RTE may become the first major employer to give an allowance to staff who use bicycles for work-related trips, in the same way as car-drivers receive a mileage allowance. The initiative, spearheaded by journalist Tom Kelly, is likely to bear fruit next year.
Mr Kelly organised a seminar on the issue last March and has since received a lot of support. "The personnel department is now looking at it very actively, though it might end up as a flat fee of around £600 a year rather than a mileage allowance," he said.
Such allowances were "commonplace in other EU countries," he said, and the National Union of Journalists chapel (office branch) in RTE was confident that it would become "the first company in Ireland to formally recognise cyclists" in this way.
Mr Kevin Healy, RTE's director of communications, confirmed that it was currently engaged in a round of discussions with the NUJ and other trade unions representing its staff of 2,000 on a range of issues, including the proposed allowance for cyclists.
Asked about the impression that the RTE complex in Donnybrook was beginning to look like a series of buildings in a huge surface car park, Mr Healy said there were 800 designated parking spaces on the site, plus up to 200 illegally parked cars at any given time.
He agreed that RTE had a problem with parking on green areas, double yellow lines and pedestrian crossings. The number of staff using cars was increasing with prosperity, but the parking problem would be relieved somewhat when a new TV block was completed.