Government support for RTÉ is 'not endless or bottomless' - minister

Vivienne Clarke

Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan has warned RTÉ that government support for the public broadcaster “is not endless, it is not bottomless.”

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s News at One, Mr O’Donovan said that the government had made good on its promises and had “ponied up” the funding support “to keep RTÉ afloat.”

The Minister also said he hoped that RTÉ would reach the agreed-upon target of 100 job cuts by the end of the year.

“RTÉ's target is 100, and I would hope that they would live up to that because over the period of time of the restructuring, it's up to 400. Now obviously the commencement of that scheme was delayed some bit with approval being sought from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. But the commitment for this year is 100, and that's the figure that I hope that the board are in a position to report to.”

“When I became Minister for Communications, I was at pains to point out to the RTÉ management and board that I want to work with them, but that I want to make sure that if there are any outstanding issues, regardless of how old they are, that they're brought to my attention and then that I and I can subsequently bring them to the attention of government because the supports that have been given to RTE are substantial," he said.

“Public funding is at about €222.3 million, up from €193 million in 2023. So it's a €29 million increase in public sector funding for RTÉ, and at the same time, we've seen the license fee fall by €4 million."

Mr O'Donovan added that he feels "we need to have a public service broadcaster.

"We can see that's the value of it with regard to some of the new initiatives that the company have done in the last number of months, including, for instance, Traitors, and their coverage of the Olympics and coverage of the Euros have come at a fair cost to them, but it's a public service initiative.

"They have to do it, and it costs a lot of money, and they need to be supported, and I'm using this opportunity again to ask people to buy their license.”

The Minister said that the government had “come good with regard to the amount of money that we had to pony up to keep RTÉ afloat.

"If we didn't, we would be in a very different situation. There's an awful lot of companies historically that didn't get that level of support because of an internal mismanagement of the company that allowed the license fee to go into free fall.

“The government had no choice but to step in, as I said a while ago, with regard to all of the positive stuff that RTÉ do. But that support is not endless. And you know, we did require structural reform, we did require change.

"We were told we were going to get it, and for that change we've put forward the monies on behalf of the people, but that's not bottomless and it's not endless. So I would hope that and I would expect that RTÉ live up to their side of the bargain in respect of the agreement there with the government.”