RTÉ pay controversy: how the national broadcaster is structured

RTÉ is a semi-State body that is funded by way of TV licence income and the selling of advertising, sponsorship and other commercial arrangements. It has a board that decides on policy and corporate direction, and an executive that is responsible for the day-to-day running of the organisation.

The director general combines the role of chief executive and editor-in-chief, chairing the executive board while also being a member of the overall board. Individual executive board members oversee specific areas of the RTÉ operation and report to the director general.

The board

The current chair of the governing board, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, was appointed in November, when the former chair, Moya Doherty, came to the end of her term. Ní Raghallaigh is a former chief executive of Ardmore Studios and Troy Studios and was a founding member of the team that established TG4, where she worked in the finance, strategy and marketing roles. Her term ends in November 2027.

The director general up to Monday – when she announced her resignation – was Dee Forbes. She was appointed to the position in July 2016. Before that the Cork native worked in broadcasting and advertising in London where, most recently, she was president and managing director of Discovery Networks Northern Europe. Forbes was suspended on Wednesday as the controversy broke over secret payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy. Her term in the role of director general was due to come to an end this July.

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The other members of the board are: deputy chair Ian Kehoe (journalist and editor of the Currency); Aideen Howard (director of the Ark Cultural Centre for Children, Temple Bar, Dublin); PJ Matthews (associate professor of English, Drama and Film at UCD); Anne O’Leary (entrepreneur and member of the Institute of Directors); Robert Shortt (RTÉ journalist and staff representative on the board); Conor Murphy (a technology entrepreneur with a background in venture capital; Susan Ahern (a barrister, arbitrator and mediator, and adviser to international bodies on corporate governance and dispute resolution); Daire Hickey (a co-founder of the Web Summit and an investor in a number of start-ups and venture firms); David Harvey (a former TV and radio presenter with interests in a number of media companies); and Jonathan Ruane, a lecturer and research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US).

[ Dee Forbes resigns: The key questions now facing RTÉ ]

[ Tubridy payments crisis: Catherine Martin orders full review of RTÉ's governance and culture ]

Board subcommittees

The board has an audit and risk committee and a remuneration committee, which are authorised to seek any information they require relevant to their terms of reference. All RTÉ employees are required to co-operate with requests made by the committees.

In its statement on Thursday, the board said it has taken a number of steps on foot of the Grant Thornton report including the remuneration committee having “full oversight and approval” of the contracts with the ten highest-paid presenters. It appears this was not the case up to now. Executive members of the committee are O’Leary, Kehoe, Shortt and Ahern.

The board said problems were identified “in relation to the transparency of certain payments” in late March, and on receipt of this information the audit committee commissioned a Grant Thornton review. The resultant report was discussed by the board last Monday, leading to its statement on Thursday about secret payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy.

The remuneration committee is charged, among other matters, with considering the performance and remuneration of the director general, the executive management, and “consulting with the director general in relation to ‘top talent’ contractor contracts”. The current members of the committee are Ní Raghallaigh, O’Leary, and Murphy.

The director general

The director general of RTÉ combines the roles of chief executive, editor-in-chief and board member of RTÉ. The board sets out strategy, policy and other goals for the executive who then directs the organisation and works to preserve RTÉ’s editorial independence. Kevin Bakhurst, a British journalist and media executive, is scheduled to take on the role of director general in July (when Forbes was due to end her term). Following the suspension of Forbes last week, Adrian Lynch, director of audience, channels and marketing and a member of the executive board since 2017, was appointed to her role on an interim basis.

The executive board

The nine-member executive board is chaired by the director general with the other eight directors having responsibility for specific areas of the RTÉ operation.

The current chief financial officer, Richard Collins, joined RTÉ in January 2020, before which he spent 13 years in the retail sector, including being director of finance at Dunnes Stores and Superquinn. Jim Jennings, the director of content, has been with the station since 1985 and has worked in radio and TV. Deirdre McCarthy, managing director, news and current affairs, was the first women to be appointed to the role when she was appointed in December. She is a career journalist with RTÉ who has worked on political programmes and overseen news content in a range of different areas. Richard Waghorn, director of operations and technology, has been with RTÉ since 2012, when he took on the role of chief technology officer. Geraldine O’Leary, director of commercial, has played a prominent role in the commercial side of RTÉ since 2003. The director of human resources, Eimear Cusack, has held the position since April 2017, while the director of strategy, Rory Coveney, has been playing a big role in devising RTÉ’s strategic direction since 2011. He is a brother of the Minister for Enterprise, Simon Coveney. Lynch, as noted above, oversees audience, channels and marketing.

Finances

The most recent financial accounts for RTÉ show income of €344 million in 2021, of which €196 million was licence fee revenue and €148 commercial revenue.

Ryan Tubridy

The current controversy concerns secret payments to Ryan Tubridy during a period when RTÉ was under pressure to reduce costs, including payments to its highest-earning presenters. It has emerged that during the period from 2017, Tubridy was paid a total of €345,000 more than was publicly disclosed. In her statement on Monday, Forbes said she was involved in events that led to payments to Tubridy in the period since 2020, including an arrangement with a commercial partner in 2020 that led to Tubridy being paid €75,000 by the commercial partner. This arrangement came about after “detailed discussions including numerous internal communications over many months with RTÉ colleagues,” she said. Two subsequent payments of €75,000 were made directly by RTÉ.

Forbes – who took on the top role in RTÉ in July 2016 – said she knew nothing payments totalling €120,000 that were made to Tubridy in the period 2017 to 2019 and which were not included in the declared amounts paid to the presenter. It is still not known how these payments came about.