RT\u00c9 chair Terence O’Rourke has said it is “possible” Derek Mooney could have appeared on the broadcaster\u2019s top 10 highest earners list in previous years after his earnings were retrospectively added to the 2024 rankings.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Prime Time presenter Fran McNulty, Mr O\u2019Rourke said the issue only came to light in recent weeks during a review of presenter classifications prompted by an Expert Advisory Committee report into RT\u00c9\u2019s culture and governance.<\/p>\n
Mr Mooney, who had not appeared on RT\u00c9\u2019s annual top 10 presenters list since 2014, was today added to a revised 2024 list with reported earnings of \u20ac197,151 after RT\u00c9 said it reconsidered how staff with dual presenter-producer roles should be classified.<\/p>\n
Asked whether Mr Mooney may also have qualified for earlier top 10 lists had he been classified differently, Mr O\u2019Rourke said: “It\u2019s possible, yes.”<\/p>\n
However, Mr O\u2019Rourke said RT\u00c9 would not revisit previous top 10 presenter lists, describing them as “judgements made at the time”.<\/p>\n
Mr Mooney had been internally classified as a producer from 2020 onwards despite continuing to present programmes on RT\u00c9 radio and television.<\/p>\n
Asked who decided Mr Mooney should be classified as a producer rather than a presenter, Mr O\u2019Rourke said the decision had been made by “management at the time”.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Rourke said the broadcaster had strengthened its review process following recommendations from the Expert Advisory Committee, which criticised weaknesses in RT\u00c9\u2019s governance and transparency structures.<\/p>\n
The RT\u00c9 chair also said he would have preferred the issue “not to have happened” but said RT\u00c9 was attempting to improve transparency and “restore trust”.<\/p>\n
“There’s lots of issues in RT\u00c9 all across the place. Every week I’m reading about different stories, and we try our best to get the right answer. We got the right answer this year, and I’m happy with that,” Mr O\u2019Rourke said.<\/p>\n
RT\u00c9 published the revised figures ahead of the release of its 2025 annual report later this year.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Rourke said the decision to issue the revised figures was taken after the RT\u00c9 board approved the disclosures at a meeting on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Director General Kevin Bakhurst told staff the move was part of RT\u00c9\u2019s “commitment to increased transparency”.<\/p>\n
In a statement, RT\u00c9 said it had reconsidered what constitutes a presenter for the purposes of compiling the top 10 highest earners list and had decided to include staff with dual producer-presenter roles.<\/p>\n
Separately, Mr O\u2019Rourke was also questioned about payments made to former presenters Claire Byrne and Ray D\u2019Arcy after they had stopped presenting programmes for RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
Figures published by the broadcaster showed \u20ac47,000 was paid to Claire Byrne\u2019s company, Derrough Media Ltd, after she ceased providing services on 31 October 2025.<\/p>\n
A further \u20ac50,000 was paid to Ray D\u2019Arcy\u2019s company, WhatNext Productions Ltd, after he finished on 9 October 2025.<\/p>\n
Asked why RT\u00c9 continued to pay both presenters after they had left air, Mr O\u2019Rourke said the broadcaster was honouring contractual obligations.<\/p>\n
“Their contract said that they were contracted to present until the end of the year,” he said.<\/p>\n
“If we had ceased to pay them, I think we would have had some interesting solicitor\u2019s letters.”<\/p>\n
When challenged that RT\u00c9 had effectively paid the two presenters almost \u20ac100,000 “to do nothing for a couple of months”, Mr O\u2019Rourke rejected that characterisation, saying both remained available to the broadcaster while under contract.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Rourke said RT\u00c9 had made “lots of corporate governance changes” following the publication of the Expert Advisory Committee report and insisted the organisation was attempting to improve transparency by revisiting how the top 10 presenter list was compiled.<\/p>\n
“My job is to make sure, as best we can, we look in every nook and cranny,” he said. “What we did today is part of that, getting it right when we see things that need to be put right.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 chair Terence O’Rourke has said it is “possible” Derek Mooney could have appeared on the broadcaster\u2019s top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-449318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}