Goan denies bankruptcy reports

RTÉ director-general Cathal Goan has denied suggestions that the broadcaster could go bankrupt.

Mr Goan said there was "absolutely no truth" in suggestions which surfaced in other media that the station would run out of wages by September and that a projected €68 million shortfall in revenue this year was actually closer to €100 million.

Mr Goan appeared in front of the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources this morning to discuss RTÉ's financial situation.

He said RTÉ had a revenue shortfall of €26 million last year, but broke even, as it is legally obliged to do, by cutting management bonuses and making other cost savings.

Mr Goan said there was "no denying" that RTÉ was in difficult times as a result of a shortfall in advertising which had led to an "unprecedented decline" in commercial revenue, but there was no crisis as had been portrayed within the organisation.

"It would be a crisis if we had not identified the scale of the challenge we all face because of the national and international recession and if we had not clearly signalled the proactive ways in which we intend to deal with it," he told Oireachtas members.

RTÉ staff are currently involved in a ballot on pay cuts from 2.6 per cent for any staff earning over €25,000 a year to 12.5 per cent for those earning more than €255,000 a year.

Mr Goan said the pay cuts were the "best option" to maintain jobs and services at the broadcaster.

He also revealed that there will be an early retirement scheme offered to staff, but refused to be drawn on questions from Fine Gael TD Michael D'Arcy as to whether a rejection of the pay cuts would lead to voluntary or compulsory redundancies.

"When they have made that decision, we will deal with the consequences of that. Before that it is invidious to talk about any more than that," he said.

Mr Goan also received considerable criticism from Oireachtas members about the levels of pay to RTÉ's highest-paid presenters.

Labour TD Liz McManus said levels of salary to some presenters were an "affront" to lowly paid members of RTÉ staff while Fine Gael TD Noel Coonan described them as "obscene".

Mr Goan said there will be an "amount of hysteria" about figures for what top presenters were paid in 2007 are revealed in RTÉ's annual report which is currently with the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

"It will be about 2007 and not 2009. I'm not going to say any more about the salaries or the fees of top talent because they are confidential," he said.

"I will report to the authority on the measures we have already taken and continue to take with reductions across the board in staff and contracts."