RTÉ’s new Director General Kevin Bakhurst says his interim leadership team will bring in “fresh blood” after RTÉ’s chief executive steps down.
Speaking to RTE News at One, he said several directors had left.
“I’m bringing in some new people for this interim leadership team so that we can carry on running the organisation. We’ve got a number of Government inquiries going on. We need to make sure we can provide the information to those. We need continuity in some areas, but we need fresh blood on the interim leadership team,” reports RTE.
Mr Bakhurst said 50% of the new team was new to running the organisation.
“I looked at the skills we needed. I looked at what involvement or not people had had in the recent issues. That’s how I put the team together,” reports RTE.
Mr Bakhurst said he believed it was a strong and balanced leadership team that would take the organization forward.
The ongoing controversy at RTÉ, entering its third full week, was sparked by the revelation of a previously undisclosed payment to presenter Ryan Tubridy.
Mr Tubridy received €345,000 more than RTÉ said he was paid over a six-year period.
Mr Buckhurst said the interim management team had the experience to take it forward, but needed fresh thinking and fresh blood.
“We’re going to recruit an external corporate governance person to join this interim leadership team so they can look at what we’re doing and make sure we’re driving best practice. I’ve had conversations with those individuals this morning. There’s a process and I want to be fair to those individuals in terms of the announcements we’re making. We’ll make those either imminently or in due course,” he added, reports RTE.
The temporary team, along with Mr Bakhurst, has been named as Eimear Cusack, Director of Human Resources; Vivienne Flood, Head of Public Affairs; Mike Fives, Group Financial Controller, RTÉ; Adrian Lynch, Director Audiences, Channels, Marketing, and continuing as Acting Deputy DG; Paula Mullooly, Director of Legal; Deirdre McCarthy, Director of News & Current Affairs; Niamh O’Connor, Deputy Director of Content; Conor Mullen, Head of Strategy & Commercial Compliance, RTÉ Media Sales; and Richard Waghorn, Director of Operations and Technology.
Mr Buckhurst said he wanted to emphasize that RTÉ, under his leadership and an interim leadership team, would be an organization dedicated to working closely with staff, “to listening, to being open and transparent, to strictly adhering to revised and rigorous governance processes and procedures, to being accountable and to delivering a public service to be proud of”, reports RTE.
Chair of the RTÉ Board Siún Ní Raghallaigh said the changes announced by Buckhurst were “the first step in an ongoing process of change which will take many months.”
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.