Comment: Time to move on from Tubridy saga

EDITORIAL

Since June this year the coverage in the media of the RTE "scandal", "controversy", "crisis" (choose your own term) has been all-consuming. For weeks our ears and eyes have been battered by wall to wall coverage of the affair starting with the previously unknown arrangements about Ryan Tubridy's pay and going on to issues relating to corporate entertainment for advertising clients, management numbers and high pay, executive exit packages, and anger among staff about the whole sorry business.

As this leading article is written, the coverage continues unabated. In Saturday's Irish Times there are no less than eight headlines relating to RTE – 'Coalition to look at new options for funding RTE'; 'Tubridy and Bakhurst - The disagreement distilled'; 'RTE sends clear message to staff and politicians'; 'Another week that rocked RTE'; 'RTE strategy on pay bound up with station's wider financial woes'; 'What will Tubridy do next?'; 'Only thing Tubridy seemed truly sorry for was himself'; 'How two sums of money played key role in Tubridy debacle'. And that's not counting seven letters on the same subject. It is no wonder the great unwashed public might be tempted to reach to another headline in the same paper 'Mason: a deserted Connemara island to get away from it all'.

Really, are there no other important issues that should concern us apart from this Gilbert and Sullivan opera? Of course there are. At this stage they are the elephants in the room – housing, health, education, an ageing population, cost-of-living pressures, lower median incomes, rural isolation and poverty, women's safety, child safety, racial discrimination, drug abuse, climate change, unequal distribution of incomes, mental health breakdown, threats posed to our economy by recession among our trading partners. Enough there to go on?

In health, circulatory diseases and cancer are the leading causes of death, amounting for 30 per cent of all deaths. We are building a children's hospital that is going to cost a staggering €2.2 billion due to overruns due to overruns, and not counting the cost of commissioning it for use – compared to the original estimate of €987 million. In July this year, we were told that treatment for children with scoliosis is "at a standstill" and that the list of those waiting for operations has doubled.

In education, a poll of 1,300 teachers found that 98 per cent of them who were renting found it "very difficult" to secure new accommodation in their locality. Students moving away from home to other towns are facing the same difficulty.

Housing – the Government says its Housing for All policy is aimed at increasing the supply of all types of housing with a target of 33,000 homes every year. Will this target be reached?

Women's safety – it is now recognised that there is a huge issue surrounding the safety of women both in their homes and outside. The number of incidents of violence against females increased by 13 per cent in 2022 and Gardai recorded 45,000 offences related to domestic, sexual and gender-based violence.

This weekend, we have had another incident of serious crime on the streets of Dublin, while here in Navan, Garda morale is at an all-time low as the local station remains under-resourced.

As matters now stand, we are facing another round of Oireachtas committee hearings on the RTE affair this autumn. While teh future of our public service broadcaster is of huge importance, it also has to be looked at in perspective. The nonsense should stop right here. Let us get on with dealing with the real issues affecting Irish citizens.