The Executive Board of RTE is being stood down from today. The new Director General confirmed the news in an email to staff this morning. Kevin Bakhurst says a new interim leadership team will be appointed, with a permanent one announced in due course.
In the email he also committed to publishing the salaries of the Executive Board along with the ten highest paid presenters in the RTE annual report every year, starting with 2023. People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy believes members of the public, who pay the licence fee, should have a say in the running of RTE.
"The majority of people on the RTE Board are appointees of the Government; half of them directly by the Government and another quarter by the Oireachtas. So, we need to find a way of bringing representatives of the viewing public, the wider community and the workers into the heart and the top of RTE," he added.
Meanwhile. the Taoiseach has committed to reforming the TV licence in the lifetime of the current Government. It's relevance has been called into question in the wake of the payments scandal at RTÉ.
Leo Varadkar says no final decision has been made by Government, but he's adamant the public funding model must be overhauled.
