RTE is facing a €100million TV licence fee black hole in the second half of this year.
That's how much is currently outstanding that An Post has yet to collect, we can reveal.
The broadcaster up until June 25 last had received €96.6million in licence fee cash, Media Minister Catherine Martin confirmed.
READ MORE - Five reasons you can legally avoid paying the €160 TV licence fee
But this is €100million short of the €196.2million RTE was paid by householders last year.
Now both the Government and senior RTE executives expect a huge public backlash against the TV licence fee as a result of the Ryan Tubridy hidden payments scandal and the subsequent catastrophic fallout.
They expect the financial deficit to run into millions and they just can't predict how much the public will refuse to pay up.
A senior RTE source said: "The fallout from this scandal is financial ruin. Whenever we get our house in order the state is going to have to come in and bail us out if it wants public service broadcasting.
"An Post is struggling to collect the TV licence fee, people are now extremely reluctant to pay.
"The TV licence fee was due last November/December and as it stands less than half the people who were due to pay have paid up.
"We have received €96.6million in TV licence money with seven to eight months gone and there is still over €100million outstanding - this is a crisis situation.
"We have no idea how much of that money the public will pay."
An Post has around 830,000 homes on their TV licence database.
Over 40 per cent of them are people who receive a free TV licence or others who claim to have no television and watch everything on their laptops or computers.
Over 14,000 people were issued with summonses for non-payment of the TV licence last year and over 9,000 were taken to court.
By the end of May last, 3,500 people had been brought to court so far this year for not paying the TV licence.
On Thursday last, Media Minister Martin said she was not going to tell people whether they should pay the TV licence or not and they could make up their own minds.
New RTE Director General Kevin Bakhurst urged people to support the workers of RTE and pay it.
No one has been jailed in Ireland so far this year for the non payment of the TV licence, the Irish Prison Service confirmed.
Just one person was put behind bars for the offence last year.
Since the Payment of Fines Act was brought in a few years ago very few citizens have been jailed for minor offences like non-payment of the TV licence.
The courts have the power to deduct these fines from people's weekly social welfare or salary payments if they refuse to pay them. Anyone jailed is normally freed after a couple of hours.
