'I felt like I was in trouble or was marked' - Claire Byrne on the RTÉ pay cap and moving to Newstalk

Ottoline Spearman

Claire Byrne, who will soon move to Newstalk after 15 years at RTÉ, knows that the pressure is on and she needs to  "hit the ground running".

Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Byrne said she is moving to Newstalk for a variety of "personal and complex" reasons.

Despite feeling less challenged at RTÉ, and seeing people "becoming disillusioned” and "colleagues suffering", she described how there were tears in her eyes when she handed in her notice.

“I said to them, ‘Newstalk have given me an offer and I am minded to take it’. I didn’t want to play games. I wasn’t trying to get RTÉ to beat Newstalk with an offer because I knew they couldn’t with their pay cap."

In wake of the Ryan Tubridy RTÉ payments scandal - where the broadcaster was found to have made undisclosed payments to its high-profile presenter through a barter account - the director general Kevin Bakhurst announced that no one at the broadcaster could earn more than his salary of €250,000.

At that time in 2023, Byrne’s salary was €280,000, down from €350,000 after she left her Monday night television show. Ireland’s Smartest, Byrne's quiz show, also earned her an extra €25,000.

The move by Bakhurst led to a clampdown on presenters' pay, as well as outside work.

Byrne told the Sunday Independent that she "didn’t understand why [she] deserved to be capped.”

“I certainly felt at that time that some people thought that we were all ‘on the make’ and that was unfair because we weren’t and the publicly published figure in RTÉ’s accounts was what I was earning from RTÉ,” Byrne said.

“I hadn’t done anything wrong; we had a sponsor for the show, advertising was strong. So, I didn’t understand why I deserved to be capped.”

She also told the Sunday Independent that her issue with the pay cap wasn’t about the money, but how it sent a negative message to people who had been performing well in their jobs.

“It was more what being capped said about me. It felt like the organisation was wagging its finger at me, saying: ‘You’ve been a bad person and you need to have a cap put on you to stop your gallop.’ That’s how I felt. I felt like I was in trouble or I was marked. It sent a signal to me that I wasn’t comfortable with.”

On Tuesday, Byrne will take over the three-hour prime-time weekday slot that was previously hosted by Pat Kenny.

“The more you do a job, the more comfortable you get and the less challenged you are. RTÉ has, to a certain extent, a guaranteed audience in certain slots now and I’m very proud that we managed to grow the audience," she said.

“But I thought: ‘Are you up for a challenge?’ And Newstalk, owned by Bauer, is a very ambitious company. They don’t see themselves as minnows anymore. They are a real competitor.”

“I have high expectations of myself and this show needs to be good from day one. It has to be. Newstalk have taken a bet on me and I now have to live up to my side of the bargain.”

Byrne will have three hours of airtime to fill five days a week, but rather than being daunted by this, she said that she will "relish it".

“I’d rather be on air for the three hours than sitting in the office. When my adrenaline is up, I feel better.

"My ambition is to go into Newstalk and grow the audience, so let’s see what happens.”

Byrne starts her new weekday show on Tuesday February 2nd. It will run every weekday on Newstalk from 9am to 12pm.