RTE’s chief financial officer Richard Collins said he was not sure what exactly he was paid, before stating that it was “in and around” 200,000 euro.
Mr Collins was among the executives who appeared before the Committee on Public Accounts on Thursday to answer questions about undeclared payments made to the public service broadcaster’s highest earner Ryan Tubridy.
At the outset, the committee was told that the incoming director-general Kevin Bakhurst will reconstitute RTE’s executive as his “first task” in response to the spiralling crisis over governance and top earners’ pay.
Chair of the RTE board Siun Ni Raghallaigh also committed to publishing executives’ salaries – which she said formed part of their focus on reviewing the salaries of RTE’s top earners.
“One of the first things that we’re looking at is the salaries of and the payments to the top earners – and that would include the executive board. In terms of publishing those, it’s certainly something that we’re considering should be done,” she told the Public Accounts committee.
When TD James O’Connor said the salaries should be published in full – including the top 100 earners – Ms Ni Raghallaigh said “I undertake to do that”, saying it would be done “as soon as practically possible”.
When asked by Sinn Fein TD John Brady to state his salary, Mr Collins stated that it was a private matter.
But committee chair Brian Stanley intervened to state that Ms Ni Raghallaigh had already committed to publishing executives’ salaries.
“Given the fact that you work for a public organisation, I would expect to hear that answer here today,” Mr Stanley said.
After a pause, Mr Collins stated: “I don’t know what my exact salary is.”
After Mr Brady stated: “This is extraordinary, it’s taken over a minute now to get a very basic answer, I would have imagined.”
Mr Collins then said that he had no problem with being transparent and said he was on a base salary of around 200,000 euro, plus a car allowance of 25,000 euro.
