'This is not the first time in my experience that RT╔ have used this tactic and I can draw your attention to the precedent if you wish". This one line, from a Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands internal memo, speaks volumes about the tensions between the Civil Service and RT╔ which spilled over during the broadcaster's unsuccessful application for a £50 licence fee increase.
The memo - released under the Freedom of Information Act - was prepared for Mr Philip Furlong, the Secretary General of the Department, by one of his officials. It followed a meeting between the Minister, Ms S∅le de Valera, the RT╔ chairman, Mr Paddy Wright, and Mr Bob Collins, the broadcaster's director general. The meeting, held in Leinster House on March 8th, was held to discuss a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers on RT╔'s application. The consultants had found that while RT╔ needed an increase, it had failed to make anything approaching a convincing case for a £50 increase. It subsequently got £14.50.
In his memo, the official says that RT╔ had, as predicted, tried to muddy the waters by casting doubt over the accuracy of the consultants' work. He went on to warn that the integrity of the Department and its officials was now at stake if they gave in to RT╔.
"Without any consultancy advice we were inclined to the view that RT╔'s case was not totally convincing. The consultants have not only confirmed our own initial view but have revealed many serious inadequacies in the submission on which we are being asked to make a recommendation to Government," he wrote. The official then went on to point out that the Department would be in a difficult position if the decision was subsequently challenged and the Department was shown to have acted against the consultants' advice.
Finally, the official told the Secretary General he was arranging a meeting with PWC to "discuss strategy" for dealing with RT╔ and to let the consultants know that "we have no intention of allowing their work to be undermined".
The combative tone of this memo is at odds with the more friendly tone adopted by the Department in its face-to-face dealings with RT╔. The message being relayed to RT╔ was that the Minister and the Department were supportive of an increase but the broadcaster had made it impossible for them to recommend one by putting in such a sloppy application.
Indeed Ms de Valera had said much the same at the meeting to which the memo referred. A note of that meeting records her as telling Mr Wright that "RT╔ knew well that the Minister was anxious to respond positively to the RT╔ application but she was in no position to take the matter to the Cabinet when important differences remained unexplained".
She also forecast - correctly - that details of the whole process would come out under the Freedom of Information Act.
The extent to which the Minister seems to be at one with her officials on the matter is surprising as she could be expected to try to arbitrate between the the two bodies. More worrying is the enthusiasm of the Department's officials to give Sir Humphreyesque directions to their Minister. As early as February she was being all but directed by her advisers to give Mr Wright a ticking off over the poor quality of the application.
"It is however vital that the Chairman is left under no illusion as to the seriousness with which you view the situation that has been revealed," she was told in a brief prepared for her ahead of a meeting with Mr Wright that month.
The civil servants' advice to the Minister even extended as to how she should conduct herself at Cabinet meetings. An undated and unsigned memo entitled Briefing For Possible Cabinet Discussion told the Minister: "It is highly unlikely at this stage that you would wish to be drawn into detailed discussion on your proposals for a licence fee increase. If pressed however you might say that you are leaning in the direction of a two phased increase."
It is possible that the memo was just clumsily written but it is also open to the interpretation that the Minister is being told to say nothing, less she get out of her depth. We do not know what happened at Cabinet and must hope that at the end of the day the Minister relied on her own judgment.
It would be flattering to RT╔ to say that the documentation released under FOI indicated that the mandarins of Mespil Road conspired to deny it its licence increase and the hapless Minister was but a pawn in their game. To subscribe to the theory you would first need to find a motive for the officials' actions and also believe that PWC - one of the State's biggest consultancy firms - was also in on the conspiracy.
It is clear that RT╔ does not have too many friends in the Department, but it is also clear that its application for a licence increase was not up to scratch and was torn to pieces by PWC.
The question that really has to be asked is why, if the Department, RT╔ and the Minister are all meant to be on the same side, was RT╔ not briefed on the sort of information the Department needed to see in the application if it was to successfully press the case for an increase.
Only now does RT╔ have an idea of what is expected of it and it is hurriedly cobbling together a new application for a second increase. It will also be hiring its own consultants who no doubt will speak PWC's language and be able to trade punch for punch.
It has also hired the formidable Ms Br∅d Rosney as head of public affairs who will no doubt try to build a few bridges to the Department and the Minister.
Meanwhile, TV3 prospers and the dawn of Ireland's digital television age has been postponed again.
