Feelings about fate of Ryan Tubridy ‘running high’ among RTÉ staff, says DG

RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst said he would need to take a more “systematic” approach with staff before deciding the fate of Ryan Tubridy.

Mr Bakhurst has held a dozen meetings with RTÉ staff since he took over on Monday. He has already stated that he will take soundings from staff as to whether Tubridy should be allowed to return to RTÉ radio.

He said “feelings were running high” in relation to Tubridy’s future after the presenter’s appearance at two Oireachtas committees on Tuesday. “I need to talk it through with some of the management in radio,” he said.

He praised staff who he said had taken on the responsibility for upholding RTÉ's reputation in recent weeks and “we should be grateful for that”.

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He said the focus of much staff anger is now on how the station had been run and the revelations that emerged at Oireachtas committee meetings in recent weeks.

At lunchtime he met RTÉ staff protesting on the campus about the failure of successive governments to bring forward an alternative to the licence fee. Their theme was “we are your RTÉ”.

About 200 staff attended the protest. National Union of Journalists Dublin broadcasting branch chair and RTÉ journalist Emma O’Kelly said the fate of the broadcaster was not about one person but about the future of public-service broadcasting in Ireland.

She came across a document in her locker from September 2002 which was a response to the Forum on Broadcasting appealing for a proper funding model for RTÉ.

“That’s how long we have been waiting for this – at least 20 years. People will be asked about one individual and his future in this organisation. We need to make it clear that this is not about the fate of one individual but about the future career prospects of hundreds of people – employees, actors, musicians, artists and others who rely on this organisation for an income to live on.”

NUJ Irish secretary Séamus Dooley drew attention to comments made by Ryan Tubridy’s agent Noel Kelly to the effect that Mr Kelly saw himself as a “shop steward” for his clients. “None of our [union] reps here would ever sign a blank sheet of paper and none of them would accept a false invoice. This is about government. There are people within politics who would dance on the grave of RTÉ. To quote Charles Haughey, ‘Go dance on somebody else’s grave,’” he said, referring to a quote from former Fianna Fáil politician Seán McEntee later cited by journalist John Healy during the early 1980s heaves against Haughey.

The RTÉ Prime Time Investigates programme on live cattle exports was an example of the best public-service broadcasting, Mr Dooley added, “which cannot be done on a shoestring. RTÉ cannot continue to serve the Irish public unless politicians have the courage to support the reform of public-service broadcasting.”

Radio producer Kevin Brew spoke of a “hyper-commercialised cult of celebrity that does cartwheels to deliver rock-star fees to the upper tiers of the organisation.”

Nationwide presenter Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh said Mr Bakhurst had been “as genuine as he could be” about the future of RTÉ.

“I found yesterday [Tuesday] very tough. The public have said nothing bad to me about RTÉ. I have had nothing but positive feedback. It is lovely,” she said.

“The audience is very loyal to RTÉ. I don’t think the trust is completely gone. When I stand in front of a town like Kilkenny, they know it is me. RTÉ is made up of a lot of people doing very different jobs. I look at us as a team.”

She declined to discuss Tubridy’s future but added that the events of recent week having been “triggering” for those within the broadcaster, including herself, who have had their own issues with RTÉ over the years.

RTÉ concert orchestra operations administrator Marguerite Sheridan said Tubridy was not the first person in RTÉ to be paid a large wage and she believed on a personal level that he should return to the airwaves.

“From my own perspective, this didn’t start with Ryan. People before him were nearly on the higher end towards a million euro. On a professional level, I don’t think the organisation should cut off its nose to spite its face. People want to hear him on air. That’s my own view, not a union view.”