It will cost an additional €50 million to run RTÉ this year compared with 2025, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee has been told.
RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst said it would cost €405 million to operate the broadcaster this year. In 2025 the figure was €353.2 million.
He said the cost of staffing the organisation as well as its overheads was “absolutely static”, if not going down. The additional money had gone into investments in the RTÉ Player as well as independent productions and high-quality drama.
Fianna Fáil TD Seamus McGrath noted that at a time when RTÉ maintained it was introducing significant reforms, it was costing €50 million more to run the organisation.
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Bakhurst said the audience was getting more for the investments. He said, for example, that in the past the broadcaster would have made one or possibly two high-quality dramas each year, but there would be four in the coming year.
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Bakhurst said RTÉ’s commercial revenue in 2024 was €158.1 million, and €158.6 million last year.
McGrath said: “If your commercial revenues are only marginally increasing and your actual running costs are significantly increasing, the financial hole is getting bigger. That is the bottom line.”
Bakhurst said the additional money coming in to the organisation under its State support deal with the Government “is delivering directly to the audience”.
“We are not a commercial broadcaster. We are a public service broadcaster. It is not all about commercial decisions. We would never do any Irish language content, we would shut Raidió na Gaeltachta, if it was about commercial decisions. But it is not. It is about providing public service.”
Fine Gael TD Grace Boland said that at the end of last year RTÉ had 1,653 staff, with 100 open vacancies.
“Essentially we are not slimming headcount, nor slimming financial cost. So (after) three years of reform, the organisation is not getting fiscally smaller, in fact it is getting bigger. I do not see a plan,” she said.
Bakhurst maintained that headcount was reducing and staff overheads were coming down. He said 97 people had left the organisation under a voluntary redundancy scheme and through the suppression of posts vacated by people who had retired or resigned.
Boland said the RTÉ plan was for the State to fill the financial gap. Bakhurst said that was the plan agreed by the Government.
The RTÉ chief said between 40 and 60 staff were expected to leave the organisation this year under a voluntary redundancy scheme.
He said RTÉ had reversed the trend of reporting deficits and strengthened its financial position. He signalled RTÉ would seek a renewal of the Government’s multi-annual funding deal when it expired in 2027.
Bakhurst also told the committee that RTÉ was looking to sell a significant portion of its Montrose campus site and had held preliminary discussions with the Land Development Agency.
Bakhurst told James Geoghegan of Fine Gael that RTÉ was looking to sell about 13 acres at Montrose. RTÉ had been advised that about 700 housing units could be developed on the land. He said RTÉ was seeking to concentrate its operations around a building known as Stage 7 at the Nutley Lane end of the campus.
Questioned by Boland, Bakhurst defended spending, including using professional drivers to bring high-profile guests, for example, to the Late Late Show.
“We are not a tinpot broadcaster,” he said.
He said Late Late Show presenter Patrick Kielty had a clause in his contract which stipulated that a car and driver would take him from RTÉ “towards Belfast” to allow him to do his show for the BBC there on Saturdays.
