RTÉ receives 325 applications for voluntary exit scheme
Staff members who are approved for the scheme will leave the organisation by the end of this year.
RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst said in an email to staff this evening that the "VEP comprises a Voluntary Severance (VS) and Voluntary Early Retirement (VER) scheme and was open to employees who will have completed at least two years' continuous service on the date their employment ceases".
He said that applications will be approved where "it is confirmed that the role can be suppressed or that equivalent savings can be made by suppressing an alternative post and/or redeploying an employee into that role".
Applicants will have the choice to accept or decline an offer of VS or VER.
Mr Bakhurst said a review of the applications has already commenced. He said the successful applicants will leave RTÉ on 31 October, 30 November or 31 December.
The VEP comes as part of a five-year strategy announced in 2023 where the broadcaster outlined a plan to reduce staff numbers by up to 400.
To be eligible, employees had to have completed at least two years of continuous service on the date they would leave the organisation under the scheme, with payments capped at €300,000.
Staff with between two and five years' of service will receive four weeks of pay per year of service.
Those with five to ten years' of service will receive five weeks of pay per year, and employees working with RTÉ for more than ten years will get six weeks' pay for every year of service.
The payments will be based on an employee's exit salary and they will not qualify for any further redundancy.
In an email to staff when the scheme opened, Mr Bakhurst said that while the Department of Public Expenditure had given RTÉ approval to operate a VEP this year, any future scheme could be less financially beneficial than this one.
Senior management were not eligible to apply.
The approval of a redundancy plan at RTÉ by the Government was confirmed on 28 March.
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