{"id":675204,"date":"2026-11-05T00:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/675204\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T00:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T00:48:09","slug":"rte-sport-unhappy-with-ger-gilroy-appointment-cttee-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/675204\/","title":{"rendered":"RT\u00c9 Sport unhappy with Ger Gilroy appointment, cttee told"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Media Committee has heard that the RT\u00c9 sports department was “actually not happy” with the appointment of broadcaster Ger Gilroy because of comments he made about RT\u00c9 Sport in the past.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 was before the Oireachtas Committee on Media today following the Government’s decision to withhold funding from it.<\/p>\n

The broadcaster also defended its recruitment process in Mr Gilroy’s appointment, and rejected assertions by TD and Senators that he had been “head-hunted”.<\/p>\n

Director of Audio Patricia Monahan said there was an internal expression of interest process.<\/p>\n

She said that external candidates were identified and went through a similar process.<\/p>\n

“There’s a process that we undertake with all expressions of interest, and there is a point in all of those processes, we’ll consider other candidates, and that’s what happens in this case,” Ms Monahan said.<\/p>\n

“Ger wasn’t approached until the decision was made that he was the best person for the job, and then we have to ascertain his interest. That\u2019s the point at which you contact (him).<\/p>\n

“We assessed him against the criteria, the same criteria as everyone else, and then obviously we had to ascertain his interest.”<\/p>\n

Fine Gael Senator Evanne N\u00ed Chulinn asked if there was any talk of a boycott within RT\u00c9 Sport over Ger Gilroy’s appointment.<\/p>\n

Deputy Director General Adrian Lynch acknowledged that: “Yes, the RT\u00c9 Sports department were actually not happy with the appointment of Ger Gilory because of comments he made about RT\u00c9 Sports in the past.”<\/p>\n

“You can give out about RT\u00c9 and then get a six-figure salary 20 years later,” Ms N\u00ed Chuilinn said.<\/p>\n

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences<\/a><\/p>\n

Chair of the committee Alan Kelly was also critical of the explanation given around the decision to hire the former Newstalk presenter.<\/p>\n

“It’s almost like you’re dancing around, not wanting to say we headhunted somebody.<\/p>\n

“But it’s like if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck,” he added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile it has emerged RT\u00c9 bosses were told funding to the national broadcaster would be cut just hours before Budget 2027 was announced.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 executives and Chairman Terence O\u2019Rourke expressed their shock, anger and surprise at a phone call from officials at the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport.<\/p>\n

However, department secretary-general Feargal \u00d3 Coigligh said it was not the minister’s proposal to cut RT\u00c9\u2019s funding.<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 was allocated 240 million euro in October\u2019s Budget, a \u20ac20 million shortfall from what was agreed between the broadcaster and Government in a multi-year funding deal.<\/p>\n

Media Minister Patrick O’Donovan said in the hours after the Budget was announced that he was not happy with the pace of reform at RT\u00c9, including the voluntary exit scheme.<\/p>\n

Mr \u00d3 Coigligh said: “It was not the minister’s proposal to cut the funding of RT\u00c9. That’s very clear from the budget discussions.”<\/p>\n

He later rowed back on the comment and said it was “not the minister’s preference” to cut funding.<\/p>\n

Asked how it ended up being cut, he replied: “Because that’s the total quantum of money that was available to the department at the end of the Government discussions.<\/p>\n

“The minister received a total allocation for the department, right, which fell short of what was desired and what the minister sought.<\/p>\n

“At the weekend of the Budget, when those decisions were being finalised, he had to make very difficult decisions as to how those resources were to be distributed across the full range of departmental functions and among our agencies.<\/p>\n

“It was at that point, as the Budget was being decided, that the minister looked across and said, ‘can I increase the funding to RT\u00c9 team from 240 million?’<\/p>\n

“The minister spoke at his press conference and he said he was concerned about the pace of reform.<\/p>\n

“It was particularly in relation to, you mentioned, the reduction in staff members.”<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nRT\u00c9 appeared before the Oireachtas Media Committee following the Government’s decision to withhold funding from it<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 Director General Kevin Bakhurst was asked when he discovered that funding would be cut, and he replied: “Three hours before Budget.”<\/p>\n

Mr \u00d3 Coigligh described the phone call to RT\u00c9 as ‘difficult’, while Mr O’Rourke said he was surprised by it.<\/p>\n

Mr O’Rourke told the committee he needed to find out what happened as he “expected” the funding to be honoured. He said it would have been a “head scratching time” otherwise.<\/p>\n

He added that within 48 hours, they had found a way that he believes will work.<\/p>\n

Mr Bakhurst wanted to comment, the director-general said: “I would rather not.”<\/p>\n

Mr Bakhurst said: “I just think when you have an agreement in black and white, we will honour our side, and I\u2019d hope the other side would be honoured too.”<\/p>\n

Deputy Director General Adrian Lynch said department representatives meet RT\u00c9 officials every six weeks to discuss reform.<\/p>\n

Mr Bakhurst said there was no mention of funding being cut in meetings, nor were there any concerns raised about the pace of reforms during the meetings before the Budget.<\/p>\n

Mr \u00d3 Coigligh said the minister looked at RT\u00c9 as being an area where he said, “I think some of these reforms aren’t progressing at pace.” For example, the voluntary exit programme.<\/p>\n

“The issues in relation to pace reform are highlighted at every meeting,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We mentioned, for example, the pace of reform in reducing the size of the organisation. RT\u00c9 mentioned, for example, the new presenter pay bands that need to be introduced. A lot of those issues, which RT\u00c9 are working on, haven’t been delivered to date.”<\/p>\n

Asked for his reaction to the phone call, Mr Bakhurst said: “There was shock, disappointment, anger in RT\u00c9 given the decision at the last minute, the notice of it.<\/p>\n

“But when we had the meeting with the minister and with the officials, there was an agreement that we set out exactly what we had done in terms of reform.”<\/p>\n

Mr Bakhurst said there will be no mandatory redundancies to cut RT\u00c9 staff.<\/p>\n

Social Democrat TD Sinead Gibney asked whether mandatory redundancies will be needed in its reform process.<\/p>\n

“Not while I\u2019m in this job, no,” he replied.<\/p>\n

Additional reporting PA<\/p>\n

Read more:<\/p>\n

As it happened: RT\u00c9 management quizzed at media cttee<\/a>
RT\u00c9 meeting with O’Donovan ‘extremely constructive’, says Bakhurst<\/a>
RT\u00c9 DG shocked and dismayed over \u20ac20m funding cut<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Media Committee has heard that the RT\u00c9 sports department was “actually not happy” with the appointment of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-675204","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\/675204","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=675204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}