LAST UPDATE | 15 Nov 2023

MEDIA MINISTER CATHERINE Martin has welcomed a plan by RTÉ to cap salaries for all employees at the level of pay of the director-general.

It comes after RTÉ director-general Kevin Bakhurst outlined his plan for cost savings at the organisation, including the salary price cap of €250,000.

It’s understood that Bakhurst told staff at a meeting yesterday afternoon: “No one will earn more than the director general. That is a commitment we are going to make.”

Bakhurst also outlined new cost-saving measures to staff yesterday, which involves plans to cut up to 400 jobs over the next five years.

Bakhurst is said to have assured staff yesterday that the job losses will be fairly dispersed across different areas of the organisation, and will not fall unfairly on production staff.

Martin said the plan to cap pay at that of the director-general shows a “welcome renewed commitment” to public-service broadcasting and to cost efficiencies.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin, she said: “I think it is only right that no-one would earn more than the leader of an organisation.”

Martin told reporters that a dedicated unit will be established in her department to oversee the allocation of €40 million of Government funding to RTÉ, contingent on reforms at the broadcaster.

Taken with €16 million already allocated this year, the Government has agreed to provide a total of €56 million in additional funding to help RTÉ cover funding shortfalls this year and next year after the organisation published plans to reduce its workforce.

Martin said: “The first tranche of [the remaining] €40 million will not be released until we see the recommendations from the two expert advisory committees that the Government commissioned.

“Those committees will take account of all findings of any internal or external reviews and we’d be looking at – before we released that first tranche – that we’re seeing progress on the reforms already announced.

“So, for example, we’re expecting the register of interests in January 2024, we’re expecting the register of external activities in January 2024 and they have signalled a corporate governance framework by the end of this year, so we need to see the progress is continuing.”

Redundancy programme

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has expressed “grave concern” at RTÉ’s proposals to cut up to 400 jobs.

At a meeting in Dublin this morning, the ICTU’s Executive Council expressed solidarity with the RTÉ Group of Union and affiliate unions in their campaign to protect employment. 

General secretary Owen Reidy said there is “strong opposition” to the redundancy programme and added that “all changes will be subject to agreement with trade unions”. 

“The ICTU does not believe that yet another redundancy programme is the appropriate starting point for a new direction,” said Reidy.

He added: “The removal of 400 posts and the privatisation of work currently undertaken by RTÉ staff is an inauspicious beginning of what is supposed to be a new chapter for the organisation.”

He described the plan as a “response to failures of corporate governance by the previous Executive Board, combined with the refusal of successive governments to address the issue of adequate funding for public service broadcasting in Ireland”.

Reidy also said that “workers who bear no responsibility for the current crisis should not have to carry the can for these failures” and added that the decline in TV licence income is a “direct consequence of mismanagement”.

-With additional reporting from Diarmuid Pepper