Eimear Cusack didn’t tell fellow bosses about €450,000 exit payment for former colleague
HR director Eimear Cusack will step down from her role at the national broadcaster next year.
Ms Cusack was in the top five highest-paid staff in RTÉ on a salary of €275,000. She is not leaving as part of RTÉ ongoing redundancy programme.
Ms Cusack was a key figure in the exit-payments controversy that emerged in the wake of the Ryan Tubridy payments scandal two summers ago.
Ms Cusack knew about a €450,000 sweetheart deal with former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe for six years but didn’t tell fellow executives. She also admitted writing a letter saying the redundancy was signed off by management. The payment was not cleared through the proper protocols.
Ms Cusack says she raised concerns with the director general. She claimed it was for the director general at the time “to take the next steps to raise the matter with the executive board or the RTÉ board as she thought appropriate”.
Eimear Cusack
Today’s News in 90 Seconds, Wednesday, August 27
“It is a fact that a separate and confidential arrangement was entered into between the former director general and the former CFO, whereby it was agreed to release the former CFO under the 2017 [Voluntary Exits Programme] scheme, without going through the normal VEP approval process,” she told an Oireachtas committee last year.
Ms Cusack also signed a letter saying the payment was all in order, “as approved by the executive board”, even though it wasn’t.
“This administrative oversight is one I take full responsibility for in my capacity as the signatory to that letter,” she said.
Ms Cusack was also involved in the controversy over the €3.6m loss on an infamous IT project. Part of the abandoned IT project was being built for the HR department, which Ms Cusack heads.
Ms Cusack told the Oireachtas Media Committee she was responsible for the HR elements and the HR requirements of the IT project, which was not delivered.
When she was asked whether she was aware of the €3.6m write-off on the undelivered IT project, she replied: “No, I wasn’t.”
RTÉ director-general Kevin Bakhurst told staff she is not leaving as part of the voluntary exit programme. “As previously confirmed, members of the leadership team were not eligible to apply,” he said in a note.
Mr Bakhurst said Ms Cusack would be leaving in the spring. He said that while Ms Cusack had made the decision to leave the broadcaster, she “wanted to provide sufficient notice to allow RTÉ to recruit her successor and allow for some overlap”.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Eimear for her commitment to RTÉ since she joined the organisation in 2017 and for her invaluable support to me since I took up the role of director-general in July 2023,” he said.
“Eimear has played an important role as part of RTÉ’s leadership team in the ongoing transformation of the organisation and in driving a wide range of important HR projects and initiatives.
“Eimear will remain on RTÉ’s leadership team and will continue to oversee key HR projects until she leaves the organisation next year.
“We will advertise for the role of chief people officer, RTÉ in the coming weeks.”