Barry Lenihan

But that comment and that from Patrick O'Donovan saying he

was reassured by RTE management that nothing else would emerge.

It really does, I suppose, set the stakes even higher for this meeting, for the Arachtas Media Committee meeting today.

There was a flurry of speculation

yesterday in Leinster House that more was to emerge.

The Taoiseach even intimated as such in the Dáil yesterday.

But alas, Mr O'Donovan, Mr Backhurst, insisted that the case was closed at this latest revelation, which really does perhaps leave them a hostage to fortune, if you will, if something else was to come out into the open at that meeting today.

OK, so what are we expecting to unfold today then?

Well, we do know from a briefing circulated to committee members, a detailed briefing from RTE, that they will accentuate the positives, the RTE executives noting how the broadcaster had a surplus of around five, had a surplus in

2024 of €5.3 million, compared to a deficit of €10 million in 2023.

So things improving, the broadcaster will say, since the reforms implemented in the wake of the Ryan Tuberty pay fiasco of 2023.

They're also to outline how there are 17 staff on an old pension scheme with a market value of €1 billion, but no employees have been admitted to that since the late 1980s.

And the issue of pensions, I'm told, is likely to come up quite a bit.

Indeed, the meeting was convened to look at that issue.

But committee members have lots of questions around pensions.

Talking to committee members as well, they're keen to bring everything and anything to do with RTE in recent weeks out into the open at this hearing.

The Fianna Fáil TD, Peter Chapman.

clear, he telling me that issues around the outsourcing of the lotto, around the new jingles on RTE Radio 1, even around the RTE Radio 1 schedule, that as he felt, all negative headlines around RTE do damage to the broadcaster at a time when he believes there's need for a strong broadcaster due to the rise of disinformation and the far right.

So even if the substantive pay issue might have been put to bed

that TDs will be keen to bring everything and anything up with the broadcaster today.