A REVIEW INTO the culture and working relationships within the Current Affairs Unit of RTÉ has found that staff feel a “lack of transparency” relating to how management decisions are made and that women are perceived as having less opportunities than male colleagues.

The review commissioned by RTÉ’s director of Human Resources involved 45 anonymised one-on-one interviews with members of the Current Affairs (CA) unit by the firm Resolve Ireland in late 2021.

The report was presented to RTÉ in March 2022 but not released until today following a Freedom of Information Request by the RTÉ branch of the National Union of Journalists.

After an appeal, the Information Commissioner ruled that parts of the report could be redacted but that RTÉ was not justified in refusing access to the remainder of the report.

The Resolve Ireland report was commissioned following a specific grievance lodged by an NUJ member and is unrelated to the ongoing controversy over undisclosed payments to Ryan Tubridy.

Key issues raised by staff included gender inequality, a lack of communication and friction between colleagues working on the same programmes.

“Women in Current Affairs are not perceived as having access to or having received the same number of opportunities as men,” according to the report.

“It was commented that women often left because of not feeling valued or respected.”

“It should be noted that this observation about a gender imbalance in terms of opportunities was made by both men and women,” the report found.

It also found that younger members of the CA unit were less likely to have experienced issues in CA that might require management support or resolution in general.

“The younger male members of CA quite often would identify the gender aspect as a reason for them not having any issues,” the report said.

The report noted that the issues discussed in anonymous interviews were accepted at face value and that no one was asked to provide proof in support of the comments made.

“A recurring theme was the perception that role changes and key decisions are made behind the scenes with a lack of transparency demonstrated,” the report stated.

“This appears to have added to the generally held viewpoints about the reasons for the departure of some high-profile leavers from Current Affairs in recent years.”

Teamwork between pairings of reporters and producers among the teams working at Primetime and RTÉ Investigates was raised as a recurring issue and “seen as somewhat of a systemic problem”.

“Past difficulties in some pairings appear to have resulted in a situation where Editors are unable to successfully get some people to work with each other again and therefore choices are limited or forced, leading to friction in some pairings,” the report continued. 

‘Fear of consequences for speaking up’

The report noted that many members of the CA unit had been on freelance contracts with RTÉ and after achieving job permanency there were a “wide variety” of contracts put in place leading to “perceptions of inequity and unfair application of terms and conditions”.

Members of the CA unit said that there was a “degree of opaqueness around the promotional opportunities and appointments made.”

“This context was given as the basis for many people’s reluctance to speak openly,” the report stated.

“A significantly high proportion of those that I spoke with, which as previously noted, was already a very high proportion of those within CA, spoke about a fear of consequence for speaking up on these matters,” the report’s author Miriam Maher of Resolve Ireland wrote.

“There was a definite sense that a lot of people in Current Affairs had reached a point of feeling defeated by the current situation,” the review stated.

However, the report acknowledged that this could have been linked to the impact of the pandemic which was at that point in its 22nd month.

“I was speaking with a group of people who had reached the end of a very tough second year of the pandemic,” Maher noted.

Reaction

Maher recommended “absolute clarity over the most appropriate reporting line
manager to ensure anyone not clearly under the scope or remit of one area does not get left out of the loop”.

“I suggest that RTÉ take every opportunity to communicate clearly about all recruitment processes,” she added.

The Irish Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Séamus Dooley, has stated that an external review of governance and culture at RTÉ announced by Media Minister Catherine Martin last week must consider the findings of today’s report.

“While there has been some change in that culture, key findings give rise to concern, notably the belief among many staff that there was little point in raising concerns and the belief that the concerns of women, especially women with long service, were not taken seriously,” he said.

“Failure to tackle unacceptable behaviour and outdated deference and preferential treatment to some individuals serves to undermine an organisation with many strengths.”

“That is why the NUJ believes the external cultural review is important to those who provide such a valuable service to public service broadcasting.”