RTÉ DIRECTOR-general Cathal Goan has defended the payment of bonuses to management in recent years at the station and denied that they were a “concealed perk”.
Mr Goan will appear at the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources this morning to discuss RTÉ’s financial position.
In a circular issued to staff yesterday, he said pay cuts they have been asked to take are “disproportionately low” given the savings that the company is seeking to make to bridge a €68 million budget deficit this year.
Those pay cuts will be reviewed by the end of 2010 and wages with a view to increasing them if the financial situation improves, he added.
In a series of meetings with staff last week, the issue of bonuses to RTÉ management was raised repeatedly with Mr Goan who is trying to drive through pay-cuts ranging from 2.6 per cent for any staff earning over €25,000 a year to 12.5 per cent for those earning more than €255,000 a year.
Staff are currently being balloted on the pay cuts and the result is expected next week.
RTÉ is proposing to save €10 million a year from pay-cuts among its 2,300 staff.
The National Union of Journalist (NUJ) yesterday disputed Mr Goan’s claim in the circular that the cuts proposed were the ones proposed by trade unions at the broadcaster.
“They are RTÉ’s cuts,” a spokeswoman said.
Mr Goan said RTÉ management “absolutely needs to note the feelings expressed by many staff about performance-related [bonus] awards. But equally the facts need to be clearly understood”.
Staff had alleged that the payments were a form of salary top-up and were not performance related.
