Media minister refuses to say if he will sign off on pay hike for RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst
Media minister Patrick O’Donovan has remained coy on whether he would sign off on a pay increase for RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst.In April, public expenditure minister Jack Chambers confirmed the salaries of chief executives in commercial State bodies could be reviewed and increased.Several chief executives have seen five-figure salary increases in the intervening months.It has been suggested the RTÉ board could seek to increase the director general’s salary from €250,000 to €300,000. This would have to be signed off by Mr O’Donovan as the relevant line minister.In an interview with the Sunday Times last week, Mr Bakhurst said he would “judge” whether he believed he was “worth” a €50,000 pay rise. When asked if he thought Mr Bakhurst was worth it, Mr O’Donovan said it was “not a shampoo brand, not L’Oréal”. However, he did not rule out the prospect of signing off on a pay bump.“Any request that comes from any semi-State company to the Government department where I'm the shareholder is done in conjunction with New Era and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform,” he said. “Any request with regard to remuneration at any level will obviously be considered in due course by all three, and we'll make a decision based on that. You're asking me to pre-empt something that I haven't received.”Mr Bakhurst is doing "a very good job as director general of RTÉ", he added. "I've made that position very clear. I think the chair [Terrance O’Rourke] and the board are also doing a very good job. But I also have a role as the shareholder, and my role as the shareholder is to the taxpayer.”Elsewhere, Mr O’Donovan confirmed the pilot project for Basic Income for Artists (BIA) is being put on a permanent footing. Some 2,000 eligible artists will be selected to receive €325 a week for three years. It will feature a three-month tapering-off period at the end of the cycle. Applications will open in May, with payments starting in September. Recipients will be randomly selected.Mr O’Donovan later said he would like to see the scheme expanded through either an increase in the number of artists eligible or a rise in the weekly payment."The reason that it's been started at €2,000 is because that's the budget envelope that we got from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for a full calendar year," he said.
