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RTÉ’s Director General is to publish the organisation’s new strategic vision later today, which includes a plan to reduce the workforce at the national broadcaster by up to 400 by 2028.
The first 10% of the staff reductions are expected to be achieved quickly and it is estimated that the voluntary redundancy scheme could cost around €40m.
The document is also understood to propose moving more production to Cork and other regions in the coming years, while the amount of content produced by the independent sector looks set to increase.
The +1 services for the RTÉ 1 and RTÉ 2 TV channels will also cease.
The plan could also see some services scrapped, such as digital radio stations RTÉ Radio 1 Extra, RTÉ Pulse and RTÉ 2XM.
The strategy also seeks to reduce operating costs by around €10m next year.
The organisation will also continue to reduce the pay of its top presenters and will keep in place a 2023 pay cap under the strategic vision.
Priorities in the plan include upgrading technology, live and online content.
The blueprint will be published later this afternoon following a meeting between management, unions and staff representative groups, as well as a briefing of staff by Director General Kevin Bakhurst.
The document was delivered to the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media last week, but is not expected to go to Cabinet this week.
The strategic vision is a framework for the future of the organisation that will go out to consultation with the Government, staff, independent producers, regulators, service providers, the public and more.
That feedback will then inform the production of RTÉ’s Statement of Strategy for 2024–2028, which will be published in the New Year.
Mr Bakhurst has previously stated that there are no plans for compulsory redundancies at the public service broadcaster.
However, he also said RTÉ does not have money to fund a voluntary exit programme.
The organisation has long sought reform of the licence fee system which part funds it, amid claims the funding mechanism is not fit for purpose for the modern digital media age.
But since the controversy that began in July around payments made to broadcaster Ryan Tubridy, there has been a sharp fall-off in licence fee payments.
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Strategic vision a start but not end in RTÉ reform process
The Government has forecast that the drop in licence fee income will cost RTÉ €21m in revenue this year and €40m next year if it continues.
RTÉ had sought €34.5m in funding in the Budget, but was only allocated an initial payment of €16m in supplementary estimates.
NewERA, the State body that advises the Government on the operations of commercial semi-State companies, has recommended to Minister for Media Catherine Martin that the organisation should get €40m in further interim funding to make up for some of the shortfall.
However, that money is conditional on the Government supporting the plan being put forward by the organisation today.
The National Union of Journalists has said it is gravely concerned at the scale of the proposed redundancies and will require detailed information on how it is proposed to maintain core services and the impact on staff of such drastic proposals.
“Against the backdrop of an investigation into the last Voluntary Redundancy Programme staff will be very sceptical about a new programme,” said NUJ Irish Secretary, Seamus Dooley.
“Staff will want an assurance that there is a genuine, sustainable long plan based on clearly defined objectives that than a set of announcements aimed at securing government support for short term funding.”
The chair of the NUJ Dublin Broadcasting Branch described the proposals as “bleak”.
However, Emma O Kelly said the leaked details of the document do not surprise her.
Although clarification is needed on a number of issues, it would appear that the suggestion is to slash jobs in the organisation and farm them out to the private economy where the money will sustain a gig economy, she said.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, she said: “It’s a smaller RTÉ, more privatisation, pushing things out into the private sector, things that are currently done in house by people who have decent jobs because we fought for them to be decent jobs”.
If this redundancy scheme comes to pass, you will have people leaving RTÉ and taking up the exact same position outside the broadcaster, she said.
Ms Kelly said the Government has paid lip service to the importance of public service media but will not commit to funding it.
“The government, for example has disgracefully remained completely silent on a future funding model for RTÉ and that is at the core of this.
“So the core of this problem goes outside of RTÉ and it needs to be discussed outside of RTÉ by Government. We need to hear from them. We need to hear their vision and also by the public. I want to hear what the public has to say,” she added.
Earlier, the secretary of the RTÉ Trade Union Group said losing 20% of RTÉ staff over the next four years seems like “a tall order”.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Cearbhall Ó Síocháin said he did not believe that previous voluntary redundancy schemes reached their targets.
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He said a certain level of staff shortages are already being experienced in the organisation and that redundancies will place an extra burden on those that remain
“20% is a huge chunk of the workforce here. Any redundancies will have to be voluntary. And on past experience 400 seems like a tall order. You’re talking 100 jobs a year on average over the course of this plan,” he said.
Mr Ó Síocháin said the public, particularly minorities, would be most impacted by cuts to services and the privatisation of services would “not be seen as a good thing for a public broadcaster”.
“The implications here is that staff are picking up the tab for poor governance and bad management by those who’ve walked away on big money”, he said.
Mr Ó Síocháin said it was very disappointing that details of RTÉ’s strategic vision were leaked in the press before unions and staff heard about them and it came as another gut punch to staff.
He said it was important to stress that Government has a role to play because there is a responsibility to fund a national public service broadcaster.
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