‘Groundhog day' with RTE Dail grilling as bosses defend €77k newsroom promo & Kevin Bakhurst ‘infuriated' by reaction

The Irish Sun

5 days ago

RTE executives have defended an unfinished newsroom promo which is expected to cost €77,000 plus VAT, a committee has heard.
Director of news and current affairs at RTE Deirdre McCarthy said concerns had been raised by staff but she rejected the ad is 'fake news'.
She said: 'Some issues were raised and an awful lot of the misinformation has come from a leak to the media from an internal editorial meeting that took place last Thursday.'
Deputy director of RTE Adrian Lynch, who said he is responsible for the ad, said three to four people are currently in
RTE director general Kevin Bakhurst said he was 'infuriated' by the reaction to the filming of the promotional clip.
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He told TDs and Senators at the committee: 'A significant amount of the press coverage has been totally inaccurate about it.'
When asked about props used during the filming by
He added: 'Even when you're filming news interviews, sometimes people wear make-up, they have lighting, you might move a plant so the shot looks better, and I would expect that of our highly professional promotions team.
'There's been some coverage about, you know, extras being brought in.
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'The proper conversations were had about this between our marketing team, who were doing this, and the news management team about how we were going to do it.
'The initial request was, can some journalists from the newsroom sit in the background - they're going to be blurred out - can they sit in the background while we're filming this for several hours and the answer was 'No our journalists are too busy'.'
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He also said RTE had 'just spent €50,000 doing up parts of the newsroom' and the cost of filming the promo came out of RTE's annual two million euro marketing budget.
Senior RTE figures appeared before the
In 2023 the broadcaster was sharply criticised over a series of governance and financial scandals which further fuelled a years-long trend in declining TV licence revenue.
The Government agreed a €725 million financing programme for the crisis-hit national broadcaster over the next three years, coming from Exchequer-funded top-ups to licence fee sales.
'GROUNDHOG DAY'
Deputy Micheal Carrigy referenced 'groundhog day', while addressing the Director General and said that it took 'a news agency and a letter' to address the issue with the IT system.
'We should have transparency at all times', he said, adding 'we had a number of hearings in the past, and it was like pulling teeth.
'That is not acceptable for an organisation funded by the taxpayer,' he added.
RTE executives' appearance came after the broadcaster confirmed it had written down €3.6 million on a partly failed IT system.
'VERY UNFORTUNATE'
Mr Bakhurst told the committee while the write-down of public money was 'very unfortunate', it was 'very different from 2023'.
He said the main part of the project, an updated finance system, was delivered while the HR element was not.
'Big projects, and particularly big IT projects, can go wrong, and what I've looked back at is how the organisation tried to salvage that, and what are the lessons learned from that.'
He said one example of the changes made as a result is that every month the full list of significant capital projects now go to the leadership team.
Fianna Fail TD Padraig O'Sullivan asked if RTE had received two payments of €75,000 from former presenter
Bakhurst said: 'The answer is Ryan Tubridy has not paid that money back.
'We've asked him, on a legal basis as I've said previously, but I would like him to pay that back, obviously.'
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RTE director general Kevin Bakhurst said he was 'infuriated' by the reaction
Credit: Brian Lawless/PA Wire