arrangements in relevant organisations. In the current system many children do not benefit from GAL support during their court proceedings.' In other words, the situation on the ground has not changed in nine years. It is not that no political effort has been made. In fact, it was O'Gorman, now the Green Party leader, who did the running on it. He steered through new legislation in 2022, the Child Care (Amendment) Act. It set up a new national guardian ad litem service with an executive office within the Department of Children . The new service would give universal access to all children to a guardian. It also envisaged that, over time, the service would move towards a largely salaried staff, supplemented by a panel. Crucially, it would be the office, rather than the individual guardian, who would make the decisions on legal advice and representation in proceedings, thus reducing the overall legal bill. O'Gorman said having a coherent, regulated, value-for-money and transparent system was the priority but it was also vital that every child in care proceedings had a right to be represented by a guardian. 'These are vulnerable children and that was really important,' he said. A UK expert in child care, with experience of setting up such services, came in as a consultant to the department in late 2023 to advise on next steps. Since then, a new director has been appointed and the office has begun to operate in shadow form. There will be a transition period of a year (and possibly more) to allow those operating in the current situation to adapt to the new service. The Minister for Children Norma Foley has said she is committed to setting up the service 'as soon as possible'. 'It will provide a high-quality, standardised, regulated and sustainable system to guarantee that the voice of the child is heard in court and that their best interests are represented there. As part of the process to set up the office there is ongoing engagement with the judiciary, the courts service, Tusla, non-governmental organisations and the current guardians ad litem and their representative bodies,' she said. Although politicians and others have tried to address the shortcomings in the guardian system, it will have taken almost a decade for the necessary reforms to have become reality, another example of the implementation sclerosis that afflicts the Government and the public service. The Fianna Fáil TD Seán Fleming was the chair of the PAC at the time of the guardian ad litem hearings in 2017. He was surprised to learn this week that the situation in 2025 with the service remained as it was in early 2017, albeit with changes on the way. 'The snail's pace with which this has been followed up raises concerns,' he said. 'I think there is a need for everyone to follow up on things. 'When I was chair of the PAC we wrote reports and interim reports, and made recommendations, as we did for the [guardians ad litem]. 'I think there should be a mechanism for future PACs to review previous reports to see if the recommendations are being followed up. It's the same for the responsible department. There should be a look-back mechanism where they are asked in 12 months or 24 months later to check if they have followed up,' said Fleming.
Sky News
a day ago
- Business
- Sky News
Post Office scandal: Government has not done enough to ensure compensation for victims, committee of MPs finds
The government has not done enough to ensure all victims entitled to compensation from the Post Office scandal have applied for it, a report has found. Many current and former postmasters affected by Horizon IT failings and associated miscarriages of justice are not yet receiving fair and timely compensation, according to the report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Only 21% of the 18,500 letters the Post Office sent to postmasters to make them aware of the Horizon Shortfall Scheme had been responded to, figures provided by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) show. About 5,000 further letters are expected to be sent in 2025. Long-time Post Office victims campaigner Sir Alan Bates told Sky News: "What is evident is that the PAC, along with ourselves, are dismayed about the length of time all this is taking and the failure of all victims to be contacted. "It really only goes to support what I have been saying time and time again, that government departments are the entirely wrong people to run these types of schemes as they only grind them into the dust with bureaucracy." Under the scheme, current and former postmasters who were financially affected by the Horizon IT system, but who were either not convicted or did not take the Post Office to the High Court, can either settle their claim for a final fixed sum of £75,000 or have it fully assessed. There is also the Horizon Convictions Redress Scheme (HCRS), which is for sub-postmasters who had their convictions quashed after the passing of the Post Office (Horizon System) Offences Act last year. The 800 or so sub-postmasters who are eligible to claim under the HCRS are entitled to a £600,000 full and final settlement, or the option to pursue a full claim assessment. By the end of March, 339 had accepted the settlement sum, the report by the PAC, which is made up of MPs from all sides of the House of Commons, found. But the PAC report states the government has no plans to follow up with people who are, or may be, eligible to claim but are yet to apply. 3:09 The committee recommends that the DBT should outline what more it will do to ensure every affected postmaster is fully aware of their options for claiming. A third scheme provides compensation to sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted of fraud, theft and false accounting. Of the 111 sub-postmasters eligible to claim for the Overturned Convictions Scheme and who are either entitled to a £600,000 full and final settlement, or to pursue a full claim assessment, 25 have not yet submitted a claim, some of whom represent the most complex cases. The DBT has taken over the management of the scheme from the Post Office, and the PAC report recommends the department should outline how it plans to handle the remaining cases under the scheme. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chair of the PAC, said thousands of people were "deeply failed" by the system during "one of the UK's worst ever miscarriages of justice". He added: "This committee would have hoped to have found government laser-focused on ensuring all those eligible were fully and fairly compensated for what happened. "It is deeply dissatisfactory to find these schemes still moving far too slowly, with no government plans to track down the majority of potential claimants who may not yet be aware of their proper entitlements. "It is entirely unacceptable that those affected by this scandal, some of whom have had to go through the courts to clear their names, are being forced to relitigate their cases a second time."
The Independent
a day ago
- Business
- The Independent
Government told to set out plan to tackle ‘significant challenges' with T-levels
The Government's technical qualifications could remain a 'minority pursuit' without action to enrol more students and raise awareness among employers, MPs have warned. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has called on the Government to set out its plan to tackle the 'significant challenges' that remain with rolling out post-16 T-level qualifications in England. T-levels have a 'critical role' to play in providing young people with the skills needed to address vital skills gaps across the economy, according to the report from the cross-party group of MPs. But it added that the 'success' and value for money of T-levels relies on increasing student numbers. The first T-levels were introduced in September 2020 to help meet the needs of industry and prepare students for work. The two-year courses, which are considered to be broadly equivalent to three A-levels, are being gradually rolled out in England. But the PAC report said only half of Year 9 to 11 students had heard of T-levels in 2023, and only a third of employers, who offer industry placements required to finish the T-level, are aware of them. The Department for Education's (DfE) latest forecast of 66,100 T-level starters in September 2029 is significantly more than the 25,508 students who started the qualification in September 2024, it added. The PAC also found that women and disadvantaged students are underrepresented in some T-level courses such as engineering. The MPs have called on the DfE to develop a structured plan, within six months, setting out its 'campaign approach' to increasing student awareness and enrolments in T-levels. The DfE should address how the curriculum can be tailored to appeal to a diverse student group while meeting employers' needs, they added. The PAC report warns that it has been 'unclear' to students, teachers and colleges how T-levels fit alongside other technical qualifications. It comes after the Government announced plans in December to scrap more than 200 vocational qualifications that had either no enrolments, or fewer than 100 per year over the last three years. As part of the review of post-16 qualifications, the Government said it will keep about 70% of vocational courses, including BTecs, which the previous Conservative administration had announced it would cut. Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, chairman of the committee, said: 'T-levels have the potential to be a significant force for good in equipping young people with everything they need for their burgeoning careers. 'But without the wider awareness in industry and critical mass of student enrolments, T-levels may remain very much a minority pursuit, when they could become a natural and enriching step in many students' lives.' He added: 'Government must enter campaign mode to inject life into T-Levels to build enrolments, focusing in and capitalising on local employment needs.' Department for Education spokesperson said: 'Through our Plan for Change, this government is cementing 120,000 new training opportunities for young people in key sectors such as construction, engineering, health & social care and digital, and we are encouraged by the strong growth in awareness, uptake and positive outcomes from T Levels. 'Our recent moves to slash red tape will help support T-Levels as a high-class vocational qualification, ensuring they provide a strong, hands-on experience for students, and high-quality training opportunities to build a workforce fit for the future. 'We will consider the recommendations of the PAC carefully, to help continue to increase the number of young people benefitting from these qualifications, and set out our response in due course.'
