Ireland “absolutely won’t” be pulling out of Eurovision over Israel’s inclusion in the song contest, RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst has said.
His remarks come after it emerged he has asked the European Broadcasting Union for a discussion on Israel‘s participation.
On Wednesday, Mr Bakhurst said he is “appalled by the ongoing events in the Middle East and by the horrific impact on civilians in Gaza, and the fate of Israeli hostages.”
He added: “Notwithstanding the fact that the criterion for participating in the Eurovision Song Contest is membership of the European Broadcasting Union, RTÉ has nonetheless asked the EBU for a discussion on Israel’s inclusion in the contest.”
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He also said: “In doing this, we are mindful of RTÉ’s obligations as an independent, impartial public-service news and current-affairs provider, and of the need to maintain RTÉ’s objectivity in covering the war in Gaza.”
Mr Bakhurst spoke to reporters as he arrived at Leinster House on Thursday morning to meet the new chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Media, Labour TD Alan Kelly.
Asked about RTÉ’s goal in its intervention with the EB, and whether Ireland could pull out of Eurovision Mr Bakhurst said: “We absolutely won’t pull out of it.”
He said: “I just wanted to voice our concerns. I want to have a discussion with them. It’s very complicated.”
He said he has not been contacted by other broadcasters in the wake of his letter to the EBU.
Mr Bakhurst spoke of the “pretty precarious” position of the Israeli public service broadcaster, Kan, which he said is “under a lot of pressure form the Israeli Government”.
He also said: “It is a very complicated issue and I’m very well aware that a number of EBU members would not be in favour of excluding Israel.”
Separately, RTÉ’s write down of €3.6 million on an IT project that had to be partly abandoned was among the issues Mr Bakhurst discussed with Mr Kelly.
The IT project was designed to replace legacy finance and HR systems.
RTÉ previously said “issues arose almost immediately” and testing revealed the product “did not meet expectations and over-ambitious timelines”, which RTÉ said was compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic.
RTÉ later engaged with another supplier and the finance system went live in March 2023. It did not proceed with the HR elements of the project.
There was reference to the matter in RTÉ’s annual accounts between 2020 and 2023.
The broadcaster more recently disclosed it to Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan after he wrote to agencies under the remit of his department seeking information about projects costing more than €500,000.
Asked why the matter wasn’t raised by RTÉ at various Oireachtas committee meetings in recent times, Mr Bakhurst, who assumed the director general role in mid-2023, said: “I didn’t know about it”.
Mr Bakhurst said the issue was included in RTÉ accounts and it was raised by Government agency NewEra “So therefore it was reported to the Department.”
He said: “It’s very unfortunate to lose that amount of money” but added: “It was not hidden in any way.”
Mr Bakhurst added that measures are in place “to make sure this sort of thing, as far as is humanly possible, won’t be repeated.
He said that RTÉ’s report to the Department included €57 million worth of projects and that overall they “came in within half a million so the vast majority of projects came in on or under budget.”
Mr Kelly later said he wants RTÉ and officials from the Department of Media to come before his committee to be quizzed on the IT project issue.
He said Mr Bakhurst has confirmed he would accept an invitation.
Mr Kelly said the committee needs to “get into the nitty-gritty” on “how this happened”.
According to Mr Kelly the references to the IT project in RTÉ accounts were unclear but there was knowledge of the issue “between New ERA and the Department.”
Mr Kelly said: “Obviously there’s a massive issue here in relation to the Department, who knew what, when?”
