RTE will not be releasing workplace report

RTÉ is refusing to release a controversial report on workplace culture in its current affairs department following a meeting with staff, the Irish Daily Mail has learned.

A number of sources confirmed last night that the report was not being published, despite requests from staff.

A Fine Gael Senator also said last night that RTÉ is funded by the taxpayer and needs to be transparent about any reports carried out on internal matters.

It’s understood that staff members were ‘very annoyed’ following a meeting yesterday and felt as if their concerns had been ‘glossed over’.

The report by an external HR consultancy firm, Resolve Ireland, was commissioned last year, as reported by our sister paper the Irish Mail on Sunday.

It was prepared by mediator Miriam Maher, who spoke to staff on a confidential one-to-one basis.

RTÉ current affairs staff met with the external HR company and Jon Williams, managing director of News and Current Affairs, yesterday via Zoom.

Sources told the Irish Daily Mail that staff at the meeting were told that the report would not be published. ‘We were told we couldn’t have a copy of the report, not even in redacted form,’ one source said.

It is understood that some staff asked management if the report was not being distributed due to the issues surrounding the move of a senior manager to a new role.

‘Everyone was very annoyed,’ said one staffer.

‘We gave very frank accounts about the issues we have and they’ve just glossed over it all.’

Another RTÉ source told the Irish Daily Mail that staff members questioned Mr Williams and the HR representative if recent changes in the management structure were connected to the report’s findings. No answer was forthcoming.

It is understood that staff members were given an ‘outline of the main findings of the report’, which one source described as ‘HR gobbledegook’. Fine Gael’s spokesman on media, Senator Micheál Carrigy, told the Irish Daily Mail that RTÉ needs to be transparent about the contents of the report and any recommendations it makes.

‘They get significant funding from the taxpayer through the TV licence [fee],’ he stated.

‘Any internal issues like that have to be published.’

The decision not to publish the report comes amid tensions in RTÉ about a senior manager moving to a new role.

Staff had called for the appointment of the manager to a new role to be halted to allow the role to be filled by open competition.