RTÉ compiles list of contributors in response to Ó Cuív request

PAUL CULLEN, Political Staff

RTÉ HAS drawn up a list of the highest-paid outside contributors to news and current affairs programmes in response to a freedom of information request from Fianna Fáil TD Éamon Ó Cuív.

The station said yesterday it would be releasing information about the 10 highest-paid contributors who are not on the RTÉ staff to Mr Ó Cuív within days.

The Galway TD wrote to the broadcaster last month seeking information about the use of outside contributors on the programmes. After he was supplied with information about the 50 most frequently used commentators, he asked for the amounts earned by the 10 highest-paid names.

Last week, RTÉ wrote to the 16 names who figure on the lists for the last three years asking if they believe the release of the information was a breach of their privacy. They were given a week to reply.

A spokesman said 12 people had so far replied agreeing to the release. It was up to Mr Ó Cuív to decide what to do with the information, he said.

The amounts earned by those on the list of top 10 earners range from €9,000 to €2,000 before tax over the years 2009-2011. The list is topped each of the years by Irish Times political correspondent Harry McGee, who broadcasts in English and Irish. It also includes three other Irish Times journalists – Stephen Collins, Michael O’Regan and Mary Minihan – as well as other well-known journalists such as Brendan Keenan, Fionnan Sheahan, Michael Clifford, Pat Leahy, Catherine Halloran and Justine McCarthy.

Public relations consultant Terry Prone wrote in her Irish Examiner column this week that she received €3,000 in one year and €2,000 in another. She said processing Mr Ó Cuív’s freedom of information request would cost RTÉ “enormous amounts of human hours and misery” at a time when the station was broke.

Mr Ó Cuív said it was in the public interest that information was made public about people receiving money from a State body.

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