RTÉ’s incoming CEO Kevin Bakhurst said his job is to “restore trust” in the organization.
He described the meeting with Media Minister Catherine Martin as “frank and very useful”, reports RTE.
Mr Bakhurst said he would lay out his plans for RTÉ when he officially takes over on Monday.
Leaving the meeting with the minister, he told reporters: “My job is to restore trust, clearly that’s been severely damaged. Again, I apologise for that. But that’s my job, to restore trust in this organisation. That’s what I’ll try to do. And I’ll be setting out a lot more detail on Monday about how we intend to do that,” reports RTE.
Mr Buckhurst said he knew staff morale had hit the floor and wanted to regain the trust of license holders.
Asked if he had confidence in the RTÉ board, Buckhurst said he would make a more detailed statement on Monday.
“There are individuals involved here, I need to talk to them and also want to talk to staff before I come out and say something publicly and, for me, restoring the trust of the audience and of staff and of politicians in RTÉ is absolutely key to what we’re trying to do here,” he said, reports RTE.
In a statement, Minister Martin said she made it clear during the meeting that hse was not happy with the way the information was provided to the RTÉ board, the public and the Oireachtas.
Bakhurst said confidence in RTÉ had “severely diminished”.
“It’s been a highly damaging two weeks for RTÉ and it’s been painful to watch,” he said. “But I’m looking forward to starting the job and trying to repair that,” reports RTE.
Commenting on staff sentiment at RTÉ, he said: “I fully recognise the morale is on the floor and my priority next week is to get around the organisation, my top priority is to go around the organisation and talk to staff and hear their concerns. Adrian [Lynch] and I have already been talking about trying to meet the unions possibly tomorrow, if they’re available. So we want to start this. I don’t start ’til Monday, this is the most work I’ve done for no payment so far in my life in the last few weeks. But I’m happy to do it,” reports RTE.
Speaking on RTE news on One, the Communications Minister said the fundamental problem is that when an institution whose primary function is transparency cannot provide transparency in its own operations, “that is a fundamental problem”.
As for RTÉ’s future funding, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said the process was ongoing and it would take time due to “frustration within RTÉ” that there was no solution around it.
The “revelations of the last two weeks have completely disrupted the process,” he said, reports RTE.
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