THE top 10 earners in RTE made £1.22 million last year, according to the Director General of RTE, Mr Joe Barry.
He was, however, unable, because of legal and contractual reason, to make individual salaries public, such as those of Gay Byrne or Pat Kenny. However, he did say that recent newspaper reports were "wildly inaccurate".
The Oireachtas Committee on Semi-State Companies has been trying for a number of years to find out the salaries of RTE's top earners, but the station had consistently refused, saying it was a private matter as those involved are not directly employed by RTE, but have contracts. RTE had also taken legal advice which said disclosure was not possible.
The chairman of the committee, Mr Liam Kavanagh, offered RTE the option of giving the information to the committee confidentially. Mr Barry merely noted what the chairman had said.
The chairman of the RTE authority, Dr Farrel Corcoran, said RTE was pulled in two ways, by the wish to be open and accountable while at the same time protecting important sensitive commercial information and individuals' confidentiality.
The income of those well-known presenters helped to attract audiences, chat was important.
RTE was also unwilling to give other information, such as that covering the acquisition of programmes. There was haggling over both the price of programmes and the poaching of talent. RTE was in an increasingly competitive environment and information could be used by other stations to either buy programmes or attract top staff.
Mr Barry said the level of payment had dropped from £1.5 million over the past two years, but suggested this was simply due to people moving and changing.
He said that the level of payment was based on the level of advertising attracted and the level of performance. If a performer was not giving RTE the quality demanded, they would not be employed.
Earlier, Dr Corcoran said he was unwilling to give the committed the attendance record of the RTE Authority. He said he was willing to give a global account, but not one tied to names.