RTÉ have revealed the extent of external payments received by RTÉ stars.
For the first time, the broadcaster has confirmed the percentage of presenters taking on external work – however they are unable to share their names, as previously hoped.
In July, RTÉ’s Director General Kevin Bakhurst revealed that some stars were “reluctant to share information” for the broadcaster’s new Registers of Interests, External Activities and Gifts.
Last month, it was confirmed that RTÉ had secured a guaranteed € 725 million in public funding for the next three years and will now be proceeding with its five-year plan.
A part of its five-year plan was the introduction of a new Register of External Activities for staff and contractors, in a bid to regain the public’s trust and ensure more transparency.
At the time, Mr Bakhurst revealed the Register of External Activities had been completed for about 150 staff and contractors, but there was an issue with publishing this personal data.
Speaking to the Irish Independent, the RTÉ boss said: “We have collected the information, but we have an issue with the Data Commissioner about publishing it, which we are trying to work through.
“They don’t want us to publish the information. We are in correspondence with them. We may need to ask the Department for legislation to publish it. We were hoping to publish it this month but we may not be able to.”
However, it has been announced that today, RTÉ will publish a statistical summary from the Register of External Activities for the first quarter of 2024.
The RTÉ Register of External Activities (‘the Register’) commenced on 01 February 2024 and the publication for Q1 comprises the months of February and March 2024.
RTÉ has engaged in consultations with the office of the Data Protection Commission (DPC) since last December.
RTÉ initially planned to publish summary details in the following format:
- The name of the person who received approval
- A brief description of the activity approved
- The relevant payment band for each activity approved.
The Data Protection Commission has advised RTÉ that in order to publish a public register containing this level of detail, specific legal underpinning in the form of primary or secondary legislation will be required.
The Commission also advised it would invoke its statutory powers, if publication of the kind outlined above was proposed, in the absence of appropriate legislation.
The DPC has confirmed to RTÉ that it has no objection to the creation and compilation of the Register of External Activities for internal management purposes.
Pending legislation, the DPC has not raised concerns with a proposal from RTÉ to release a statistical summary of information from the Register for Q1, 2024 which is as follows:
Statistical summary
Total Number of approved activities: 133
Breakdown of activities within each payment band:
- 50%: No Payment/no benefit
- 26%: €1 – €1,000
- 22%: €1,001 – €5,000
- 1-2%: €5,001 – €10,000
- <1%: Over €10,000
RTE Director-General, Kevin Bakhurst said: “In order to provide greater transparency around external activities, it was my intention to publish details as announced previously. Over recent months, RTÉ revised the Register of External Activities to address various concerns but the Data Protection Commission is firmly of the view that specific legislative authority is required to publish the level of detail originally intended. RTÉ has made a written request to the Department to proceed with legislation and we acknowledge the readiness of the DPC to assist in this process.”
“In the interim, the DPC has not raised any concerns with the aggregated statistical summary we are publishing today which provides a level of transparency that would not have been possible prior to the commencement of the Register.
“It is notable that half of all approved activities did not involve any payment or benefit. These are events where those working with RTÉ give freely of their time for charitable, sporting, community, academic and social reasons.
“It is also important to note the operation of the Register of External Activities is not impacted and staff and contractors are still required to provide the relevant information when seeking approval for an external activity.
“With 133 approved in February and March, I would like to thank all those, staff and contractors, who have fully co-operated with this process.”
The Register of External Activities, the Register of Interests and the Register of Gifts are now operational across RTÉ and represent significant governance reforms.
RTÉ has also stated that they will not be releasing any further information from the Register of External Activities, beyond that in the statistical summary above.
Amid the introduction of these new registers, a host of top stars have departed RTÉ 2FM, although many of the talent have denied that this was why they left.
However, departed stars like The 2 Johnnies and Doireann Garrihy have often taken on external work from RTÉ, including external presenting work podcasting deals and social media payments.
In July, Kevin Bakhurst once again denied speculation that the new registers were behind the recent mass departures from 2FM.
“All the 2FM people, that was not an element for any of them. I spoke to all of them. That wasn’t why they went,” he insisted.
