{"id":450629,"date":"2026-05-15T18:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/450629\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T18:17:08","slug":"derek-mooney-among-rtes-10-highest-paid-presenters-since-2020-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/450629\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Mooney among RT\u00c9\u2019s 10 highest-paid presenters since 2020 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9<\/a>\u2019s Derek Mooney was paid enough to feature among the 10 highest-paid presenters every year between 2020 and 2025, according to new figures from the broadcaster.<\/p>\n

Mooney had not been included in the annually published list as he was deemed to be a \u201cproducer\u201d as per the terms of his contract.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, RT\u00c9 published its 2025 figures and included Mooney for the first time since 2014, saying it had reconsidered what constitutes a \u201cpresenter\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also republished revised figures for 2024 to allow for a year-on-year comparison.<\/p>\n

Mooney featured eighth in 2024 and seventh in 2025, earning \u20ac197,151 and \u20ac202,264 respectively.<\/p>\n

After calls to publish his earnings back to 2020, RT\u00c9 published the figures which confirmed he would have featured in the yearly lists if the same criteria had applied at the time.<\/p>\n

He earned \u20ac195,079 in 2020, \u20ac187,854 in 2021, \u20ac188,885 in 2022, and \u20ac192,592 in 2023 \u2013 all of which would have placed him ninth on the list.<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said the latest issues to arise at RT\u00c9 are \u201cdifficult to comprehend\u201d but that the right decision was taken to correct the matter.<\/p>\n

Speaking in advance of the Fianna F\u00e1il ardfheis in Dublin, Martin said he welcomed the \u201ctransparency that was in evidence in terms of the clarification that RT\u00c9 brought forward this morning\u201d adding that he had listened to RT\u00c9 director general Kevin Bakhurst<\/a>\u2018s interview on Morning Ireland. <\/p>\n

He said it was important for RT\u00c9 to retain the public\u2019s confidence, adding it was \u201cdifficult to comprehend what transpired, but nonetheless I think the right decision was taken to correct that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Government supports public service broadcasting and \u201cwill do everything we can to support media in general, because we have many challenges out there in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said there has to be \u201cfull accountability\u201d and the \u201chighest standards possible\u201d but \u201cwe need to be very, very careful in terms of our democracy really because I think the kind of forces that are out there right now are more challenging than anyone ever had to deal with in any previous generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Minister for Culture Patrick O\u2019Donovan<\/a> is due to meet chairman Terence O\u2019Rourke and other officials from the State broadcaster next Tuesday to discuss payments made to a number of presenters.<\/p>\n

The State broadcaster is embroiled in fresh controversy after it emerged RT\u00c9 paid almost \u20ac100,000 in total to Claire Byrne<\/a> and Ray D\u2019Arcy<\/a> after they left their roles at Radio 1 last year. <\/p>\n

Byrne topped the highest-paid presenters list in 2025 on \u20ac280,000, while D\u2019Arcy was in fifth place on \u20ac219,992.<\/p>\n

Mooney is eighth on the updated 2024 list with a salary of \u20ac197,151. On the 2025 list, he moved up one place to seventh with a salary of more than \u20ac202,000.<\/p>\n

Mooney presents the one-hour wildlife show Mooney Goes Wild at 10pm on Mondays on RT\u00c9 Radio 1.<\/p>\n

\"RTÉRT\u00c9 broadcaster Derek Mooney <\/p>\n

Speaking on Friday morning, Bakhurst said Mooney is best known as a presenter but the \u201cmajority of his work is as an executive producer\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Friday afternoon, O\u2019Donovan said RT\u00c9 had questions to answer, particularly after being granted State funding worth \u20ac725 million over three years in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are yet again, Groundhog Day, explaining something that, to be quite honest about, I thought after giving the company three quarters of a billion euro, that we had moved on from that, and that we had moved to a position where there was full disclosure, and we get this information yesterday,\u201d O\u2019Donovan told RT\u00c9 Radio\u2019s News at One.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Donovan said he became aware of the situation on Thursday afternoon when Prime Time contacted his department seeking a comment. The Minister said he \u201cimmediately sought\u201d to speak with O\u2019Rourke and the pair held a virtual meeting on Thursday night. <\/p>\n

Regarding Mooney being designated as a producer by RT\u00c9 from 2020 to 2024, O\u2019Donovan said: \u201cA very logical question that I asked the chairman last night is, how could Derek Mooney have been regarded as anything other than a presenter? <\/p>\n

[\u00a0RT\u00c9 confirms Derek Mooney\u2019s pay was incorrectly listed in public recordsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a presenter, he is a presenter, he is obviously a presenter. It\u2019s like a duck \u2013 if it walks and quacks like a duck, it\u2019s a duck.\u201d<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 was engulfed in a spate of controversies in 2023 including the revelation there had been undisclosed payments to Tubridy among other issues.<\/p>\n

There have been falls in the number of \u20ac160 licence fees sold since, though sales had already been dropping prior to 2023 as well. <\/p>\n

In January, The Irish Times reported the number of television licence sales has decreased for the sixth year in a row.<\/p>\n

Last year saw 768,657 licences bought overall, a 2.98 per cent decrease on 2024.<\/p>\n

The latest data published by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport indicates the fall in sales is continuing.<\/p>\n

There were 240,791 TV licences sold from January to April this year, down almost 6 per cent on the 255,576 TV licences sold in the first four months of 2025.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9\u2019s 2024 annual report said the \u20ac174.3 million it received from the TV licence that year was down \u20ac4 million compared to 2023.<\/p>\n

Byrne and D\u2019Arcy both left RT\u00c9 in October 2025, later moving to Newstalk<\/a> and starting a podcast<\/a> respectively. <\/p>\n

\"ClaireClaire Byrne and Ray D’Arcy. Photographs: Conor McCabe\/Newstalk & Alan Betson <\/p>\n

Byrne ceased providing services to RT\u00c9 on October 31st but her company Derrough Media Limited was paid \u20ac47,000 for the last two months of the year.<\/p>\n

D\u2019Arcy ceased providing services on October 9th but his company Whatnext Productions Limited was paid \u20ac50,000 after that date.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Morning Ireland on Friday, Bakhurst defended the decision to pay both presenters after they stopped working at the broadcaster, saying it was \u201ctotally the right decision\u201d. He said presenters, \u201calthough they\u2019re are paid a lot of money, they also have contracts\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cPeople have notice periods, and you have to abide by that … If we hadn\u2019t, by the way, and we got into a legal fight, it would have cost us a shedload more money than it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bakhurst said Byrne had offered to stay until the end of her contract but RT\u00c9 asked her to leave early so it could launch the new Radio 1 schedule. <\/p>\n

He said both presenters \u201cwere available to work until [the end of their contracts], but we took a decision, we wanted to launch the new schedule\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking on her Newstalk programme on Friday, Byrne said she resigned from RT\u00c9 last summer and her contract ran until the end of 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made it clear, I was happy to stay on and work there until the end of my contract,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut RT\u00c9 came to me and told me that they wanted me to finish up at the end of October. That was their right and their decision. So that\u2019s how that happened, from my perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it was announced last October that D\u2019Arcy was leaving the State broadcaster, the presenter said he was \u201cblindsided<\/a>\u201d \u2013 something disputed by RT\u00c9\u2019s director of audio Patricia Monahan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Irish Times has contacted RT\u00c9, D\u2019Arcy and Mooney for comment. <\/p>\n

During the Morning Ireland interview, Bakhurst defended both the decision to classify Mooney as a producer six years ago and the decision this week to reclassify him. <\/p>\n

Bakhurst said no one on RT\u00c9\u2019s current leadership team was involved in the decision to reclassify Mooney in 2020. He said RT\u00c9 recently sought independent legal advice about the matter and was told the decision was \u201ca perfectly rational decision to take at the time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bakhurst said \u201csomeone in finance\u201d at RT\u00c9 raised the question in recent weeks as to whether Mooney was \u201ccorrectly classified\u201d. <\/p>\n

After reviewing the situation, Bakhurst said the current executive team made the decision to reclassify Mooney as a presenter, as part of \u201cefforts to be transparent and as thorough as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

During the interview, Sarah McInerney<\/a> said the maximum salary for a producer on the RT\u00c9 pay scale in 2021 was \u20ac90,000, meaning the majority of Mooney\u2019s salary \u201cmust have still been coming from his presenting role\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sarah McInerney: When I told my manager I was pregnant he said, \u2018can\u2019t be helped I suppose\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In response, Bakhurst said Mooney\u2019s roles at the broadcaster \u201cchanged over the years\u201d and \u201cwhen people\u2019s roles change, quite often their salaries change with them\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2020, RT\u00c9 implemented a 15 per cent pay reduction for its highest-earning presenters as part of a restructuring plan. McInerney asked if the decision to reclassify Mooney as a producer was a \u201cside deal\u201d to avoid cutting his salary.<\/p>\n

Bakhurst said that was \u201ca very unfair gloss to put on [Mooney]\u201d, adding: \u201cI don\u2019t think he got a pay cut but he was on the staff salary he was on, and he was on an executive producer role already by that stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bakhurst said Mooney was informed of RT\u00c9\u2019s decision to reclassify him as a presenter but he \u201cplayed no role in this\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe told him this was happening, and he agreed that that was our decision, but he\u2019s played no role in this at all. You know, he\u2019s just carrying on with his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

– Additional reporting PA <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9\u2019s Derek Mooney was paid enough to feature among the 10 highest-paid presenters every year between 2020 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6130,195263,93,61,60,47232,6232,32975,6085],"class_list":["post-450629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-claire-byrne","tag-derek-mooney","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kevin-bakhurst","tag-patrick-o-donovan","tag-ray-d-arcy","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450629","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=450629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}