Bakhurst says RTÉ has ‘paid the price of transparency’ after payment revelations

By Cillian Sherlock and Gráinne Ní Aodha, Press Association

RTÉ director-general Kevin Bakhurst has said that RTÉ has “paid a price for transparency” in response to the recent top-paid presenter controversies.

Bakhurst, who was speaking after a meeting with the Communications Minister on Tuesday afternoon, said the reaction to the revelations was “not an incentive to be more transparent”.

He said they demonstrated the timetable of events to Minister Patrick O’Donovan between the issue being raised, verifying it, taking legal advice, and informing the department before the issue was leaked.

The meeting with RTÉ bosses was called after it was revealed that Derek Mooney has been at least its ninth highest-paid presenter since 2020 – but had not featured in annual lists as he was classified as a producer.

“We have paid a price for that transparency, which is the controversy in the last few days, and that’s disappointing for me, because I do want to drive transparency,” he told reporters.

“I’ve said that all along, and if we pay that kind of price when we discover something we want to put right and put it in the public domain, it’s not an incentive to be more transparent.”

He said the departure of Mari Hurley as RTÉ chief financial officer after 18 months in the role was not linked to the recent presenter payment revelations.

“No, not at all, she went to a really good job in the private sector,” he said after a meeting at the Department of Communications.

“This came to the leadership team and to the board as part of the annual accounts, and the CFO said that she uncovered this issue, so all of us couldn’t sign off on the top 10 until it was properly done, as I just described.

“So it was just part of the normal process of the annual report and the annual financial report. They had to see through the checks and then went through the audit and risk committee and through the remuneration committee and through the whole board.”

Bakhurst, deputy director-general Adrian Lynch, and board chairman Terence O’Rourke arrived together for the meeting with Minister Patrick O’Donovan and his officials in Dublin on Tuesday evening.

Mr O’Donovan also said he wanted to “flesh out” why RTÉ paid Claire Byrne and Ray D’Arcy almost €100,000 after they left Radio One but were still in contract.

The meeting comes on the same day the minister secured Government approval to put RTÉ under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

Speaking after the meeting, O’Donovan said he did not “accept that at all” that RTÉ were paying for being transparent.

“Three years ago, when they ran into the difficulties that are all very well enunciated at this stage, the government didn’t punish them.

“The government stood by the organisation to make sure that it was able to fulfil its obligations and duties as laid down in statute.

“I don’t think that anybody, certainly any of my colleagues sitting around the Cabinet table, have been anything other than supportive of the independence of a public service broadcaster like RTÉ.”

O’Donovan said the RTÉ executives went through the timeframe of discovering the the revelations and discussing the presenter payment list with Derek Mooney himself.

He said he was satisfied with what he was told by RTÉ during the meeting on Tuesday.

“I take them at their word that this is what they have said that they’re aware of, they don’t have any information on anything else, and I take them at their word on that.”

He said a bill brought to Cabinet on Tuesda would “strengthen the legislative underpinning” for governance at RTÉ and TG4.

Earlier, Tánaiste Simon Harris criticised an apparent “upstairs-downstairs” situation at the broadcaster.

He said: “I think there’s a lot of hard work and decent people in RTÉ who will feel let down by this latest set of revelations.”

He added: “I don’t want to push to personalise it to anyone, because I think that serves no purpose, but it’s beginning to look like there’s a little bit of an upstairs-downstairs situation going on in RTÉ, that certain producers can be over here, and that’s not fair. It’s not fair in any organisation.

“So, there’s a fairness issue here, there’s a transparency issue here, and then there’s just an accuracy issue here – fairness, transparency and accuracy. And we need all three of them to ensure we don’t have Groundhog Day.”

Harris said a lack of transparency was not acceptable to the Irish public as he criticised a “drip-feed” of information.

He added: “None of this ‘will there be another revelation?’, no salacious detail – we just need facts, information and transparency.”

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said bringing RTÉ under the aegis of the Comptroller and Auditor General would create “a more structured framework for accountability”.

He said the revelations regarding Mr Mooney had created concerns, as he stressed it was “essential” to maintain confidence in the public service broadcaster.

Meanwhile, RTÉ has sought the expertise of consultant Sam Whipple, who worked as a “change co-ordinator” at the BBC, to examine how RTÉ is structured and resourced and to identify areas to “improve workflows” and “delivery” across TV, radio, online and social media.

His review started at the end of April and is expected to last 40 days.

The review was not required to be publicly tendered and it is therefore understood to cost less than €50,000.