SIPTU members disagree with planned RTÉ funding model

SIPTU members employed in RTÉ have made said they do not agree with Government’s funding plan for the state broadcaster.

On Wednesday, it was announced that the licence fee will be kept as is, and RTÉ themselves will receive €700 million in funding over the next three years as RTÉ recovers from a tumultuous 2023.

SIPTU Services Divisional Organiser, Teresa Hannick, said “we believe that this announcement is a failure by the Government to address the crucial need to put the funding of public service media in Ireland on a solid basis for the future. Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin, today placed conditions on how RTÉ spends its money, tying it to the station management’s restructuring plan.”

In June, RTÉ’s 5-year plan detailed that they would look to cut over 400 jobs during that time and have at least 20% of RTÉ’s output broadcast and produced from Cork as opposed to Dublin.

“Our members do not accept parts of the RTÉ management plan which will see the public broadcaster stripped of many of its core functions to the benefit of outside private companies and the privatisation of certain roles at the station,” she said.

“The Government has decided to ignore its own The Future of Media Commission recommendations which included that RTÉ be funded fully by the exchequer. However, this was the only one of its recommendations that the Government has proposed not to enact. The decision to retain the licence fee and supplement it with a multi-annual stream of exchequer funding for RTÉ and public service media is at odds with that recommendation.”

She added “while the Government has announced a significant increase in the level of public funding, our members are concerned that many financial gaps will remain. They do not accept that workers at the station should pay the price for the historic failure of successive Governments to adequately fund public service broadcasting or the gross mismanagement of the public broadcaster in recent years.”