RTÉ paid Rory Coveney exit package worth one year’s salary

RTÉ paid its former director of strategy, Rory Coveney, who spearheaded the controversial Toy Show the Musical project, an exit package worth around one year’s salary when he left the broadcaster last July.

In a statement on Saturday, RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst sought to provide some clarity on the circumstances of several key executives’ departures since he took over as director general.

Scrutiny of exit payments made to former RTÉ executives have been under the spotlight following revelations earlier this week that former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe received €450,000 when leaving in 2020.

A recent independent report by McCann Fitzgerald found that the exit package had not been signed off by RTÉ's executive board as required, but instead approved by then director general Dee Forbes.

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In a new statement, Mr Bakhurst outlined further details around the exit of Mr Coveney, which suggested his severance package was worth one year’s salary. RTÉ has not publicly disclosed what salary Mr Coveney was on at the time he left the broadcaster last July.

His departure followed the senior executive coming under pressure at an Oireachtas committee hearing over his role in the Toy Show the Musical production, which made a loss of €2.3 million.

In his statement, Mr Bakhurst said he and Mr Coveney agreed “it was best that he stand down from his role”.

“This enabled the beginning of the restructuring of the leadership team and the suppression of his role,” he said.

“Responsibility for strategy has passed to Adrian Lynch, with no additional compensation, in addition to his substantive role as director of audience, channels and marketing.

“Rory’s role became redundant, an exit payment was offered by RTÉ and accepted by Rory, and with no backfill being made RTÉ will recoup that payment by July of this year,” he said.

Mr Coveney, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday, has not commented publicly on the terms of his exit package.

Mr Bakhurst said the terms of former chief financial officer Richard Collins’ exit from the broadcaster were subject to a “binding confidentiality clause” that cannot be breached.

“Following independent mediation, Richard Collins, RTÉ's former chief financial officer, departed RTÉ by mutual agreement, with a binding confidentiality clause that was agreed to by both sides and in the interest of fairness and respect cannot be breached,” he said.

Both the former commercial director, Geraldine O’Leary, and legal director Paula Mullooly, did not receive severance payments following their decisions to leave RTÉ last year, he said.

Mr Bakhurst said previous legal advice provided to RTÉ was that it was restricted from outlining the details of executives’ exit payments.

[ Kevin Bakhurst did not get exit deal in 2016, RTÉ says ]

[ Hugh Linehan: RTÉ’s real failing is risk aversion, not risk-taking ]

“Geraldine O’Leary retired from RTÉ, and her role as director of commercial, and did not receive an exit payment,” he said. Ms Mullooly, the director of legal affairs, opted to leave RTÉ to “pursue another opportunity” and did not receive an exit payment, he said.

“As I have said before, in relation to all the exits, I have sought an update to the legal advice previously received,” he said.

Politicians have pressed RTÉ in recent days to detail exactly how much former executives, such as Mr Coveney, received in severance deals.

The broadcaster has been battling a significant financial and governance scandal since the middle of last year, which began over revelations RTÉ had made undisclosed payments to former Late Late Show presenter Ryan Tubridy amounting to €225,000 over several years.

A recent report into the Toy Show the Musical project found board of RTÉ was not formally told about the production until after a contract had already been signed with the Convention Centre Dublin to host the musical, at significant cost.

It found a commitment by senior RTÉ executives to bring the proposed project to the board’s audit committee never happened, while required formal approval by the wider board was never sought. The production, which ran for several weeks from December 2022, only sold 11,044 tickets despite early internal projections it could reach audiences of more than 100,000 people.

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