The moving target that is RTÉ's woes
RTÉ
's leadership team, it is that the political focus has well and truly moved on since last summer.
One of the big talking points to come out of last June's session with director general
Kevin Bakhurst
and co was the issue of outsourcing. The former BBC News editor was forced at the time to deny that the national broadcaster's transformation plan – a central plank of which is a contentious move to increase spending on outsourced, 'independent' productions – was tantamount to privatisation of in-house programming. All this after he was peppered with questions on the matter by members of the committee.
Very little oxygen was expended on that issue on Wednesday. Instead, attention had largely shifted to RTÉ's latest financial foul-up: the €3.7 million or so written off on a troubled capital spending project to replace a legacy IT system in the organisation.
But outsourcing has not gone away. Just last week, RTÉ announced plans to switch production of some religious programming – specifically, 'Christian worship content', as the broadcaster put it in a statement – to outside producers. It means Masses will no longer be broadcast from Donnybrook and will, instead, be produced by churches nationwide.
READ MORE
Asked briefly about it on Wednesday, Bakhurst said RTÉ hopes to get a 'different and a better product' out of the move and denied the broadcaster is phasing out religious programming.
[
Ryan Tubridy has not repaid RTÉ €150,000 he received for Renault deal, Bakhurst tells media committee
Opens in new window
]
That will be cold comfort for staff, who are already concerned about the outsourcing of flagship programming such as Fair City and the Late Late Show, as announced last year. RTÉ's group of unions has reportedly written to the organisation's head of HR to request a meeting about last week's announcement.
Asked on Wednesday about morale within RTÉ, Bakhurst diplomatically noted that it was 'very mixed'. Change is 'very difficult', he said, and there remains 'a very high level of anger and disappointment' about the 2023 secret payments scandal.
In some areas of the organisation, however, morale is 'very good', the director general claimed. Against a backdrop of redundancies and outsourcing, it is difficult to imagine where these pockets of good feeling might be.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Times
an hour ago
- Irish Times
The Irish Times view on the August bank holiday: a weekend to rest easy
In 1924, the leader of the Irish Labour Party, Thomas Johnson, told the Dáil 'a man is easier in his mind when he is getting a holiday if he is getting his pay for the same day'. His remarks came during a debate on the Public Holidays Bill, repealing nineteenth century British legislation which also covered Ireland, relating to four bank holidays: 26th December, Easter Monday, Whit Monday and the first Monday in August. St Patrick's Day had been designated a bank holiday in 1903 by the Westminster parliament. The 1924 Act gave power to the government of the new Irish Free State 'to appoint any particular day to be observed as a bank holiday.' Johnson's plea was that 'workmen who are given a holiday by statute… shall have their day's pay for that holiday.' While that request was not acceded to then, further legislation in 1939 established workers' entitlement to paid leave, with six bank holidays legally established: Christmas Day, St Stephen's Day, St Patrick's Day, Easter Monday, Whit Monday and the first Monday in August. New Year's Day and the October holiday were added in the 1970s, while in 1993 the May holiday was introduced. The most recent public holiday was established in 2022, St Brigid's Day, which also marked the Celtic festival of Imbolc, traditionally acknowledging the commencement of Spring. It was the first Irish public holiday named after a woman. We use the terms bank holiday and public holiday interchangeably, but our laws refer only to public holidays. Collectively, these days arise from inheritance, independent statehood and our distinctive traditions; historically, there were rest and feast days, and celebrations marking seasons, harvests and saints. READ MORE Some may regard the plethora of public holidays, including this weekends August Bank Holiday, as indulgent. But with ten public holidays, Ireland falls below the EU annual average of twelve, and the Irish, working an average 39 hours a week, toil at a higher rate than the EU average of 37.8 hours, allowing workers benefiting from this weekend to be easy in their minds.
Irish Independent
2 hours ago
- Irish Independent
Dublin Bus chief calls for joint security body to tackle anti-social behaviour across all modes of transport
Company CEO Billy Hann made the comments in light of Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien's announcement on Wednesday that planned recruitment for a transport police force with powers to detain could begin by the end of 2026. "I would like to see a transport-wide solution to the security concerns around anti-social behavior', Mr Hann told RTÉ's Today With Claire Byrne. At present, security on Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and the capital's Luas tram are operated by separate private security firms such as One Complete Solution (OCS) and STT Risk Management. However, Mr Hann would like to see a merged state transport security force, as set out in the government's National Development Plan for 2025. "If you join up those services and have the one company providing those services, they're working off the one set of data. They can sort of move across the various different modes of transport and address the behavior. He added: 'They [troublemakers] don't just stop on the bus. They jump off the bus and they go on the Luas. They get off the Luas, they get on the Dart and so on.' Comparing the effectiveness of current security firms in combatting anti-social behaviour on the country's transport links, Mr Hann highlighted the disjointed nature of the current security infrastructure. "We can remove people from buses. The private security firms do have, under the citizen's arrest, the ability to detain, but they can't arrest.' He added: 'We're not just on one campus like the airport police. We're working across a network.' Mr Hann concedes that introducing the new transport police force is not a 'silver bullet' to fix all problems of anti-social behaviour. Dublin Bus introduced its Safer Journeys Team last October with six operatives working seven days a week to prevent and respond to incidents of anti-social behaviour across its routes in areas specified as problem hot spots.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Bohemians football club faces breach of contract lawsuit
Leading League of Ireland football club Bohemians faces legal action from a company seeking to recover around €100,000 for alleged breach of contract. Digital ticket services specialist, Future Ticketing Ltd, filed proceedings in the High Court this week against The Bohemian Football Club Company. It is understood that the Tullamore, Co Offaly-based business is seeking to recover around €100,000 that it alleges resulted from a breach of contract by Bohemians. Future Ticketing says it provided services to Bohemians from 2016 through contracts that the two companies renewed several times, including in 2023, when the relationship ended. READ MORE The figure sought by the ticketing company includes fees for its services and a penalty for Bohemians ending the contract, it is understood. Future Ticketing provides technology to sports organisations and other event businesses that allow them to sell tickets directly to customers through their websites and mobile apps rather than going through an agent. The company works with more than 50 professional football clubs, including other well-known SSE Airtricity League of Ireland sides St Patrick's Athletic, Shelbourne FC and Drogheda United. It recently renewed a deal with Northern Ireland Football League club Glentoran FC. The Irish company also numbers Scottish and English clubs among its clients. Future Ticketing also works with racecourses in Ireland and Britain, including leading national hunt tracks, Punchestown and Cheltenham. Dalymount Park, Dublin-based Bohemians is one of the State's best known football clubs. In advance of its Friday fixture against Drogheda United, it was ranked second in the SSE Airtricity League of Ireland Premier Division, with 42 points, seven behind league leaders Shamrock Rovers. In an unrelated case, the Workplace Relations Commission recently awarded former Bohemians player and coach David Henderson the maximum compensation of €26,000 against the club. The commission found that Bohemians had unfairly dismissed him from his €250 a week job as head of recruitment in November 2024. The club maintained that it had to cut spending as it had lost money in 2023 and was likely to do so again last year. Accounts filed by The Bohemian Football Club, which is a company limited by guarantee, show that it had €2.2 million in assets at the end of 2023. The accounts note that it had 'an operating deficit of €245,000″ that year and projected a loss for 2024. It employs around 40 people. Bohemians is not yet due to file accounts for last year. Neither Future Ticketing nor Bohemians had commented by the time of going to press.
