LAST UPDATE | 3 Jul 2023
BROADCASTERS AT RTÉ should have their salaries capped at €195,000, according to Senator Rónán Mullen, whose proposed legislation will be debated in the Seanad this week.
The Broadcasting (Restriction of Salaries) Bill seeks to amend current legislation, resulting in salaries, whether people have direct employment with the public broadcaster or a contract, being capped.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, he said some will say that level of payment is too high, while some will say it’s too low.
Mullen said salaries and other spending within the organisation has been “let get out of control for some people”.
The controversy surrounding RTÉ recently began with the revelation that Tubridy’s annual earnings published by RTÉ between the years 2017-2022 ranged from €440,000-€491,667.
However, a review carried out by Grant Thornton found that his annual earnings from RTÉ in those years actually ranged from €511,667-€545,000.
The issue was partly the result of a deal which saw Tubridy receive additional income from commercial partner Renault, with that income guaranteed and underwritten by RTÉ.
The manner in which these payments were recorded led to an understatement of his earnings, with RTÉ apologising for the mistake. Tubridy himself has apologised for “not questioning” the published figures but said doing so was RTÉ’s responsibility.
Following two Oireachtas committee hearings, it was also revealed that €138,000 was spent on IRFU season tickets and €111,000 on travel and accommodation for the Rugby World Cup via a “barter account”.
The broadcaster’s chief financial officer Richard Collins said last week the money was spent to bring “clients” to the 2019 rugby world cup in Japan, but could not say who these clients were.
Mullen said the public has been hearing about a “culture of excess” at the national broadcaster, in terms of entertainment and so on, he said.
“I think this is very damaging to public confidence in the broadcaster. We’ve mainly focused too much on corporate values and not enough on community values,” he said.
He said there is a community of people who work at RTÉ behind the scenes making the shows a success. The senator said these people are working late into the night and are the “unsung heroes of quality public service broadcasting”.
“I think we need to just rediscover that sense of a community culture,” he added.
When asked if he believed cutting the pay of the top earners would have a knock on impact on the salaries of lower earners at the organisation, Mullen said there needs to be a restoration of some kind of a balance to pay scales.
The legislation he is proposing states there must be transparency around any salary over €107,000 and it also provides for penalties for anyone who knowingly puts out inaccurate information about salaries in the future.
Speaking to RTÉ Radio One’s News at One this afternoon, Tánaiste Micheál Martin downplayed suggestions of a cap.
“We did this before in respect of other entities and invariably then 10 years later, people want to unwind something that you put into legislation,” the Tánaiste said.
“I would much prefer to look at the pay and conditions of those who are not earning anything like that in RTÉ and get that right,” he said.
Everyone gets lost on the top 10 but there’s hundreds of people walking in RTÉ on average salaries and that’s something that needs to be looked at.
“I’m just slow to go in for the cap. It’s simplistic. It’s popular to say that but the actual working out of that over time can be more problematic than people might think right now.”
In the wake of the controversy, he said that the “ethos of the whole sense of public service is something we need to work on with RTÉ to make sure that’s restored because that’s very important”.
“It does worry me at times, if I may say so, and this is just an observation, that RTÉ can work in silos, that every programme is like an individual republic, and that needs to change,” he said.
“There needs to be more of a sense of a collective approach across the entire organisation between those who administer, between those who are executives, and before between those who work in the engine room, presenting programs and producing and researching programs as well.”
Additional reporting by Lauren Boland
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