Latest news with #KevinBakhurst
Extra.ie
3 days ago
- Business
- Extra.ie
Kevin Bakhurst says €3.6m RTÉ loss is ‘very different' to past scandals
RTÉ will spend a further €1.6 million on a new human resources software system after previous efforts to upgrade it resulted in a €3.6 million write-down for the national broadcaster. But director general Kevin Bakhurst told politicians that while the write-down was 'very unfortunate', it was 'very different' from the financial scandals at RTÉ in 2023. He said the main part of the project, an updated finance system, had been delivered, while the HR element had not. RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst. Pic: Fran Veale He told the Oireachtas Media Committee yesterday: '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.' RTÉ's HR director, Eimear Cusack, said yesterday that the broadcaster is still using the same system that has been in place for the last 24 years, describing its condition as 'end of life'. But she also disclosed that the organisation is currently tendering for a new HR software. Richard Waghorn, RTÉ's chief technology officer, said that a budget of € 1.6 million has been approved for the system, which he anticipates will be delivered by next year. However, he noted that additional costs to maintain the system are expected on an annual basis. Eimear Cusack, Director of Human Resources, and Kevin Bakhurst, Director General, pictured arriving at Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin. Pic: Tom Honan RTÉ's appearance before the committee yesterday comes after the broadcaster confirmed that it had written down € 3.6 million on the partly failed IT system. Ms Cusack told the committee that the project 'ran into a number of difficulties'. 'I think that there were a number of issues that arose, particularly between the contractor and the subcontractor.' When it was put to her that the spec wasn't right, the right contractor wasn't chosen, and it was not properly project-managed, she said: 'I couldn't agree with that.' Eimear Cusack, Director of Human Resources. Pic: PA Wire She added: 'We put in our requirements, the contractor and the subcontractor who won the tender said that they could deliver on those requirements. Ultimately, the finance system was delivered upon. 'The HR system, they could not deliver on, but that was not known at the time that they signed up, and they said they could deliver on it.' Mr Bakhurst said that one example of the changes made as a result of this failure is that every month, the full list of significant capital projects now goes to the leadership team. Kevin Bakhurst. Pic: Fran Veale An RTÉ spokesman said that the new contract to provide the system is still out to tender and that a winning company has yet to be selected. The media committee also heard that 328 people had applied for RTÉ's voluntary exit programme (VEP), which was launched as part of efforts to slim down the broadcaster's workforce by 400 by 2028. Of these 328 staff, 127 will be made redundant this year. Mr Bakhurst said that RTÉ expects the cost of 2025 redundancies will reach € 15 million, equating to an average payment of €118,000 per head. RTE director general Kevin Bakhurst (left) and acting deputy-general Adrian Lynch. Pic: Brian Lawless/PA Wire But the director general stressed that the final cost will depend on the profile of those approved to exit the organisation this year, which has yet to be determined. Deputy director of RTÉ Adrian Lynch, chairman of the RTÉ board Terence O'Rourke, RTÉ chief financial officer Mari Hurley and director of commercial Gavin Deans also appeared before the committee. Ms Hurley said that there was a 4% decline in TV licence fee revenues in 2024 compared to 2023. 'The more significant declines that have been experienced in 2023 have been averted,' she said. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire Mr Bakhurst also confirmed that former RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy has not repaid the €150,000 he received from the broadcaster for two promotional events that did not take place. Mr Bakhurst has previously said Mr Tubridy had planned to return the money, stating that there was a 'moral case' to pay RTÉ back. He reiterated yesterday that he 'would like' the former Late Late Show host to return the sum. Taoiseach Micheál Martin was asked yesterday if he thought Mr Tubridy should repay the money, but said he wasn't going to get into any 'witch hunt'. 'I think there has been an element of a witch hunt in all of this over the last three years. So I'm not going to go like the herd and just join any sort of attack on any individual,' Mr Martin said. He also said that he knew that the wider media had its own interests in RTÉ, saying, 'You can fight your battles, I'm not driving anything'. Mr Martin said he was 'not here' to 'micromanage' RTÉ but noted that the broadcaster had made 'some progress' in terms of the commitments it had made in terms of its policy and role as a public service broadcaster.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
Ryan Tubridy willing to address repayment of €150,000 to RTÉ at ‘appropriate time'
Ryan Tubridy would have no major problem dealing at an appropriate time with the issue of €150,000 in controversial payments made to him by RTÉ , a source close to the broadcaster has said. However, there are unresolved issues between the former Late Late Show host and his former employer, including an outstanding data access request, the source said. 'It would be unreasonable to expect the issue (of the €150,000 payments) to be dealt with until those other matters have been resolved,' they added. Tubridy, who now works for Virgin Radio UK, and his agent Noel Kelly have made requests to RTÉ to access all data pertaining to them held by the broadcaster from around the time of the payments controversy that led to him leaving the organisation. READ MORE RTÉ is understood to have spent more than €100,000 in legal fees responding to the request, but it is understood there is a dispute between the parties on the extent of the information that should be provided. The requests were made under data protection law, which entitles people to see what personal information a body holds about them. It is understood the requests were submitted about 18 months ago but have not yet been finalised. RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst told the Oireachtas media committee on Wednesday that Tubridy had not repaid to the national broadcaster the €150,000 he received as part of a controversial payment deal in 2020. Tubridy was to be paid a total of €225,000 over three years by RTÉ as part of a deal brokered by him, Mr Kelly and the station in 2020. In return, for the payments, which were not disclosed publicly by RTÉ until 2023, he agreed to participate in three corporate events for Late Late Show sponsor Renault . The payments formed the centre of a controversy that resulted in Tubridy, then RTÉ's highest-paid presenter, leaving the station that year. Asked in 2023 if Tubridy should repay the €150,000 received for those events, Mr Bakhurst said it might not be possible, on a legal basis, to recoup the money. But he also said there was a 'moral case' for Tubridy to repay the sum. The payments were nominally made by Renault but RTÉ underwrote all three and effectively paid Tubridy. The sums were not classified in the broadcaster's annual accounts as salary payments. At the height of the controversy over the 'secret payments' in 2023, Tubridy indicated he would be willing to repay the money should he return to RTÉ.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
The moving target that is RTÉ's woes
If there were one thing to be gleaned from Wednesday's Oireachtas media committee session with 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.
Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
RTÉ admits an overrun of almost €1m on another IT system budget at Oireachtas committee
RTÉ representatives, including the director general Kevin Bakhurst, appeared before the Oireachtas Media Committee where they were quizzed on a failed IT system that resulted in a €3.6m write down. However, the committee was told there was another IT project, this time a channel management system (CMS), that went over budget by €900,000. The revelation came in an answer to Social Democrats TD Sinead Gibney, who asked were there other IT systems that ran into issues. In response, RTÉ's chief financial officer Mari Hurley said that the CMS had gone over budget. 'I conducted the exercise in terms of reviewing projects greater than €500,000 since 2020. There was one additional project, which went on the list to the department [of media], which was a channel management system,' Ms Hurley said. 'If you compare its spend, relative to its initial budget, it overran by €900,000.' Ms Hurley also told the committee that this resulted in an impairment taken in 2019 of €390,000. The CMS is now in use, Mr Bakhurst told committee members. In a statement to the Irish Independent, RTÉ said 'the replacement of RTÉ's channel management system project – an important strategic project – is one of the projects that was funded from the proceeds of RTÉ's land sale in 2017'. The national broadcaster said during the testing stages of the project in 2019, a number of issues came to light that could not be resolved by the appointed vendor. ADVERTISEMENT As a result, RTÉ decided to terminate the contract with the vendor in December 2019 which resulted in the €390,000 write off. RTÉ confirmed that before work on the project began, a 'competitive public procurement process' took place. When the contract for vendor one was terminated, the project was then awarded to the second vendor to complete the project. 'The overrun on the CMS project of €900,000 was due to vendor two being more expensive and the delays due to the above issues,' RTÉ said. 'However, this project was one of 39 capital projects completed or being implemented by RTÉ since January 2020 costing a total of c.€57m and with a total variance to the initial budget approved of less than €0.5m.' Speaking after the committee hearing, Ms Gibney said it was 'simply not good enough for these financial matters to be merely noted in RTÉ's accounts' and that issues like this 'should be highlighted with the government'. She added: 'Just weeks after it emerged RTÉ had to write-down €3.6m due to a partly failed IT project, we learn today of another waste of money at the station in recent years. 'It is particularly shocking this matter has only come to light now, given management's pledge to oversee a new culture of transparency and accountability at RTÉ following a litany of controversies, which have undermined public confidence in the broadcaster.' It comes as disgruntled former RTÉ employees wrote to the committee with concerns on bogus self-employment and religious content they wanted politicians to raise. The former employees outlined their concerns and issues with the broadcaster in the hopes politicians would raise them with RTÉ top brass. This correspondence meant committee chair Alan Kelly had to issue an additional warning at the start of the meeting, saying politicians were not to identify any individuals or entities during the meeting. 'I'd like to remind all members that the names of individuals or identifiable entities or any personal information relating to them should not be discussed publicly in today's session. If it strays into that, unfortunately I will have to intercept and ask you to desist,' he said. However, some of the correspondence was rejected by the committee after it sought legal advice. TDs and senators on the committee decided to reject some of the letters as they included possibly defamatory statements. Some of the former employees are caught up in legal cases with the broadcaster. During the committee hearing, Mr Bakhurst said he was 'infuriated' by the coverage of the promotional video for RTÉ news and current affairs. It was reported that RTÉ staff were angry at a number of issues, including the use of extras in the video who acted as journalists in the newsroom. In response to a question from Fianna Fáil TD Peter 'Chap' Cleere, Mr Bakhurst said that 'a significant amount of the press coverage has been totally inaccurate about it'. He added that two plants were taken from somewhere else in RTÉ for shooting the video and were used to cover up electrical points.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Irish Times
RTÉ appearance at Oireachtas committee a drab sequel to firework show of two years ago starring Ryan Tubridy
Two years on from the RTÉ scandal that became the greatest show on earth, a cast of 11 Montrose managers returned to Leinster House to meet the Oireachtas media committee . After Ryan Tubridy's spectacular flame-out, this sequel was never going to match the original version. TDs and senators concentrated their questions on a new television marketing campaign for the news division, which is still in production, and on a €3.6 million writedown over a partly abandoned IT project. The marketing campaign has angered some RTÉ staff, not least because actors were hired as extras to film marketing shots about news production. Director general Kevin Bakhurst , who said his job was to 'clean out the stables', complained of 'inaccurate' reporting on this issue. On the suggestion special props were used to improve how the studio looked, he said that was nothing more than two plants being moved from elsewhere in the building. READ MORE [ Ryan Tubridy has not repaid RTÉ €150,000 he received for two promotional events that did not happen, Bakhurst says Opens in new window ] Extras were engaged because the time required for filming would take journalists from their work, RTÉ said. When director of news and current affairs Deirdre McCarthy noted the extras were obscured in the film anyway, one committee member said it seemed actors were paid not to act. The cost of the marketing production thus far was €77,000 plus VAT, with 'five or six' people in Brussels this week for additional filming. Committee chairman Alan Kelly said most observers would consider it 'bananas' for an organisation such as RTÉ to engage an external crew to shoot a marketing film. Bakhurst, however, said RTÉ crews were busy on their own work. On the IT writedown, he accepted the deficit was 'significant'. Still, the political magnitude of the issue seems to have been lost on RTÉ management until a February submission to Minister for Arts and Media Patrick O'Donovan after the botched Arts Council IT project . RTÉ's IT loss cost more than the €2.2 million failure of Toy Show The Musical, so why weren't top executives seized of the matter? Bakhurst said he took the reins only in 2023 and that the impairment was dealt with on the watch of previous finance chiefs. Nothing was hidden, he insisted. Advisory body NewERA, which provides advice to Government on its shareholdings in state companies, had itself sought clarification on the issue. Although RTÉ argued the impairments were properly set out in its accounts, accounting rules are a world away from the heat of an Oireachtas committee. Kelly, the chairman, asked why O'Donovan's department never raised the matter when RTÉ was under intense political scrutiny two years ago. 'No red flag was raised with the department in relation to it by RTÉ or by NewERA – and we didn't raise a red flag in relation to it,' Feargal Ó Coigligh, department secretary general, said. 'I think things would be very different today.' All of this flows from ructions over Tubridy, the man long gone from RTÉ but whose 'ghost' lingers. Bakhurst said Tubridy had not returned €150,000 from the fateful Renault deal that set off the 2023 avalanche. RTÉ had 'no legal basis' to compel repayment, but 'we'd like him to'. Asked whether he expects the former Late Late Show host to take a legal action over the affair, Bakhurst did not expect so, 'but you never know'. Tubridy's agent, Noel Kelly , was mentioned only briefly, but there was no information on the extent of any current dealings of the latter with other RTÉ stars. Two presenters are still paid more than Bakhurst's €250,000 salary under legacy arrangements, but no one will receive more than him in future. After fireworks two summers ago over rampant junketeering and huge severance pay, this was not quite the stuff of high drama.
