Ireland needs RTÉ... but not at any cost

So, now we know. Ryan Tubridy was the top earner in RTÉ in 2022. He took €515,000. I used to enjoy Ryan, perhaps, 10 or 15 years ago. His first couple of years on The Late Late Show provided more than passable entertainment and his radio show was okay.

However, in more recent years, I had opted for the bed rather than watch Ryan present The Late Late Show. It had become a milk-and-water affair. And his ramblings on his radio show seemed to start nowhere and end up nowhere. In the past few years, I had been consistent in asking Alexa to turn off the radio after the news and What It Says In The Papers. And fair play to Alexa she did as she was asked and cut Ryan off.

It is not just commodities that come to their sell-by date. So too do people, especially those in the entertainment business and indeed columnists such as myself - except in my case, I have been away for a few years so my sell-by date, hopefully, has been extended.

I and, I’m quite sure, a considerable number of other people had taken the view that Ryan was ten years (at least) past his sell-by date which makes it quite difficult to understand why he should have retained star billing on the national broadcaster.

One could understand that he would be retained in RTÉ and given some gigs at off-peak times and, of course, at a considerably reduced salary that would be more in line with the real workers in RTÉ, the people who keep the show on the road - the reporters, the cameramen/women, the researchers, the programme makers, the producers, the directors, the props people and the canteen staff.

There is no point rehashing or labouring the point about Ryan’s fall from grace. He was paid what had been agreed he should be paid and from his point of view that’s the end of the matter. I’d have little hope that a request for the return of a million or so to help RTÉ out of the financial quagmire that it is mired in would be successful.

And, in fairness, it is not just Ryan. I can never understand why people would tune into Joe Duffy, another high-earning entertainer and celebrity. He is another one who keeps Alexa on her toes. Joe might well be a very personable fellow but I hear enough whinging every day without having to tune into his whingfest.

Then, there is Miriam. As the Sawdoctors proclaimed in song, 30 or more years ago, I used to love her, I used to love her once. And I did - from a distance, of course. And she was good in her day. But, even if she still retains the ability to grill her interviewees, it is somehow lost on her audience. Prime Time needs jazzing up.

Claire Byrne is (or has been) another big earner. Since she gave up the Claire Byrne Live television show she has seen her fee drop from €320,000 to a more modest €280,000, which is the fee she receives for her weekly radio programme. Claire is relatively new to the national airwaves and has yet to lose her gloss. She is not billed as an entertainer but she can be entertaining.

The new RTÉ Director General, Kevin Bakhurst, arrived into a baptism of fire. He had quite a few hot potatoes to handle, not least being the way the former RTÉ board had handled the Ryan Tubridy exit show. But he hit the ground running and earned a few plaudits for his determination to sort out what everybody in the country agreed was excessive payments to RTÉ’s top presenters.

Nobody in RTÉ will be paid more than the Director General, he declared, and the entire country cheered. The DG in any organisation would expect to be the best-paid person. That’s a most reasonable proposition.

However, this is where the DG may have made a booboo. It turns out that the DG salary is €250,000. This seems fine, but you also have to add a €25,000 car allowance and a contribution of 25% of salary towards his pension fund. That brings his salary close to the €300,000 mark and potentially into a battle with Joe Duffy who is presently the only “presenter” making in excess of €300,000. So there is not going to be a big exodus from RTÉ and there are not any current presenters who face a fee cut. You might say the entire exercise was a fearsome storm in a teacup or even a smokescreen to cover up a non-event.

Now, you might not think a lot of our current Taoiseach but he is our Taoiseach and, any way you look at it, he is in charge of the welfare of approximately 5.5 million people when you take into account 100,000 Ukrainians and, give or take, 60,000 asylum seekers. That, it would seem to me, makes the Taoiseach’s job a bit more important than that of Mr Bakhurst, who only has 1,800 or so RTÉ employees to look after.

Something similar could be said of the banks in this country. We have bankers here who think half a million euro a year is not sufficient pay for the responsible job they do. These are the same lads - or at least their successors - who bankrupted the country twice in the past two decades and left the taxpayer to carry the can for their greed and mismanagement.

But that’s an aside. To get back to RTÉ. Mr Bakhurst, in all seriousness and humility, might consider taking a cut in his salary to bring him, even a smidgin, below that of the Taoiseach. RTÉ has already been the recipient of a €10 million rescue package from the Government, in reality from the taxpayer. The taxpayer has been very forgiving of RTÉ, not to mention the banks. Their forgiveness and their generosity will not last forever.

RTÉ will shortly go cap in hand to the Government (aka the taxpayer) requesting that they provide a package to keep the organisation afloat. They might get a better reception if they were able to show that they are running a tight, well-managed ship. They are not in a position to do that now…. no matter what Minister Martin might think.

Over the years, RTÉ has done the state some excellent service. We do need a public service broadcaster that we can rely on to be fierce, fearless, bold, courageous, lean, hungry, principled and dedicated to providing news that stands up to scrutiny and counteracts what passes for news by citizen journalists trading on social media. We need committed journalists, not so-called influencers or citizen journalists (such a daft concept) whose motivation has nothing to do with truth in the news but rather what material gain they can achieve from a particular story or event.

We can do with a bit of entertainment on telly and radio to supplement news and current affairs programmes. So there is scope for presenters to come in and cut a dash and make names for themselves. It might involve a bit of hard graft but there’s nothing wrong with that.