A LABOUR Party backbencher has challenged Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte to put pressure on RTÉ to reduce the salaries of top presenters.
Dublin Mid-West deputy Robert Dowds described some of the salaries as “outrageous” after Mr Rabbitte told the Dáil communications committee that broadcasting licence fee revenue of €222 million would provide grant-in-aid of €185 million to RTÉ this year.
“It is absolutely to my mind unacceptable that some of their senior broadcasters are paid maybe three times as much as the Taoiseach. To my mind it’s absolutely outrageous,” he said.
He asked Mr Rabbitte if there was any pressure he could put on RTÉ to achieve salary reductions. Mr Rabbitte told the committee he did not think the highest paid people in RTÉ would escape what he described as “inevitable cuts”.
The organisation’s director general, Noel Curran, said last month the salaries of RTÉ’s top presenters would be cut by more than 30 per cent from their 2008 peak.
All of RTÉ’s top presenters took a voluntary cut of 10 per cent in 2009. A cut of 30 per cent in Pat Kenny’s 2008 salary would mean a drop from €950,976 to €665,683, although he has already taken a significant pay cut since he left the Late Late Show in May 2009.
The next highest earner at the station in 2008 was the late Gerry Ryan (€629,865), followed by Marian Finucane (€570,000).
