RTÉ staff to Bakhurst: Why didn’t you speak up when minister was misinformed by Siún?

Exit deals for executives biggest issue at meeting

RTÉ DIRECTOR general Kevin Bakhurst was yesterday challenged by newsroom staff on why he didn’t speak up when the former RTÉ board chair ‘misinformed’ the Media Minister at a meeting which he also attended.

Mr Bakhurst addressed news and current affairs staff in a ‘town hall’ meeting where he was asked about two meetings with the Media Minister that led to the former chair of RTÉ, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, resigning last week.

The former chair told the minister, after being asked twice last week, that the RTÉ board had no role in approving the exit of the former head of finance Richard Collins – when the Board Remuneration committee (Remco) had

‘I wasn’t clear what she was asking’

greenlit the departure and confidential exit payment last October.

The minister said on live television that she was ‘deeply disappointed’ in the chair after she was given incorrect information, leading to Ms Ní Raghallaigh’s resignation hours later.

Mr Bakhurst reportedly told staff that he didn’t realise ‘it would be this huge thing’ at the time when the issue arose in the room in two meetings that preceded the defacto sacking of the chair.

‘I wasn’t quite clear what she was asking,’ Mr Bakhurst reportedly told staff, adding that the minister asked the question at both meetings but the discussion quickly moved on.

‘I was clear in my mind that the department had the information that Remco had signed off,’ Mr Bakhurst said.

He told staff that questions from the minister to the chair were ‘confusing’ at last week’s exchanges.

Staff speaking to the Irish Daily Mail said that it appeared that the director general was ‘downplaying’ the matter in front of employees.

He told staff that he is ‘profoundly aware’ of the impact of the events of recent weeks, and praised Prime Time for the Media Minister’s live interview.

‘Congratulations on the scoop. It wasn’t quite the scoop I was hoping for,’ he said.

He said once RTÉ releases its strategic vision and the two expert advisory reports come out, ‘it is then up to Government to deliver’ on the future funding of RTÉ.

Sources at the meeting said that substantial exit packages, and the effect that is having on public trust as a result, were the ‘biggest issue’ for staff.

Mr Bakhurst was asked directly by staff about whether the former head of news, Jon Williams, left with an exit package after his shock departure from the organisation in 2022.

Mr Bakhurst is understood to have told staff that he was precluded, for legal reasons, from saying whether Mr Williams got an exit package or not.

‘He is one of the individuals I cannot talk about because of legal reasons. I am really sorry. I would really love to say, as I would about some of the others,’ he said.

When RTÉ has previously been asked if the former head of legal affairs, Paula Mullooly, got an exit package, the organisation has said she resigned without a package.

Similarly, RTÉ confirmed the former director general, Dee Forbes, did not get an exit payment, and the former director of commercial, Geraldine O’Leary, left when she brought forward her retirement last summer.

One staff source said that exit packages arose as the ‘biggest issue’ at the meeting, as some staff would have applied for redundancy programmes and been refused – at a time when top executives have been able to negotiate golden handshakes.

Mr Bakhurst is also understood to have addressed comments from Minister Simon Harris earlier in the day, when he called for RTÉ to outline the rationale behind the exit packages already awarded without revealing the sums.

He told staff the minister’s argument was ‘reasonable’ and that ‘clear procedures’ around these deals need to be outlined.

Staff also put it to the director general that ‘it’s time to stand up to the lawyers’ and provide transparency around exit deals for executives in the future.

Mr Bakhurst said they cannot ignore the current legal advice which says that RTÉ cannot reveal the details of recent executive exits. However, he has not ruled out exploring a way around ironclad confidentiality agreements with independent advice for future deals. He told staff he was going to seek advice outside of law firm Arthur Cox about this.

However, he told staff that exit agreements and payments were

‘It’s time to stand up to the lawyers’

‘common practice’ and questioned why the media were not focusing on other State bodies.

He said he had a brief discussion with Arthur Cox about confidentiality clauses in exit packages, which he said were a ‘bog-standard’ part of any legal process and revealing them would be a ‘significant departure’ from the norm.

He said he also discussed capping exit payments, but he said that if RTÉ does this no one on a salary above €75,000 would leave because they wouldn’t get their full entitlement, and this would cause more junior members of staff to depart.

In a defence of his signing-off on controversial exit deals, he said he could not currently say he is delivering change ‘if all the same people were sitting around the table’.

He said the threshold ‘to sack anyone is extremely high’ under Irish employment law.

‘You can sack people, and be dragged down to the WRC [Workplace Relations Commission] and end up paying three times as much.’ Mr Bakhurst was speaking directly to staff in the news and current affairs department at a meeting arranged by the head of news, Deirdre McCarthy, one of the interim leadership team at RTÉ.

He said the organisation is keeping a ‘careful watch’ on its finances, because the €40million bailout from the Government has not yet been fully granted.

‘We’re having to be very careful about hiring as we have to careful about costs to the organisation.’

He said the commercial division ‘has been pulling out all the stops’, and had hit its sales targets for 2023, but said TV licence sales were ‘up and down’ every week.

Mr Bakhurst said he would ‘love if the key players from the past came forward and gave evidence’, referring to Ms Forbes, who has not attended any Oireachtas hearings due to ill health.

‘Realistically, I don’t think there is any expectation those key players will emerge at any time, if at all. We’ll have to move on without that,’ he said.

Mr Bakhurst told staff: ‘We are working very hard to clear up a lot of legacy issues.’