RTÉ director general defends station’s decision to reverse 10% pay cut for senior executives

RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst has defended the station’s decision to reverse a 10 per cent pay cut for senior executives last year at a time when the broadcaster reported a deficit of almost €3 million.

The details of the pay restoration were contained in RTÉ's annual report for 2022, which was published this week.

In an email to staff, Mr Bakhurst said the annual report does not deal with the “changing RTÉ of 2023″ and was finalised before the “crises and turbulence of recent times and before the announcement of a series of organisational changes and reforms”.

He said the restoration of pay to the RTÉ executive followed a 10 per cent pay cut agreed in 2019, which was intended to be temporary. Pay was restored last September after consideration by the broadcaster’s audit and risk committee, and notification being sent to the board.

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Mr Bakhurst said much of the annual report rightly highlighted the “significant and ongoing contribution” of staff and the independent sector to RTÉ.

“As I have said on many occasions, hardworking staff have been badly let down by some senior management. However, while we introduce greater governance and change across RTÉ and address key issues, it is important that we continue to recognise the important public service programming and content you deliver day in and day out to audiences across Ireland,” he wrote.

While a continued fall in TV licence revenues was a concern, Mr Bakhurst said RTÉ will “continue to work hard to repair the considerable damage to our reputation as an organisation”.

Separately, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said any additional funding for RTÉ this year will depend on a new financial and reform plan to get the broadcaster back on an even footing. A decline in licence fee revenue, among other issues, has prompted RTÉ to seek €34.5 million in temporary funding from the Government.

When asked on Friday by reporters during a visit to Fota Wildlife Park in Cork if pay that was restored to senior executives should be “paid back”, Mr Varadkar said he did not think it was right for Government Ministers to “be trying to set pay levels” at State-owned enterprises such as RTÉ.

“What we have said is that if RTÉ requires additional funding this year, and it will, we’re going to need to see a reform plan and a new strategy from the board and from the director general, and any additional funding this year or next year will be conditional on that,” he said. “But we’re not going to be ... trying to impose pay cuts on other people. It is a State-owned enterprise and it does run its own affairs.”

Mr Varadkar said what many people found annoying – including rank-and-file staff in RTÉ – is that “what had been presented as a pay cut was really only a one-year pay cut, a one-off pay cut”.

When asked again if senior executives should pay back the 10 per cent increase, he said: “I don’t believe so. But that’s really a matter for the individuals involved.”

In his email to staff, Mr Bakhurst said RTÉ was working to develop a revised vision and strategy and this would be completed in the coming weeks. He also outlined a series of recent developments including staff surveys, increased oversight of senior remuneration, plans for a register of interests and register of external activities for certain staff and contractors, and an independent review of Toy Show the Musical, among other steps.

“We know that RTÉ has a long way to go in rebuilding our bond of trust with the public, and we believe that with continued hard work and resolve, we will do so,” he wrote.

“When I consider the value to audiences of the four days of bumper free-to-air sport live across RTÉ before us, new original Irish drama, a new Late Late Show hosted by Patrick Kielty and so much more across television, radio and online, there is too much at stake and too high a price to pay for audiences if we don’t.”