RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst has said the reclassification of Derek Mooney’s role as a producer from 2020 to 2024 was “perfectly justifiable”.
Yesterday, RTÉ revised its list of top 10 highest-earning presenters for 2024 to include Derek Mooney after it said it had “reconsidered what constitutes a presenter”.
Mr Mooney now appears eighth on the 2024 list with a salary of €197,151.
Mr Mooney was designated by RTÉ as a producer and not as a presenter from 2020 to 2024.
Publishing its results for 2025, the broadcaster said it made the decision “to consider all personnel holding dual roles” for inclusion in the top 10 presenters list.
It said this was in line with the implementation of the Government’s Expert Advisory Committee’s recommendations.
RTÉ said Mr Mooney was the seventh highest paid presenter in the organisation in 2025, on €202,264.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme today, Mr Bakhurst said they took independent legal advice when the issue arose in the last few weeks about the decision that was made in 2020 to designate Mr Mooney as a producer and not a presenter.
He said the advice was that it was a “perfectly justifiable decision”, given that Mr Mooney’s contract was as an executive producer.
“But we take a different view. We think transparency is really important and most people know Derek as a presenter, and I think we’d expect him to be classified as presenter, even though I think the majority of his work is as an executive producer,” he said.
Watch: RTÉ Director General said he did not think this was another side deal
Mr Bakhurst said he could not confirm that when Mr Mooney was re-classified as a producer, the majority of his salary was coming from his presenting role “because his salary always covered both those things and his role changed over the years”.
In 2019, RTÉ announced plans to reduce fees paid to top contracted on-air presenters by 15%.
Asked if the reclassification was a side deal to avoid pay cuts from 2020, Mr Bakhurst said: “No, I don’t think it was.”
“We’ve taken independent legal advice on the facts that we know were available at the time. The legal advice was that it was a perfectly rational decision to take at the time.
“We take a different view because we want maximum transparency – for the audience, for politicians, who pay for RTÉ – we want to do what we think appears correct,” he said.
Mr Mooney last appeared in the top 10 presenter list in 2014 in 10th position earning €168,871. He did not appear on the list in 2015 or subsequent years. It is understood Mr Mooney would not have earned enough for inclusion between 2015 and 2019.
However, in response to a query as to whether Mr Mooney would have qualified for the top 10 presenter list between 2020 and 2023, an RTÉ spokesperson said yesterday the “lists that were published in those years are accurate based on the judgements made by RTÉ to designate him as a producer at that time”.
RTÉ to appear before Oireachtas committee next week
The revelation comes after the crisis in RTÉ almost three years ago, after it emerged that the broadcaster had underdeclared payments to former Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy.
The crisis later widened out to other governance matters and the controversy around financial mismanagement at the station was seen as a driver behind a fall in TV licence receipts.
It prompted a series of heavyweight Oireachtas committees and resulted in the Government changing how the organisation is funded.
Labour TD and Chair of the Oireachtas Media Committee Alan Kelly said that more information will be found out next week as RTÉ is due to appear before the committee.
Also speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland programme, Mr Kelly said there are a number of questions around why the decision was made in 2020 to recategorise Mr Mooney as a producer.
“I know methodologies can change, but it seems that this was more, it was more that it was missed and that [what] qualified as a presenter and the interpretation of that was the core of it,” he said.
“And the other issue is, if the calculation methodology for presenters’ pay in the top 10 list has now changed, well, for anyone listening in to this, surely the actual top 10 list for the last number of years needs to be reflected on,” queried Mr Kelly.
D’Arcy and Byrne paid after they left organisation
The 2025 figures also revealed that RTÉ continued to pay presenters Ray D’Arcy and Claire Byrne after they left the organisation in October 2025.
For the remainder of the year, Mr D’Arcy received €50,000 and Ms Byrne received €47,000.
Mr Bakhurst said that the €97,000 in payments was “totally the right decision”.
He said RTÉ wanted to take Ms Byrne off air after she said she was leaving so it could launch its new Radio One schedule, while he characterised the timeline around Mr D’Arcy as “effectively his notice period”.
He said they had employment rights and a legal fight would have cost a “shedload more”.
Speaking on her Newstalk programme this morning, Ms Byrne said: “I resigned from RTÉ in the summer, my contract though, ran until the end of the year, December 2025.
“And I made it clear, I was happy to stay on and work there until the end of my contract.
“But RTÉ came to me and told me that they wanted me to finish up at the end of October.
“That was their right and their decision. So that’s how that happened, from my perspective,” she said.