RTÉ told €56m State bailout for next two years is ‘conditional’ on reform agenda

The Government has agreed to provide €56 million in additional funding to RTÉ after the organisation set out plans to reduce its workforce by 400 by 2028.

Ministers signed off on the interim funding package, which will be subject to certain conditions, at Cabinet on Tuesday.

The move was confirmed as RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst was briefing unions on his planned cost-cutting measures for the crisis-hit broadcaster.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he intended for the Government to make a decision on a long-term funding model for public service broadcasting within the next few months which would not just address funding in RTÉ but also local media and the independent sector.

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Mr Varadkar said public service broadcasting could not be allowed to fail so the Government would be providing an additional €16 million for this year “to allow RTÉ to continue to pay the bills and €40 million next year”. But this was conditional on RTÉ making the most of the deal which was why it was being paid in tranches, subject to RTÉ “publishing certain reports, making certain reforms and implementing certain recommendations”.

[ RTÉ plan ‘not about ripping the heart out’ of broadcaster, staff told, but Montrose mood is bleak ]

[ RTÉ crisis: no staff on more than €250,000 under new plan, with some presenters facing cuts ]

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe also stressed the funding would be “conditional on the delivery of the reform agenda”.

Mr Donohoe said: “The Government believes that we need to both back the future of public service broadcasting in our country, but also back changes that are needed now to allow RTÉ to regain the faith of the taxpayer and… of the country after the many damaging controversies of earlier in the year.”

He said the €56 million sum came from an assessment of RTÉ's financial needs carried out by the State’s NewEra agency.

Mr Donohoe said: “We are making precious money of the taxpayer available to support public service broadcasting.”

Mr Donohoe was asked if he was comfortable proposing funding for RTÉ in the absence of clarity on the reform of the TV licence system and the falling revenues in the months since RTÉ became embroiled in controversy. “This is why it is so important that we do pay our television licence,” the Minister replied.

Speaking on RTÉ News at One, Mr Varadkar said realistically any “new mechanism” for funding would not come into place until 2025.

“It remains the law for people to pay the TV licence and I encourage people to continue to do so,” he said.

[ RTÉ bailout buys it time but money alone cannot fix credibility gap ]

[ RTÉ plans to reduce staff numbers by 400 and outsource more content to stem financial crisis ]

The strategic plan was RTÉ’s plan, not the Government’s plan, Mr Varadkar added, and as such did not require Government approval. RTÉ would have to cut its cloth to suit its measure and was no different from other public sector organisations, he said.

“I don’t like to see compulsory redundancies happening in State entities and I know a lot of this is going to come as a shock to a lot of very good hard-working people that work in RTÉ. But I think what has to happen really is for management to engage with the staff. That’s the right approach.”

Opposition figures criticised the RTÉ plan, with Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy expressing concern about the prospect of buying in overseas programming to fill timeslots at the expense of domestic-focused programming.