RTE to be brought before Department over new payment controversy

There should be an audit of payments to RTE presenters since 2020, the Communications Minister has said, as station bosses are to be called before his Department.

It comes after RTE announced that presenter Derek Mooney had not previously featured on a list of the station’s highest earners because he had instead been considered a “producer” since 2020.

He earned enough in every year since then to feature at least ninth on the lists.

The revelation has similar features to a scandal which rocked RTE almost three years ago, after it was revealed that the national broadcaster had underdeclared payments to former Late Late Show host, Ryan Tubridy.

The crisis later widened out to other governance matters and the controversy around financial mismanagement at the station was seen as a driver behind a fall in TV licence receipts.

It prompted a series of heavyweight Oireachtas committees and resulted in the Government changing how the organisation is funded.

Describing the Mooney revelations as a “side issue”, Communications Minister Patrick O’Donovan said: “The greater issue here is payments in their entirety across the organisation in the period from 2020 onwards and which should have been subjected to an audit.”

He added: “I also don’t want to know monies without total packages, I think we’ve moved on way too far from that.

“And that’s why this morning I asked my officials to make it known to RTE that not going back to 2020 is not an option – and by the way, that does not just focus in on Derek Mooney.”

Mr O’Donovan said he has called a meeting in his Department on Tuesday involving him, his officials and representatives of RTE – including the chair and director-general.

In addition, the minister said he wanted to “flesh out” more information on how RTE paid Claire Byrne and Ray D’Arcy almost 100,000 euro after they left Radio One.

RTE is also due to appear before the Oireachtas Media Committee on Wednesday.

Earlier on Friday, the broadcaster’s director-general said the reclassification of Mooney as a producer in 2020 was not a side deal.

RTE boss Kevin Bakhurst said Mooney’s previous exclusion from the lists was a “justifiable” decision by the organisation’s past management given his contract is as an executive producer, but added the current leadership has taken a different view because most people know him as a presenter.

The reclassification came in line with the implementation of the Government’s Expert Advisory Committee’s recommendations following the previous financial management scandal.

In 2019, RTE announced plans to reduce fees paid to top contracted on-air presenters by 15%.

Asked if the reclassification was a side deal to avoid pay cuts from 2020, Mr Bakhurst said: “No, I don’t think it was.”

He added: “As I understand it, in 2020 he would have been back in to the top 10, and they would have had to take a decision at that stage whether he was working (the) majority of the time as a presenter or as a producer, and clearly they looked at the balance of his work – as we have done recently – and the majority of it is producing.”

Public Accounts Committee member Seamus McGrath told Newstalk the revelations were “damaging” to public trust in RTE.

The 2025 figures also revealed that RTE continued to pay presenters Ray D’Arcy and Claire Byrne even after they left the organisation in October 2025.

For the remainder of the year, D’Arcy received 50,000 euro and Byrne received 47,000 euro.

Byrne has said she was “happy to stay on and work” at the organisation until the end of her contract.

Speaking on her Newstalk programme on Friday, Byrne said: “I resigned from RTE in the summer, my contract though, ran until the end of the year, December 2025.

“And I made it clear, I was happy to stay on and work there until the end of my contract.

“But RTE came to me and told me that they wanted me to finish up at the end of October.

“That was their right and their decision. So that’s how that happened, from my perspective.”

Mr Bakhurst said the 97,000 euro in payments was “totally the right decision”.

He said RTE wanted to take Byrne off air after she said she was leaving so it could launch its new Radio One schedule, while he characterised the timeline around D’Arcy as “effectively his notice period”.

He said they had employment rights and a legal fight would have cost a “shedload more”.