{"id":562734,"date":"2026-07-22T15:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/562734\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:22:10","slug":"rtes-senior-management-dominate-highest-earners-list-for-2025-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/562734\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9\u2019s senior management dominate highest earners\u2019 list for 2025 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior management at RT\u00c9<\/a> now dominate the list of its highest paid staff, the public service broadcaster has confirmed ahead of its annual report being published. <\/p>\n

According to a list of earnings of RT\u00c9\u2019s \u201cpermanent leadership team\u201d and a list for its highest-earning presenters for 2025, the now former RT\u00c9 Radio presenter Claire Byrne was the only on-air talent to be among the highest paid at Montrose.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 director general Kevin Bakhurst<\/a> had previously said that pay for executives and presenters would be capped at his own basic salary level of \u20ac250,000. This is expected to increase to \u20ac270,000 this year after the Government signed off on a pay increase for the broadcasting executive.<\/p>\n

Bakhurst was the highest paid person at RT\u00c9 in 2025. He earned \u20ac339,538 from a basic salary of \u20ac250,000, \u20ac62,500 in pension payments, \u20ac25,000 in allowances and \u20ac2,038 in what was described as \u201cother\u201d payments. <\/p>\n

He was followed by Adrian Lynch, deputy director general, who was a high-profile figure that represented the broadcaster during the fallout from the payments scandal. He earned a total of \u20ac293,627 in 2025. <\/p>\n

Richard Waghorn, chief technology officer, was paid \u20ac291,160 and Deirdre McCarthy, director of news and current affairs, received a total of \u20ac285,063. <\/p>\n

The only presenter to feature in the top 10 highest earners in 2025 was Claire Byrne, who has now departed for a new role at Newstalk. Her company, Derrough Media, was paid \u20ac280,000 for the \u201cservices of Claire Byrne\u201d in 2025. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Claire Byrne interview: \u2018I never really went into this game to be famous\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The sixth-highest paid person was another executive – Mari Hurley, chief financial officer, who resigned her role earlier this year after 18 months and was paid a total of \u20ac276,344 in 2025. <\/p>\n

An RT\u00c9 spokesman said the figures for the top-highest paid staff at the broadcaster includes \u201cpension payments and allowances where they exist\u201d. <\/p>\n

The spokesman added that \u201cnewly appointed members of the leadership team had no allowances, such as car allowances, on top of their salaries.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kevin Bakhurst: \u2018For many years the level of presenter pay at RT\u00c9 got a little bit out of control\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Figures for the highest paid executives all include pension payments and allowances of between \u20ac19,000 and \u20ac25,000. <\/p>\n

The final five highest paid staff members are all executives, and their total pay packet includes pension payments. <\/p>\n

They are: Steve Carson, who returned to RT\u00c9 as director of video in 2024, who was paid \u20ac276,282; Eimear Cusack, HR director, who faced scrutiny during the payments scandal and had announced she was leaving RT\u00c9 this year, who earned \u20ac274,721; Gavin Deans, who joined RT\u00c9 as its commercial director at the end of 2023, who earned \u20ac269,055 and Patricia Monahan, who left a senior role at Newstalk to become RT\u00c9\u2019s director of audio in 2024, who also received exactly \u20ac269,055. <\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 created an executive role in 2025 when it appointed Eleanor O\u2019Shaughnessy as its chief risk and compliance officer. The creation of this role was a key recommendation in an independent review of the governance and culture at RT\u00c9. O\u2019Shaughnessy, who started her role last summer, received a total of \u20ac75,961 last year as a partial annual salary. <\/p>\n

The top five highest paid on-air presenters at RT\u00c9 in 2025 were: Claire Byrne (\u20ac280,000), Patrick Kielty (\u20ac266,323), Miriam O\u2019Callaghan (\u20ac244,797), Brendan O\u2019Connor (\u20ac239,988) and the now former RTE presenter Ray D\u2019Arcy (\u20ac219,992). All of the top five paid presenters were paid via their production companies rather than as individuals. <\/p>\n

The RT\u00c9 annual report, which will be published later on Wednesday, will say that the national broadcaster delivered a surplus of \u20ac22.5 million in 2025, compared with a surplus of \u20ac5.5 million in 2024. <\/p>\n

A spokesman for RT\u00c9 said that \u201cthe stronger financial performance reflects continued resilience in commercial revenues, robustly controlled headcount costs, the delivery of additional in-year cost savings, and the deferral of certain planned projects into 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior management at RT\u00c9 now dominate the list of its highest paid staff, the public service broadcaster has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6130,42,47232,47233,43,9034,32975,6085,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-562734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-claire-byrne","tag-headlines","tag-kevin-bakhurst","tag-miriam-o-callaghan","tag-news","tag-patrick-kielty","tag-ray-d-arcy","tag-rte","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562734","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=562734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}