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RTÉ News
23-05-2025
- Business
- RTÉ News
RTÉ Update: RTÉ VEP 2025
In an email to RTÉ staff this evening, RTÉ Director General stated as follows: Dear colleagues, RTÉ's VEP 2025 is now closed. I can confirm that we received a total of 325 applications. As you know, this 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. Applications will be approved only where a robust business case is made, and 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 can choose to accept or decline an offer of VS or VER. Where decisions are straightforward and approved by RTÉ's Leadership Team and the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee, we will make every effort to allow these people leave the organisation as early as is practical, without unduly impacting our operations. All applications will go through a five-stage review process throughout the coming months, as previously outlined, with final decisions on all applications being made by the Leadership Team and final oversight by the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee. Review of applications has already commenced. While there may be exceptions, communication of final decisions will commence from 1st September, with exits of successful applicants taking place on 31st October, 30th November and 31st December. Thanks, Kevin
BreakingNews.ie
23-05-2025
- Business
- BreakingNews.ie
RTÉ confirms 325 applications for voluntary exit programme
RTÉ has received 325 applications from staff seeking to avail of the broadcaster's voluntary exit programme. In an email to staff on Friday, Director General, Kevin Bakhurst has now confirmed that RTE's Voluntary Exit Programme (VEP) is now closed. Advertisement In the email, Mr Bakhurst said: "As you know, this 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: "Applications will be approved only where a robust business case is made, and 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." Confirming the 325 total to have applied, Mr Bakhurst said that "applicants can choose to accept or decline an offer of VS or VER". He said: "Where decisions are straightforward and approved by RTÉ's Leadership Team and the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee, we will make every effort to allow these people leave the organisation as early as is practical, without unduly impacting our operations. Advertisement Mr Bakhurst said: "All applications will go through a five-stage review process throughout the coming months, as previously outlined, with final decisions on all applications being made by the Leadership Team and final oversight by the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee. He said that a review of applications has already commenced. He said: "While there may be exceptions, communication of final decisions will commence from 1st September, with exits of successful applicants taking place on 31st October, 30th November and 31st December.' RTÉ opened the scheme on April 23rd, where it capped redundancy payments at €300,000. 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. Advertisement The payments will be based on an employee's exit salary and they will not qualify for any further redundancy. In a previous email to staff on the VEP, Mr Bakhurst cautioned that while the Department of Public Expenditure has given RTÉ approval to operate a VEP this year, any future scheme could be less financially beneficial than this one. The approval of a redundancy plan at RTÉ by the Government was confirmed on March 28th. 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.
Irish Daily Mirror
23-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Daily Mirror
RTE confirms more than 300 applications for voluntary exit programme
RTE has received 325 applications from staff seeking to avail of the broadcaster's voluntary exit programme. In an email to staff on Friday, Director General Kevin Bakhurst confirmed that RTE's Voluntary Exit Programme (VEP) is now closed. In the email, Mr Bakhurst said: "As you know, this 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: "Applications will be approved only where a robust business case is made, and 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." Confirming the 325 total to have applied, Mr Bakhurst said that "applicants can choose to accept or decline an offer of VS or VER". He said: "Where decisions are straightforward and approved by RTÉ's Leadership Team and the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee, we will make every effort to allow these people leave the organisation as early as is practical, without unduly impacting our operations. Mr Bakhurst said: "All applications will go through a five-stage review process throughout the coming months, as previously outlined, with final decisions on all applications being made by the Leadership Team and final oversight by the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee." He said that a review of applications has already commenced. He said: "While there may be exceptions, communication of final decisions will commence from 1 September, with exits of successful applicants taking place on 31 October, 30 November and 31 December." RTE opened the scheme on April 23, when it capped redundancy payments at €300,000. Those with five to 10 years of service will receive five weeks of pay per year, and employees working with RTÉ for more than 10 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 a previous email to staff on the VEP, Mr Bakhurst cautioned that while the Department of Public Expenditure has given RTÉ approval to operate a VEP this year, any future scheme could be less financially beneficial than this one. The approval of a redundancy plan at RTÉ by the Government was confirmed on 28 March. 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.
Irish Independent
23-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
More than 300 RTÉ staff apply for voluntary exit programme
The scheme that opened last month closed today. Payments for those who leave will be capped at €300,000. Workers who are approved will leave the organisation by the end of this year. In an email to staff this evening, RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst said the VEP is now closed. 'I can confirm that we received a total of 325 applications,' he said. 'As you know, this 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 applications will be approved only where a robust business case is made, and 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. Mr Bakhurst said applicants can choose to accept or decline an offer of VS or VER. 'Where decisions are straightforward and approved by RTÉ's Leadership Team and the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee, we will make every effort to allow these people leave the organisation as early as is practical, without unduly impacting our operations,' he said. 'All applications will go through a five-stage review process throughout the coming months, as previously outlined, with final decisions on all applications being made by the Leadership Team and final oversight by the RTÉ Board's Remuneration and Management Committee.' He said a review of applications has already begun. Mr Bakhurst said while there may be exceptions, communication of final decisions will start from September 1 'with exits of successful applicants taking place on October 31, November 30 and December 31'. Staff with over two years' continuous service on their departure date are eligible to apply. Those with between two and five years of service will receive four weeks' pay per year of service. Those with five to ten years' service will receive five weeks pay per year of service. Those working at RTÉ for more than ten years will get six weeks' pay for every year of service. In a previous email to staff, Mr Bakhurst said any future exit scheme could be less financially beneficial than this one. He confirmed that the Department of Public Expenditure had given RTÉ approval to open the scheme this year. Senior management are not eligible to apply. The exit scheme was part of RTÉ's five-year strategy that was announced in 2023.
Irish Examiner
01-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Examiner
RTÉ writes down €3.6m due to partly abandoned IT project
RTÉ has confirmed that it was forced to write down €3.6m due to a partly abandoned IT project. In a statement, the broadcaster said it had sought to update its finance and HR systems using funds from the €107m sale of lands at its Montrose base. The Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project was approved in September 2016. It was intended to replace five "disparate, legacy systems that were used for finance and HR, which were at or near end of life". One had been installed in 2001, with another two installed in 2003. The project had appointed two suppliers in 2018 following "an extensive procurement process", but RTÉ said issues arose almost immediately and the project was already behind schedule by January 2019. "These issues were largely due to a lack of resources provided by those parties to the project, resource constraints within RTÉ, the build quality of the product in testing which did not meet expectations and over-ambitious timelines. This was compounded in 2020 with the outbreak of covid-19 and the disruption caused by same. "As a result of issues arising, the contract was terminated with one of the appointed suppliers. This was the subject of a Settlement Agreement which is the subject of a confidentiality clause." RTÉ said it then "engaged extensively with the other supplier to agree a plan that would facilitate the supplier delivering the maximum possible value of the contract". In August 2022, the project restarted "following a phased approach with an initial finance implementation followed by subsequent phases for HR and other auxiliary functionality," and the finance system went live in March 2023. However, RTÉ did not ultimately proceed with the HR modules and said that "in accordance with accounting standards" was required to "review and record impairments in respect of this project from 2019 to 2023". A statement said that media minister Patrick O'Donovan has been alerted to the issue. "The majority of the impairment relates to the effort to deliver the HR part of the project, amounting to €2.3m. The remaining €1.3m related to the delay and effort in delivering the Finance element of the project. Impairments were noted in RTÉ's approved Annual Accounts during the years 2020-2023, but more specific details relating to this project have been disclosed to the Minister as part of the review of capital projects. "This impairment is very much an exception in the context of extensive projects delivered annually by RTÉ. This is evidenced by the fact that in Q1 2023 RTÉ recognised that this project was an 'outlier' and commissioned consultants (Ernst & Young) to conduct a review of it so that lessons could be learned to minimize the risk of recurrence. "The Ernst & Young report was presented to the RTÉ Board's Audit and Risk Committee at its meeting on 20 April 2023 and discussed. It was also discussed by the RTÉ Board at its meeting on 27 April 2023. "Furthermore, the corporate governance reforms introduced by RTÉ over the past 18 months are designed to mitigate against the risk of recurrence of such issues." Last year, the Expert Advisory Committee's Independent Review of Contractor Fees, Human Resources (HR) and Other Matters in RTÉ was published by then-minister Catherine Martin. It recommended that RTÉ prioritise the proposed investment in new HR information systems.
