RTÉ IS refusing to cut the wages of its top talent, despite losing almost €17m last year.

The station says it hopes to break-even this year and although it will continue to reduce costs, the station will not be making cuts to presenters salaries. A spokesperson for RTÉ told the Daily Mail “the same cost discipline which was applied last year will be held in place this year. However, there will be no further wage decreases.”

The station paid over €4.5m to its top 10 presenters in 2008, the last year that figures were available. Pat Kenny, then the top paid presenter at the station earned €950,976 in 2008, nearly four times the salary of Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Ryan Tubridy was paid over €500,000 and the late Gerry Ryan earned almost €630,00.

RTÉ say that it expects advertising to recover somewhat, allowing it to break-even but top advertising execs disagree. Seán McCrave, chief executive of the Institute of Advertising Practitioners of Ireland said all the big government advertising, a staple of RTÉ is gone.

Labour Party communications spokesperson LizMcManus said “if there are further cuts that can be made, they should be made”.