Secret payments of €75,000 a year to Ryan Tubridy, €5,000 spent on flip-flops for a party, €4,200 on membership of an exclusive club in London.
This was happening at the top of RTÉ while ordinary RTÉ workers were facing pay cuts, journalists were forced to record in cafe toilets, and freelancers were paid as little as €120 for a report.
People are rightly disgusted at what has happened at RTÉ. It shines a mirror on the unjust class society we live in – where the highest paid and richest people are seen as the ‘talent’, while the rest of us are treated like dirt.
Establishment politicians are delighted. It takes attention off their policies and behaviour for a few weeks. They don’t mention that most of the RTÉ board were nominated by the government! Meanwhile, they are preparing to use it to impose cutbacks on ordinary workers in RTÉ end to break up and privatise RTÉ.
In a world dominated by social media companies owned by billionaires, genuine public service broadcasting is more important than ever.
The rot in RTÉ comes from its commercial side. The slush fund was used to wine and dine advertising executives from private corporations. The sky-high salaries for presenters were justified on the basis of the ad revenue they brought in. Tubridy was paid his extra €75,000 a year in secret in order to avoid public scrutiny.
We need to scrap the TV licence and end the commercial part of RTÉ. What we need is to properly fund public service broadcasting through a digital services tax on the social media giants.
People Before Profit Calls for:
Cap wages within RTÉ and across the public sector – nobody should be paid more than €100,000 a year.
End ‘bogus self-employment’ and poverty pay and conditions.
Employ presenters and workers in RTÉ directly. End the farce of Tubridy and others operating as ‘contractors’. As well as lining their pockets and enabling them to avoid tax, which leaves them free to sign lucrative side deals with private companies, for instance flogging luxury cars and SUVs.
Democratise RTÉ – bring representatives of the workers into the running of RTÉ.
Make RTÉ a proper public service broadcaster – close the commercial side, scrap the licence fee, and fund it through a digital services tax on the social media giants. A 1% tax on the megaprofits of information and communication companies would fund public service broadcasting for all.
