The former Minister for Communications, Ray Burke, has been defending his decision to issue a directive in 1989 ordering RTÉ to cut dramatically the price it could charge Century Radio for the use of its transmission network. The Flood Tribunal heard that in January of that year Mr Burke agreed to a charge of £614,000 per year. He said that price was "not unreasonable". Yet just weeks later he issued the directive reducing the charge to less than half that amount.
Tribunal lawyers want to know exactly why Mr Burke issued this directive. A few weeks after the sum of £614,000 had been agreed Mr Burke got a letter from the chairman of the IRTC, the regulatory body overseeing the matter. In the letter, the IRTC chairman, Mr Justice Henchy, enclosed correspondence from Century Radio, saying that they would like a directive issued. Mr Burke says that his clear understanding was that this was a formal request for a directive from the IRTC.
Tribunal lawyers disagree, however. They point out that at no stage in this letter did the IRTC make such a request. Mr Burke was asked why had he not looked for advice from the Attorney General. He was also asked why he had not consulted RTÉ before issuing the directive as he was legally obliged to do. Lawyers put that question to Mr Burke around ten times. Mr Burke answered that the matter had been consulted "up, down, sideways and backwards" prior to that, adding that he already knew the position of RTÉ.
In earlier evidence, Mr Burke accused RTÉ management of holding back information during the negotiations on transmission charges. Mr Burke told the Tribunal that RTÉ was massaging the figures to come to a bottom line that suited. He referred to an internal letter written by former Director General Vincent Finn, which suggested that RTÉ should "hold back" on revealing all its figures until final meetings with the department.
Mr Burke is being questioned in detail about negotiations he had with RTÉ in the run up to the introduction of independent radio. He said that a figure of almost £250,000 proposed by RTÉ for access to the transmission network was too high. He said that his gut feeling was that the network belonged to the people of Ireland and not RTÉ.
