THE report into “Toy Show the Musical” is expected to spark political fury after failing to name anyone in connection with the €2.2 million box-office flop.
The Grant Thornton report, to be published at noon, lists participants as Person 1 through to Person 26 — and is understood to have been delayed by a series of legal interactions.
The report by GT partner Paul Jacobs, labelled confidential, says: “Having met a large number of individuals, I have taken from those meetings that an overwhelming view which emerges is that in their opinion the project was a ‘fait accompli’” (already an accomplished fact).
The main instigator of the project, whose name has not been linked to it in public, is not identified. Instead board member Rory Coveney, a brother of minister Simon Coveney, resigned from RTÉ over the scandal. A source today said: “He was just the runner.”
The Irish Independent understands that board members feel blindsided and will not resign over the findings that there was no approval for a €2.2 million spend of taxpayers’ money on the doomed project.
Meetings on the Toy Show musical (TSTM) “was for information purposes,” the document reports.
One RTÉ Board Member noted: “I felt like this has – I guess while I was there to ask questions, and I asked some questions, some questions I did not ask, I felt like this was happening.
“This had happened. This had already begun and this was kind of somewhat of a fait accompli.”
Another RTÉ Board Member noted: “based upon reviewing my notes and how it went through, of course it was a fait accompli….”
Yet another RTÉ Board Member said: “It was being presented as a fait accompli.”
Mr Jacobs will report that any expenditure over €2 million required board approval, but there is no evidence of any such approval in this case.
Mr Jacobs also notes that he did not interact with “the former Director General,” understood to mean Dee Forbes, who said last year that she was too ill to attend Oireachtas committee hearing.
“Based on documentary evidence provided to me. I have found no evidence in the minutes of meetings of the Board of RTÉ recording the approval (whether that is by way of the outcome of a vote, or a consensus reached) for TSTM,” the report says.
Neither is there any evidence that the event went before RTE’s audit and risk committee (ARC).
“Based on my review of these minutes, and meetings I held with the ARC Members, I can confirm that TSTM project was not brought to the ARC for their review,” the report says.
Board members are said to be furious that there could be an attempt to portray them as inept, and that any resignations would be viewed as an admission of culpability.
“Nobody is going to be resigning,” the Irish Independent was told.
Under the Broadcasting Acts, to sack the board would require a decision of Government, that would then have to be ratified by both Houses of the Oireachtas, the source said.
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