Ciaran Kelly spoke about the alleged “hollowing out” of the national broadcaster, and his fears for its future and jobs if the Late Late Show and Fair City become the latest shows to be outsourced.
He is a broadcast engineer in the master control transmission section, where tasks include subtitling and feeds to various platforms. Over the years, he’s worked on Winning Streak, the Late Late Show, and sports and music programmes.
He was among staff who said the prevailing mood is low morale at the meeting on the future of public service broadcasting. The general theme among workers who spoke was that management is essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
The meeting was organised by Siptu officials after workers voted no confidence in the broadcaster’s blueprint for the future last month claiming it will lead to “endless outsourcing of jobs” and deal a fatal blow to public service broadcasting.
Siptu members are employed in operational roles, including camera work, lighting, sound, makeup and staging. The union also represents actors.
“Our documentary unit has been closed down. That’s a big one. All our religious programming has gone out,” said Mr Kelly, who is also Siptu chair for RTÉ.
“National Lottery programming in the next fortnight will not be happening in house anymore. And of course, the ones we know about are potentially the Late Late Show and Fair City as well.” He said that feasibility studies are being carried out on the future of the trademark shows.
“Part of what we were discussing today was for the Late Late Show, if there is a star in town on a Wednesday what happens is the studio will get fired up, crews will come in, the audience can be pulled together from staff and even students from UCD love coming over. An independent, I’m not sure how they would do that maybe if they’re in a warehouse setup on the outskirts of Dublin somewhere. So that would be a loss to the Irish public”.
RTÉ’s New Direction restructuring strategy was launched by director general Kevin Bakhurst in 2024. It aims to secure the future of the broadcaster following financial and reputational crises.
Mr Kelly said the meeting was ultimately an opportunity to meet with politicians. “They’re in full agreement with us that public service broadcasting is under threat by what is ultimately a flawed plan,” he said.
He claimed that over the years, there has been a lack of engagement with trade unions but this has “catapulted” in recent months. Mr Kelly said there was a higher turnout for the recent no confidence ballot than the ballot on the last pay agreement. He claimed there is an “appetite” for industrial action, but no talks of ballots yet.
He said RTÉ will be legally obliged to spend 25pc of its public funding on productions from the independent sector. “But it doesn’t state that we need to wind down what we do in Donnybrook,” he said. “We should be building on what we have rather than using that 25pc as an excuse to just basically throw away our programming.”
Siptu services divisional organiser Adrian Kane said workers and the public should not lose their public service broadcaster and its vital programming “just because of the misgovernance of a previous RTÉ management regime”.
“It is time for management to park its outsourcing agenda, which destroys jobs and the future of this vital public service,” he said.
Previously, an RTÉ spokesperson said it acknowledged the Siptu ballot result.
He said the strategy was published following extensive consultation with the public, RTÉ staff and a wider group of stakeholders.