Declan Lynch: We've been down this road before, but ‘true story' of ‘The Salt Path' was strewn with red flags
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Irish Examiner
16 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
TV licence fee revenue down €58m after RTÉ payment scandal, new figures show
TV licence fee revenue has decreased by over €58m in the last two years. New figures confirm that revenue from the licence plummeted following a range of financial scandals engulfing RTÉ in the summer of 2023, which sparked a wave of non-payments. Before the scandals, between July 2021 and June 2023, some 1.9m people paid the €160 annual fee, resulting in revenue of €306m. This included 1.7m people who renewed the licence, as well as 243,179 first-time purchases. However, figures for the two-year period after the RTÉ controversies, between July 2023 and June 2025, reveal revenue decreased by €58.4m compared to the previous two years. Some 1.55m people paid the licence fee, a decrease of more than 365,0000 people. This resulted in revenue of €247.6m, a decrease of 19% compared to the preceding two years. There has, however, been a slight increase in the number of people paying the fee since the Government announced a new funding arrangement for RTÉ on July 24, 2024. Between July 2022 and June 2023, some 947,999 paid the €160 fee. This fell to 761,762 payments between July 2023 and June 2024. In the last 12 months, the number of licences bought increased to 785,595. However, this is still 17% below the pre-scandal levels. This year to date, some 376,140 people have paid the licence fee. Figures for the two-year period after the RTÉ controversies, between July 2023 and June 2025, reveal revenue decreased by €58.4m compared to the previous two years. Picture: Colin Keegan The figures were provided to Fine Gael TD Micheál Carrigy following a parliamentary question to media minister Patrick O'Donovan. The RTÉ scandals included revelations that former Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy was paid €345,000 over six years that had not been declared by RTÉ in its annual declaration of top-paid stars' salaries. It later transpired that money had been paid to Mr Tubridy as part of a three-year 'side deal' that would see Renault pay him €75,000 per year. They pulled out of the agreement after the first year, with RTÉ paying the remaining €150,000. Subsequent Oireachtas committee hearings heard of extravagant spending at RTÉ, including €5,000 on flip-flops, memberships to swanky London clubs, and a failed musical based on The Late Late Toy Show. Mr O'Donovan has reconvened the interdepartmental technical working group (TWG) on the TV licence to 'examine potential enhancements to the television licence'. 'I will consider the report of the TWG when I receive it and decide the next steps,' he added. It was reported last month that the number of people being taken to court or prosecuted for non-payment had dropped. In 2022, An Post made 13,709 summons applications for non-payment and pursued 7,263 court cases. There were 13,198 summons applications and 6,555 court cases in 2023. However, last year this fell to 12,229 summons applications and 5,392 court cases. The Government announced plans last year to provide RTÉ with €725m in funding over three years. Media minister Catherine Martin confirmed that the TV licence would remain in place, with the State providing top-up funding to ensure that RTÉ had a certain amount of ring-fenced funding each year.
Irish Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Ryan Tubridy shares holiday snaps from family trip to Japan
Ex-RTE star Ryan Tubridy has shared a look inside his recent trip to Japan with daughters Ella and Julia. The Virgin Radio and Q102 presenter visited Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo earlier this summer, describing it as an "unforgettable" holiday. Ryan recently wrote in his Irish Mail on Sunday column: "Some time ago, I agreed with my daughters that someday in the future, the three of us would visit Japan. "We have been so curious about the country and its customs, art and people that we had built a great urge between us to go and see it for ourselves. "Between the jigs and the reels, the timings never worked but that changed a couple of weeks ago when we boarded a plane for Abu Dhabi and then on to Osaka for what turned out to be the trip of a lifetime. "I won't go into great detail as it was a wonderfully personal experience but I will tell you that it was like being beamed down from a spaceship onto the set of a Wes Anderson film. It's a uniformly beautiful, clean, mannerly, law-abiding place that can surprise you with every corner turned." Ryan, Ella and Julia visited four cities in Japan and the Dubliner said he became "obsessed" with Japan's bullet train. Ryan, Ella and Julia visited four cities in Japan (Image: Instagram: Ryan Tubridy) The former Late Late Show host said his daughters encouraged him to taste some traditional Japanese food and diversify his palette. "We went on to eat at a local restaurant where the girls encouraged me to try the chopsticks, noodles and dumplings, which I did and I'm a changed man! "Post-dinner merriment found us all in the mood to sample the local national sport that is karaoke, which was an awful lot of fun. "Between us, we improved the back catalogue of Frank Sinatra, Bonnie Tyler, Bob Dylan, The Pogues and some Japanese icons. It was that kind of evening." Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: Sign up here.
RTÉ News
5 days ago
- RTÉ News
Oasis's Croke Park gigs are a homecoming for the 'Irish' band
What's the Irish for 'mad fer it'? Liam and Noel Gallagher may be asking that very question before taking the stage at Croke Park next month for the highly anticipated Irish leg of their Live '25 reunion tour. The gigs at Heaton Park last weekend were a return for the Mancunian-born brothers, but their return to Irish shores will be a different kind of homecoming. As everyone knows, the brothers' parents Peggy and Thomas are Irish emigrants. Peggy left Charlestown, Co. Mayo in 1961 at the age of 18, originally working as a housekeeper in Manchester. There, she met her fellow Irish emigree Thomas 'Tommy' Gallagher, who hailed from the Co. Meath village of Duleek. Their first child Paul was born in 1966, followed by Noel in 1967 and Liam in 1972. The brothers made regular trips to Ireland as kids, and one photo from the 1970s depicts them standing at the wall of their Irish granny Annie Gallagher's home in Downstown, Duleek with their uncle's dog. Many school holidays were spent in Charlestown with their maternal granny Maggie Sweeney, too. Noel recounted those summers in a Late Late Show interview in 1996, telling Gay Byrne: "My mam used to religiously drag us by the ear across the Irish Sea to spend summer holidays there. We had never seen the likes of nettles, fields and stacks of hay and all that - so she was determined to give us a bit of Irish culture, 'cos we were used to concrete and flats, and all that stuff. It was a bit of a culture shock for the first four or five years, but we grew to love it and we still do." As adults, both Liam and Noel have embraced their Irish roots wholeheartedly - and they've made regular returns to Charlestown, too. In 2015, footage emerged of Liam joining in a session and having a sing-song at JJ Finan's pub which has become his local while holidaying in the Mayo town (according to reports, he also bought nine bags of Tayto in the local shop on the same trip, lest his heritage ever be questioned.) Noel, meanwhile, made the headlines last year when he was interviewed after a Man City match. When asked about City player Phil Foden playing for England in the Euros, he said "I'm not an England fan. I'm Irish. Goodnight." Tongue-in-cheek, perhaps, but we'll claim him nevertheless. We'll even overlook the Union Jack guitar. Indeed, the issue of that particular guitar was once put to him in an interview with comedian and podcaster Matt Morgan. "Somebody said last week "If he's so Irish, why does he have a Union Jack guitar?" said Morgan. Gallagher responded: "Because somebody got it for me for my birthday, and I guess it's like a pop art thing, I suppose. It's not a nationalistic thing. I think I only played that guitar at like, two f**king gigs ever. I think that's in some museum somewhere now." Noel also reckoned that the Irish music and rebel songs that they were raised on had an impact on Oasis's music, and its "punch-the-air" quality. "I feel as Irish as the next person," he said. "The first music I was ever exposed to was the rebel songs the bands used to sing in the Irish club in Manchester. Do you know, I think that's where Oasis songs get their punch-the-air quality - from me being exposed to those rousing rebel songs. It was all rebel songs and that godawful Irish country and western music." So far, at least, the influence of Big Tom and the Mainliners has gone undetected. Will there be a divergence from the setlist for an a capella version of A Nation Once Again? Will the Wolfe Tones' Celtic Symphony replace F**kin' in the Bushes as their intro music? Noel has gone as far as to proclaim how the band owe practically everything to their Irish heritage. "Oasis could never have existed, been as big, been as important, been as flawed, been as loved and loathed, if we weren't all predominantly Irish," he said in Simon Spence's Oasis biography Feeling Supersonic, noting how all of the band's founding members - Paul 'Bonehead' Arthurs, Paul 'Guigsy' McGuigan and original drummer Tony McCarroll were also of Irish descent. "There is rage in Oasis music and let me explain that to you. If I say to people there's rage in the music, people might think about screaming and shouting - but you can rage joy. When the Irish are sad they are the saddest people in the world, when they are happy, they are the happiest people in the world. When they drink they are the most drunk people in the world. There is one rule for the Irish and different ones for everybody else. Oasis could never have existed, been as big, been as important, been as flawed, been as loved and loathed, if we weren't all predominantly Irish." Watch: Noel Gallagher on The Meaning Of Life with Gay Byrne It does concur with his previous comments about his cultural identity, however. "I clearly remember my mam saying to me and my two brothers when we were growing up: 'You're only English because you were born here'," he said in an interview in 2007. "And with a mother from Mayo and a father from Co Meath, there's not a drop of English blood in me. I recently had a child with my Scottish girlfriend, and there's no English blood in him at all." We'll have to wait and see how it plays out at Croke Park, the first Live '25 date tour date that's not on British soil. Will there be a divergence from the setlist for an a capella version of A Nation Once Again? Will the Wolfe Tones' Celtic Symphony replace F**kin' in the Bushes as their intro music? Will they wear matching Irish football jerseys donated by Bono, come out sipping pints of Guinness or have a tricolour hanging off an amp? No matter what happens, there's no doubt that the Brothers Gallagher will be welcomed as hometown heroes. And 'mad fer it' is 'ar buile', by the way.
