A new RTE Authority with an emphasis on business experience was announced by the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands last night.
Four of the six new members have a background in business: Dr Mary Redmond, Dr Mary Peters, Mr Stephen O'Byrnes and the chairman, Mr Paddy Wright.
Mr Des Geraghty and Ms Garry Hynes will represent the trade union movement and the artistic community respectively.
A former director-general of RTE, Mr Joe Barry, and a solicitor from Co Clare, Ms Maura Hayes, are the other two members.
Ms de Valera secured approval for the appointments from her Cabinet colleagues yesterday.
The appointments come as RTE faces crucial decisions on its commercial viability. The station has been in difficult negotiations with Ms de Valera and her Department over its stake in Digico, the digital broadcasting entity.
RTE also plans to make savings of £15 million by 2002 and to make at least 250 people redundant in an effort to return to profitability.
Mr Wright was formerly the group president and chief operations officer of the Smurfit Group. He has been chairman-designate since the end of last year and has taken an active part in the negotiations between RTE and the Department on Digico.
When his appointment was announced, Mr Wright rejected suggestions that he was being brought in to make major job cuts. "I like to grow things," he told reporters. "As a television addict I believe Telefis Eireann is a very good operator."
Dr Mary Peters CBE, who is from Northern Ireland and won an Olympic gold medal in Munich in 1972, will be seen as a direct replacement for Ms Pat Hume, who had no ambition to serve a second term.
Dr Peters has business experience and is a former president of the British Athletic Foundation.
She is joined on the board by the founder of the Irish Hospice Foundation, Dr Mary Redmond. Dr Redmond is also a solicitor and a director of Bank of Ireland and of the Jefferson Smurfit Group.
Mr Stephen O'Byrnes is a business consultant and was formerly press and policy director with the Progressive Democrats. He has also served as assistant government press secretary.
Ms Garry Hynes is the artistic director of the Druid Theatre in Galway and one of the most influential and respected theatre directors in the country.
Ms Maura Hayes is the youngest member of the authority. A solicitor from Tulla in Ms de Valera's constituency of Co Clare, she worked in private practice before joining the Legal Aid Board.
Mr Barry was director-general of RTE in the mid-1990s and made headlines when he revealed that the top 10 earners at RTE were making over £1 million between them.
The new authority will take office tomorrow for a period of five years. RTE employees will hold a ballot soon to elect a representative to the authority.
The authority meets once a month and acts as RTE's board. The RTE executive board reports to the authority via the director-general, Mr Bob Collins.
Ms de Valera said last night that the four men and four women appointed "represent a cross-section of Irish life. They have the combined talents to steer RTE through the challenging times ahead."
The last RTE Authority, appointed by Mr Michael D. Higgins in 1995, also included Prof Farrel Corcoran of Dublin City University, the RTE Questions & Answers producer, Ms Betty Purcell, the former Taoiseach, Dr Garret FitzGerald, a trade unionist, Mr Bill Attley, a journalist, Patricia Redlich, and an accountant, Ms Anne Haslam.
