RTÉ pay crisis: New director general ‘needs to ask some executives to step aside’

Incoming RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst needs to ask some of the executives involved in the current controversy to step aside, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman said.

The “dysfunctionality” within the broadcaster had been known for some time, Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley told RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland.

“What’s needed here is substantial change. The new director general needs to take decisive action. And I think one of the first things he needs to do is that he needs to ask some of the senior executives to step to one side.

“Obviously, you want to keep them accountable. So that means keeping them on the payroll, unfortunately. But they do need to step to one side straight away. That’s the minimum that’s required here,” Mr Stanley said.

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He called for an interim report from the forensic accountants investigating payments and other financial issues at RTÉ “because it shouldn’t be allowed to drag on too long over the summer”.

Toy Show The Musical

Mr Stanley also queried the “sheer number of freebies” connected to Toy Show the Musical, along with the size of the losses.

“The idea of coming into a crowded market in a very small town or city, just over a million people, and running into Christmas in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis – when you put it all together, this is a recipe for disaster, I think, commercially.”

RTÉ's board has asked accountants Grant Thornton to carry out an investigation into the failed Christmas show.

The national broadcaster incurred a loss of €2.2 million on the production after selling only 11,000 National Convention Centre seats.

Elsewhere on Morning Ireland, playwright and director Phillip McMahon said there was “an enormous amount of hubris” around the staging of Toy Show The Musical.

The expectation was extraordinary that in a space such the Convention Centre that 4,000 children a day would attend the production, he told RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland.

The Christmas market for entertainment in Dublin was already a crowded market with long-established pantomimes and children’s shows, Mr McMahon said.

“The idea that a juggernaut can come in with €2.7 million of public funds and say: ‘we’re going to land a spaceship in that space’ is kind of extraordinary. And there seems to be an enormous amount of hubris involved here.”

“People in the arts are constantly expected to show up in front of the public, in front of Government and campaign for the arts. But we have really rigorous, stringent avenues to receive public funds,” Mr McMahon said.

So the idea that the producers at RTÉ could take a first-time punt on a show with a budget of €2.7 million ... is extraordinary.”

The question remained why RTÉ did not engage an existing production company to mount the production of Toy Show The Musical, he said. “I think that going in heavy at the start was ultimately its downfall.”

Veteran homelessness campaigner Fr Peter McVerry expressed shock at the RTÉ pay deal revelations.

The details were “extraordinary” and indicated “a cycle of incompetence” in the organisation, he said.

“I think it’s very sad to see it and to read about it, because we need public service broadcasting now, more than ever.”