{"id":648845,"date":"2026-10-08T19:40:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/648845\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T19:40:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T19:40:12","slug":"corks-crumbling-rte-studios-at-centre-of-fears-over-one-albert-quay-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/648845\/","title":{"rendered":"Cork’s \u2018crumbling\u2019 RT\u00c9 studios at centre of fears over One Albert Quay move"},"content":{"rendered":"

RT\u00c9 staff in Cork<\/a> are said to be \u201cin a state of shock\u201d and fearful that a \u20ac20m funding cut to the State broadcaster could jeopardise plans to move from \u201ccrumbling\u201d premises to a new facility at One Albert Quay.<\/p>\n

Media minister Patrick O\u2019Donovan announced on Wednesday that RT\u00c9 would receive \u20ac240m in 2027, \u20ac20m less than the \u20ac260m that had been agreed for the year as part of its multi-annual \u20ac848m funding deal.<\/p>\n

The minister said the reduction was due to his dissatisfaction with the pace of reform at RT\u00c9, saying he was \u201cnot happy that we have seen sufficient progress in delivering the smaller, more agile organisation\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, RT\u00c9 director general Kevin Bakhurst strongly rejected the suggestion that reform had been too slow, saying the broadcaster had implemented almost all of the cuts demanded of it.<\/p>\n

He said the \u201clate stage\u201d funding reduction had not been anticipated and would \u201cinevitably impact on our ability to deliver our five-year strategy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The funding row has caused considerable unhappiness across the State broadcaster, not least among staff in Cork who fear it could affect plans to leave the existing Fr Mathew Street facility.<\/p>\n

Last month, Mr Bakhurst told RT\u00c9\u2019s Cork workforce of more than 50 people that it had \u201csourced a property on the ground floor of One Albert Quay in Cork City\u201d<\/a> and was in negotiations with the property owner.<\/p>\n

The existing Fr Mathew Street facility, which opened more than 30 years ago, is regarded as obsolete and unsuited to modern production requirements.<\/p>\n

Trevor Keegan, chair of the National Union of Journalists sub-branch at RT\u00c9, said staff had \u201cserious concerns\u201d about whether the move would now go ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Cork facility at the moment is far from suitable, it is literally crumbling around the staff and it just doesn\u2019t suit the high-turnover production that you have for the likes of the Today show,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Today is so successful, there was talk of moving to a year-round production of it, and I\u2019m sure those planned moves now have question marks over them, which is not ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cork investment plans\u00a0<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 has had a presence in Cork since 1927. Its studios on Fr Mathew Street were opened in 1995 and were put briefly on the market in 2024. At the time, the building was valued at around \u20ac2m.<\/p>\n

In RT\u00c9’s five-year strategy for 2025-2029, the broadcaster committed to investing in a new, expanded production centre in Cork.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Donovan has also said RT\u00c9 had sought to reduce staff by 20% between 2025 and 2029, and that issues around voluntary redundancies at RT\u00c9 had been \u201cwell documented\u201d and \u201cobviously, we would hope that that would be able to be advanced\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, he also indicated that his decision had been influenced by a reduction in funding to his department by public expenditure minister Jack Chambers.<\/p>\n

PAC to examine funding row\u00a0<\/p>\n

A Cork member of the Public Accounts Committee has described the dispute between Mr O\u2019Donovan and RT\u00c9 as \u201cunedifying\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il TD for Cork South Central Se\u00e1mus McGrath said there had been \u201cmixed messages\u201d about the reasons for the funding cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis public dispute between our public service broadcaster and the minister is unedifying. It\u2019s not how business should be done,\u201d Mr McGrath said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a member of PAC, we have decided to invite RT\u00c9 and the department to come before us to bottom out exactly what the issues are as there seems to be mixed messages about the reasons for such a cut to the RT\u00c9 funding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Public Accounts Committee said on Thursday that it will ask RT\u00c9 and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport to appear before it in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Mr Bakhurst and RT\u00c9 chairman Terence O\u2019Rourke met with Mr O\u2019Donovan on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The meeting lasted just over an hour and was described by Mr Bakhurst as \u201cvery positive\u201d and \u201cextremely constructive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve agreed that we\u2019re going to carry on working with [Mr O\u2019Donovan\u2019s] officials to try and find a resolution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Bakhurst said he would not be answering further questions and described the situation as \u201cdelicate enough\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked whether RT\u00c9 would receive its full funding for 2027, Mr Bakhurst said he did not know, but said he \u201cabsolutely had confidence in Mr O\u2019Donovan as minister\u201d.<\/p>\n

An RT\u00c9 spokesperson said the broadcaster would not be making a comment at this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 staff in Cork are said to be \u201cin a state of shock\u201d and fearful that a \u20ac20m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[79,93,61,60,1634,6085,282],"class_list":["post-648845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-cork-news","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-media","tag-rte","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648845","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=648845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}