Senior staff at RTÉ in line for bonus payments

Senior RTÉ managers will be entitled to performance-related pay rises of at least €1,000 per annum under an agreement to take effect from next year.

The new agreement, designed to replace the previous system of pay increments, will apply to managers who have not yet reached the top of their salary scale.

The pay rises will be awarded on a sliding scale for those who pass performance-related targets. Those who do so will be entitled to a minimum €1,000. It is understood this will apply to 230 people.

The new details emerged as Minister for Health Leo Varadkar raised the prospect of a system of bonuses and pay awards for hospital consultants at a weekend conference.

An RTÉ spokesman confirmed there will be a minimum €1,000 performance payment, depending on where management staff fell on the salary scale.

However, the spokesman said there will be no reintroduction of management bonuses relating to the broadcaster’s overall commercial performance.

Irish Water

A similar system of performance-related pay was in place at

Irish Water

but it was parked as controversy over water charges continued last year. In its place, staff at Irish Water are set to receive backdated annual incremental pay increases from 1.5 per cent to 3 per cent as part of an interim arrangement until 2017.

The Labour Relations Commission has recommended the performance pay model should apply in Irish Water from 2017. At the height of tensions between RTÉ and the Government over the broadcaster's treatment of the water charges controversy, former minister Pat Rabbitte said the coverage of Irish Water's performance-related pay, which he objected to being called bonuses, was "grossly unfair".

However, Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly had said he did "not want to see any form of bonus culture" in Irish Water.

Complaint

Ervia, Irish Water’s parent company, complained to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) about RTÉ’s use of terms such as “bonus payments”, “awards”, “top ups” and “multiplier” to describe its pay structure.

RTÉ said its editorial independence includes the entitlement to use “terminology which is fair, accurate and comprehensible to its listeners”.

“The attempt to impose only that language which an organisation wishes to be used is an unwarranted inhibition on journalism in the public interest.”

The BAI rejected Ervia’s complaint.

Earlier this year, RTÉ awarded a pay rise of 1.75 per cent of salary for managers who were not at the top of their salary scales, about 230 staff.

RTÉ said that, following an industrial tribunal Recommendation, there is a “is a system for merit-based increments within the range of 0-4.5 per cent, depending on performance, for those who are within the scale, with the average anticipated increment expected to be 2 per cent”.

The station said that in 2009, all employees and their representative groups agreed to reduce pay by up to 12 per cent, suspend salary increments and end performance related bonuses.