RTE staff protest after scandal involving undisclosed payments to its highest-paid star Ryan Tubridy

More than one hundred members of staff at Irish national broadcaster RTE have staged a protest at its Dublin headquarters, following a scandal involving undisclosed payments to its highest-paid star Ryan Tubridy.

Staff represented by the National Union of Journalists and the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union gathered on a plaza in the Donnybrook campus of RTE to voice their concern over pay, conditions and governance in the wake of the revelations.

Chair of the RTE Trade Union Group, Stuart Masterson, said anyone who had involvement in the undisclosed payments had to appear before the Oireachtas committees.

“A company’s culture is led from the top,” he said.

NUJ Dublin Broadcasting chair and RTE News education correspondent Emma O Kelly said she hoped the protest would be the start of “serious root and branch reform” in the organisation.

She said: “The public deserves a public service broadcaster they really can trust and be proud of.”

She added: “We’ve seen talented young journalists walking out the door because this is no longer a place that people feel they have a future in.

“That really makes the rest of us feel really upset, sorry and sad.”

Caoimhe Ni Laighin, a journalist with the organisation’s Irish-language services, said her co-workers were “performing the miracle of the loaves and the fishes every single day”.

“Our equipment is all falling apart and we have been begging the management for a long time to deal with this,” she said.

RTE News crime correspondent Paul Reynolds said he was concerned about the “breach of trust” between management and staff.

“There’s a phrase bandied around in here: ‘We are one RTE’,” he said.

“And we can see now we haven’t been one RTE because everyone hasn’t been working together, different people have different agendas.

“That has disappointed people here. The trust that people had in here for senior people has been lost.”

RTE News political correspondent Paul Cunningham said there was “a cloud hanging over the organisation”.

He said the scandal had caused incredible reputation damage.

Mr Cunningham warned that the Government and other politicians would be reluctant to engage in reform of the organisation’s funding and the television licence fee.

“This is something that has happened as a direct result of senior management’s failures at this organisation and it is absolutely disgraceful,” he said.

Mr Cunningham also raised the issue of freelancers who he said were “paid a pittance”.

“And now we found out there is a special arrangement for special people,” he said.

“There shouldn’t be any special people in this organisation. It’s one organisation, all of us are involved and the same rules should apply.

RTE News Midlands correspondent Sinead Hussey said the day she got her job at the broadcaster was “one of the happiest days” of her life.

“I’m still proud to work for RTE and I think with the staff we have here we can bring the name of this company back to where it should be and restore trust in the Irish people,” she said.

“And I hope people will support us through this really difficult patch.”

The broadcaster’s legal affairs correspondent said staff cannot believe what happened.

Orla O’Donnell said: “We want accountability and responsibility from the people who are in charge.

“We want them to tell the whole truth on the questions that still remain from this whole affair.”

RTE News’s Northern editor and correspondent Vincent Kearney and Conor Macauley protested at a separate demonstration at the organisation’s Belfast office.

Mr Kearney tweeted: “Joining @rtenews colleagues across the island demanding transparency from management on the Ryan Tubridy payments crisis and a pay cap for top earners.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said wrongdoing at RTE must stop.

“The revelations from RTE last week are deeply unsettling and they have shaken public trust in what is an important institution,” he told the Dail parliament.

“We want to see trust restored quickly, because we do need a strong public service broadcaster for our state.”

Mr Varadkar said the vast majority of staff at RTE knew nothing about the misreported payment issue and he said, as far as he knows, it only related to one presenter, Ryan Tubridy.

The Taoiseach said former director general Dee Forbes should go before Oireachtas committees investigating the issue.

He said RTE must give “full and open” answers, insisting the public and RTE “deserve nothing less”.

“RTE, in very many ways, plays a very important role in our society, from Irish language broadcasting to children’s programmes, to drama, sports to good-quality news, documentaries, election coverage, important public information, for example during the pandemic, and we need to be cognisant of that,” he said.

“If things were done that were wrong, and I believe things that were done were wrong, that needs to stop, it needs to change and people need to be held to account. The institution needs to be restored and to survive.”

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know.