The "Who Gets Paid What in RTE?" saga continues like a good soap, fuelling the not inconsiderable curiosity of the Irish public.

A former director-general, Joe Barry, set us a long division sum with his disclosure, two years ago, that the top 10 earners in the station accounted for £1.2m of its salary costs. On my reckoning that would place the present director-general about fifth or sixth place in the list, with Gay Byrne earning four or five times as much.

Who are the others ahead of RTE's chief executive in salary? The permanent staff at RTE, including the director-general, like staff in other public sector organisations, are generally paid in accordance with published guidelines from government.

Indeed the Minister with responsibility for broadcasting must approve the DG's salary scale.

The differences that have long existed between politicians and RTE over the level of salaries and fees paid to presenters took a more ominous twist last week with the news that government had asked the station's management to identify the top earners and details of their salaries.

This quest has been conducted by members of the Oireachtas in its various committees but particularly by the then committee on semi-state bodies.

There is nothing wrong with committees of the Oireachtas wishing to know how public money is disbursed, although I suspect the inquiries are not motivated by pure public-spiritedness. The disclosure of Gay Byrne's earnings would certainly be tabloid fodder and would, in the minds of some politicians, have the virtue of putting their own salaries in context.

Such exposure to public scrutiny might also have the effect of taming some broadcasters.

The decision by the Government, however, puts the quest for information about RTE salaries into a more urgent category of inquiry and one which must be addressed by the station before the holding of the next formal Cabinet meeting in early September.

The inquiry has been described as a collective Government decision. We do not know which Ministers were particularly exercised about the matter but it seems as if the Minister with responsibility for broadcasting Ms de Valera, was not.

The inquiry was made, I suspect, on the introduction of the 1997 RTE annual report, which the Government must process for publication. The report indicates that staff costs rose by some £3.3 million, and as Barry O'Keeffe reported in this newspaper: "Even allowing for Partnership 2000 increases, it appears that some personnel got substantial pay increases [in 1997]."

I understand that the letter of inquiry was received by RTE last Friday, that it specifically refers to broadcasters and could well refer to those broadcasters who receive salaries greater than that of the director-general.

The basic question is whether the salaries of RTE on-air broadcasters should be disclosed. The request, I presume, is for disclosure to Government.

If that is the case then Cabinet confidentiality applies. But I think nobody in Ireland believes that this information would remain veiled from the public.

We have a culture of open secrets and secret secrets. Certainly RTE's initial response has been premised on the possibility of full disclosure. The station seems to have some problems about the Government's request. So do I. The Government's concern about transparency in RTE is very new and very sudden.

RTE's arguments for non-disclosure are apparently twofold: first, that its contracts with top broadcasters include a confidentiality clause; second, that the information sought is "commercially sensitive".

I take the second argument first. The reasoning here is that if RTE's competitors, which now include TV3, were to know of the financial packages involved they would be in a position to counter-bid for RTE talent.

In a marketplace, talent should be free to move from employer to employer. Of course RTE could do what is a practice in British broadcasting, that is to insert a "handcuff" clause in the contract.

Jeremy Paxman is last week reported as having put on handcuffs for the BBC until 2002 for an estimated consideration of £1 million. That's £250,000 a year. Gay Byrne must be smiling at that, but then he smiled at Oliver Barry's offer from Century Radio also.

There is the argument put forward some years ago by RTE that the high ratings achieved by certain programmes which are presenter-led bring in a high level of advertising, which justifies the fees paid to those presenters.

Thus it is suggested that the fee levels are set by ratings and advertising income. So the financial pyramid is set by Gay Byrne on radio and television with Pat Kenny and Gerry Ryan following. This is a theory which should interest the actors and writers in Glenroe, or indeed the staff and newsreaders on evening television or daytime radio.

Salary levels tend to set one's position both in a workplace hierarchy and in wider society. It's one thing to go to a bank or a building society for a loan and give the necessary information, but another matter altogether to have your salary trotted out around the golf club or wherever.

Unfortunately, broadcasting has allowed the build-up of a star system which is quite out of kilter with real life outside. It seems that in many cases the only way in which a broadcaster can establish his or her worth is through the salary and fee pecking order.

I am not convinced by either of the arguments for non-disclosure: the confidentiality argument doesn't seem to apply to civil servants, politicians, lawyers employed on behalf of the State or judges. Indeed we have seen the published details of the pensions of the highest office-holders in the land.

The "commercial sensitivity" concern applies with equal force to members of the public service elsewhere whose talents attract the attention of the private sector. Aer Lingus is a recent case in point.

The Gay Byrne model of working in both radio and television may have been subsequently used by RTE management as a way of increasing the fees of its on-air talent by featuring some leading presenters on both media. In many ways, the strategy marked a downward spiral in the standards of speech radio. It also stretched the talent of some of those involved, with the exception of Gay Byrne himself, whose contribution to both radio and television in these islands has been unique.

Others have fared less well in one or other medium, and in some cases consequentially in both. RTE is now stuck with some overpaid presenters operating in a dual role and RTE Radio 1 needs a considerable revamp.

There is always a suspicion in the public mind that an unwillingness to disclose the salaries of presenters could be motivated by a desire to conceal what might be inflated levels of remuneration.

All in all, the disbursement of public money from State corporations should be accounted for in public and in the public interest. In the case of broadcasting I believe that the argument is even stronger.

In an organisation where news, public and current affairs are at the core of the business, I think that the public is entitled to know the exact status, financial and otherwise, of RTE's commentators. But then I believe that about all the media, whether in public or private ownership.

Muiris Mac Conghail teaches in the school of media at the Dublin Institute of Technology. He is a former controller of programmes at RTE Television.