Politicians who grilled a former RTÉ board chair over controversy at the broadcaster have been invited to listen to her give a lecture on public service broadcasting.
TDs and Senators from the Oireachtas Media Committee received an invite by the Royal Television Society to attend an inaugural lecture next month which will also honour the memory of the late broadcaster Gay Byrne.
The invite states that the keynote speaker at the event is former Chair of the RTÉ Board Moya Doherty.
The invite, which has been sent to politicians who grilled Ms Doherty, said the former RTÉ member would be a keynote speaker at the event at the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin on November 2.
“The theme to be addressed will be Public Service Broadcasting: what it is, what it is for, and what is its future - a considerable and challenging topics now more relevant than ever,” the invite reads. The moderator at the event will be Newstalk presenter Pat Kenny.
Ms Doherty, who served as Chair of the Board at RTÉ for eight years up to November 2022, has said she knew nothing about the scandals that have engulfed the broadcaster. Ms Doherty previously told politicians that she was “horrified” by the revelations around secret payments to former Late Late Show presenter Ryan Tubridy.
When addressing the media committee in July, Ms Doherty said when the details of the crisis at RTÉ began to unfold, it left her “both professionally and personally bewildered and devastated.” She said: “As former chair, I am horrified by the extent of the operations of which the board and I had no knowledge. We accomplished not know because we were never told.” Media Minister Catherine Martin has previously said she found it “astounding” that Ms Doherty was not aware of what was happening at the broadcaster.
At a previous media committee, Fianna Fáil TD Niamh Smyth asked Ms Martin if she believed Ms Doherty could “walk down the corridors of RTÉ for the last eight years and know none of this to be happening underneath her nose?” In response, Ms Martin said: “I have to take her at her word but what it points to is astounding, astonishing weaknesses.”
