Travel costs of €60,000 paid for 'Mission to Prey' team

RTÉ’S CURRENT affairs department spent €60,000 on flights and accommodation for its Mission to Prey programme, which libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds.

It has also emerged that the cost last year of special events for the financially troubled broadcaster was in excess of €3.4 million, including almost €1 million for Queen Elizabeth II’s visit.

New figures show the cost of the Mission to Prey programme was €184,000, which is more than the €137,000 cited in the report carried out for the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland by former BBC Northern Ireland controller Anna Carragher.

A spokesman for RTÉ explained that the figure given for the Carragher report did not include staff salaries (€22,000) and other costs.

Travel and subsistence to Africa for reporter Aoife Kavanagh and those involved in the making of programme was €60,000.

Contractors, including researchers, and the use of video and editing facilities, amounted to €92,000 and other unspecified costs were €10,000.

The figures were released to The Irish Times following a Freedom of Information request.

Last week, the authority fined RTÉ €200,000 following the Carragher report, which found the Mission to Prey programme was unfair and a breach of Fr Reynolds’s privacy.

RTÉ has also had to pay about €1 million in damages and legal fees.

The total cost for Prime Time Investigates programming last year was €671,000. The current affairs series has been scrapped following the Fr Reynolds libel action.

Last year was an extraordinarily busy one for RTÉ’s news and current affairs department, the figures show.

Queen Elizabeth’s visit cost €997,000 and US president Barack Obama’s visit, which occurred on the same week that the Mission to Prey programme was broadcast, cost €248,000.

However, both of these one-off events cost less than the general election in February 2011. RTÉ spent €1,665,000 covering the campaign and the poll.

Coverage of the presidential election, during which RTÉ became embroiled in further controversy after a bogus tweet was read out during The Frontline TV debate, cost €187,000 and the presidential inauguration cost €97,000.

Former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald’s State funeral cost €118,000 to broadcast, and the Northern Ireland Assembly elections cost €96,000.

RTÉ announced a €25 million cost-cutting programme in March, a move which includes the proposed closure of its London office after the Olympic Games are held there this summer.