Sean O’Rourke has admitted that while he is “grateful” RTE are paying him so much money – he doesn’t think he’s worth his €290k salary.
The radio host, who took over form Pat Kenny in 2013, was revealed as one of RTE’s top earners of 2014 when the latest figures were released.
“Of course I am not worth it,” he told the Sunday Independent.
While Sean admitted it was a huge amount of money he pointed out that Pat Kenny earned even more than him.
Big pay day: Sean said Pat Kenny earned a lot more | RTE
“It’s a huge amount of money, but it’s a fraction of what my predecessor was paid. RTE set out to reduce salaries by at least 30pc and they have kept their promise,” he explained.
Asked how it felt to earn more than Taoiseach Enda Kenny who earns €185k, he replied: “Well now, I didn’t know that.”
“You are not making a fair comparison because that amount of money, a huge chunk of that, is going into my pension provision, and I have to fund that out of that money,” he said.
“So put it like this: if I was a public servant, the kind of pension I can look forward to… is [that of] somebody who was not even a top-ranking civil servant, because theirs is guaranteed and mine isn’t.”
