DG Message to RTÉ Staff (Recruitment freeze, discretionary spend)

In an email to RTÉ staff today, Director-General of RTÉ, Kevin Bakhurst stated as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, I am appearing alongside members of the ILT and the RTÉ Board at the Joint Oireachtas Committee today.

In advance of this meeting, I wanted to share with you my opening statement which you can view here. You can view the Chair’s statement here.

I also wanted to let you know that I will be confirming that we are introducing a recruitment freeze with immediate effect and stopping all discretionary spend to preserve cash whilst we get clarity on our financial position in going forward. I regret having to do this as it will impact on our coverage and on our investment in equipment and our digital plans. However, given the steep fall in the licence fee and the uncertainty over interim funding, it is the only responsible thing that we can do.

I hope we will have more clarity over interim funding in the coming days and weeks and of course I will update you in more detail when I can, but I wanted to share this with you in advance of speaking in a public forum.

You will be able to follow the JOC meeting from 1.30pm on the RTÉ News channel and on www.oireachtas.ie (Committee Room 3).

Thanks,
Kevin

KEVIN BAKHURST
DIRECTOR-GENERAL