RTÉ’s Education Correspondent Emma O’Kelly has slammed the “infuriating” ongoing pay scandal.
The journalist, who is also Chair of the National Union of Journalists’ Dublin Broadcasting Branch stepped out at the protest staged at Donnybrook on Tuesday.
Last week, it was revealed that Ryan Tubridy’s earnings were publicly understated by €345,000 over the last six years.
The issue was identified during a routine audit of RTÉ’s 2022 accounts, prompting an independent review of the matter.
On Thursday, the RTÉ Board issued an apology over the error, and later Ryan also apologised for not questioning RTÉ over his published earnings.
The scandal resulted in the suspension of RTÉ’s Director General Dee Forbes, who has since resigned from her role.
Speaking at the protest on Tuesday, Emma said: “So infuriating. We are constantly told ‘There’s no money, there’s no money’. People can’t get crews.”
Emma continued: “We’re looking for a Dublin Correspondent now for I don’t know how long, that position hasn’t been filled.”
“There are remote controls in the newsroom that don’t work. We have zero hour contracts. I have colleagues working on zero hour contracts.”
“I have colleagues who were on bogus self-employed contracts, women who went on maternity leave and got no maternity pay, even though they were colleagues working day in, day out, rostered shifts just like me, who had no pension entitlements and no sick pay.”
“We had pay restraint. We had a second attempt to cut our pay. We were told RTÉ was in existential crisis and there was no money. And all of the time now, we discover that these secret payments were being made on top of what we all regard as totally exorbitant salary.”
