{"id":452106,"date":"2026-05-16T15:24:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/452106\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T15:24:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T15:24:15","slug":"rte-payment-scandal-deepens-as-media-minister-summons-kevin-bakhurst-to-urgent-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/452106\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 payment scandal deepens as media minister summons Kevin Bakhurst to urgent meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Media minister Patrick O\u2019Donovan will haul  <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishexaminer.com\/maintopics\/rt%C3%A9_topic-5097644.html\">RT\u00c9<\/a> director general Kevin Bakhurst and other executives to a meeting on Tuesday as the national broadcaster finds itself embroiled in yet another payment scandal.<\/p>\n<p>In a scathing interview, the Fine Gael minister said that it was \u201cGroundhog Day\u201d as he warned that RT\u00c9 risks losing public confidence for the second time in less than three years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">RT\u00c9 confirmed on Thursday that it had revised its list of top 10 highest-earning presenters for 2024 to include Derek Mooney after it \u201creconsidered what constitutes a presenter\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He had been reclassified as a producer in 2020, so was not accounted for in the list of RT\u00c9\u2019s highest-paid presenters. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The revision places him eighth on the updated 2024 list with earnings of just over \u20ac197,000, and seventh in 2025 with earnings exceeding \u20ac202,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Last night, RT\u00c9 confirmed it had received permission from Mr Mooney to publish details of his full salary between 2020 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He earned \u20ac195,079 in 2020, \u20ac187,854 in 2021, \u20ac188,885 in 2022, and \u20ac192,592 in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">These earnings would have earned him a spot in the top 10 highest-paid stars list for each year between 2020 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Speaking on RT\u00c9\u2019s News at One, Mr O\u2019Donovan said he could not understand how anybody presenting a show could not be classified as a presenter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He said he will call Mr Bakhurst, RT\u00c9 chairman Terrance O\u2019Rourke, and other officials to a meeting next Tuesday to confirm what happened.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He has also instructed RT\u00c9 to provide the Department of Communications, Sports, and Culture with a breakdown of all workers\u2019 remuneration packages in \u20ac5,000 bands by Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">This would not just include their salaries but must provide details on all aspects of their packages with the national broadcaster, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr O&#8217;Donovan warned that \u201cas sure as night follows day\u201d, the latest payment scandal was going to damage people\u2019s trust in the national broadcaster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI just want to know what is the bottom line, hook, line, and sinker. What are the public on the hook for here?\u201d Mr O\u2019Donovan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI also don&#8217;t want to know monies without total packages. I think we&#8217;ve moved on way too far from that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Extra pay for Kielty<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Meanwhile, it was revealed last night that  Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty was paid an extra \u20ac23,000 across 2024 and 2025 as he presented additional programmes beyond his standard contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr Kielty, who recently came to the end of a contract to host the  Late Late Show, had said his pay was \u20ac250,000.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Figures released by RT\u00c9 on Thursday showed he was paid \u20ac266,323 in 2025 and \u20ac257,657 in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Asked to explain the discrepancy, the national broadcaster said: \u201cRT\u00c9 required Mr Kielty to present some additional programmes beyond his standard contract in these years, and he was paid the agreed fees for this work as included in the published figures&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr O\u2019Donovan said he was canvassing on Friday in Galway ahead of the by-election, and the latest RT\u00c9 scandal was coming up on the doors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He continued: \u201cWe&#8217;re trying to rebuild confidence. I&#8217;m trying to get people to buy the television license. I&#8217;m trying to get people to have faith in the public service broadcaster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cWe&#8217;re trying to get people to go back into their post office and pay their license fee. And, you know, invariably, people are going to ask for what?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cHere we are yet again, Groundhog Day, explaining something that, to be quite honest about, I thought after giving the company \u20ac750m, that we had moved on from that, and that we had moved to a position where there was full disclosure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mr O\u2019Donovan said he did not want Mr Mooney to be scapegoated, and that his department now wants to look at \u201ceverything\u201d from 2020 and that not revisiting the top 10 and total pay packages over the last five years was \u201cnot an option\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">At the Fianna F\u00e1\u00edl ard fheis last night, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said that RT\u00c9 needed to ensure it can maintain public confidence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt&#8217;s important to retain confidence in the public and difficult to comprehend what&#8217;s transpired, but nonetheless, I think the right decision was taken to correct that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>                Louise Burne is Political Correspondent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Media minister Patrick O\u2019Donovan will haul RT\u00c9 director general Kevin Bakhurst and other executives to a meeting on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452107,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93,61,60,1634,6085],"class_list":["post-452106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-media","tag-rte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452106","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=452106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452106\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}