Claire Byrne says she was ‘happy to stay on and work’ until her contract ended, as RTÉ releases more details of Derek Mooney’s pay

Claire Byrne says she was ‘happy to stay on and work’ until her contract ended, as RTÉ releases more details of Derek Mooney’s pay Byrne has said she was “happy to stay on and work” until the end of her contract after recent figures revealed she was paid for two months after resigningRTÉ confirmed it had previously excluded presenter Derek Mooney from its yearly published top 10 highest paid presenter listMedia Patrick O’Donovan asks RTÉ for a breakdown of salary packages from 2020 to be prepared for a meeting on Tuesday ‘because the box is open again’RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakurst says Derek Mooney’s reclassification as presenter was not a side deal and ‘justifiable’ RTÉ has this afternoon released the pay of presenter Derek Mooney going back to 2020, after it emerged it had previously mistakenly left him out of its list of top ten highest paid presenters as it had not included extra money from producer work. In a statement on Friday afternoon, the national broadcaster said, “in the interest of full transparency, with the full permission of Derek Mooney, we are now publishing the details of Derek’s earnings for the years 2020 – 2023”. It said that in 2020 he was paid €195,079, in 2021 €187,854, 2022 €188,885, and 2023 €192,592. RTÉ yesterday conceded that Mooney was the 7th highest paid presenter in the organisation last year, on €202,264 – and eighth in 2024, on €197,151, when previously he had not been included in the top ten. Employee earnings include salaries, employer pension contribution and related benefits, RTÉ said. "Decisions made on the compilation of the Top 10 Highest Earning Presenters were made by RTÉ, with no involvement by Derek Mooney,” RTÉ said. The 2025 figures also revealed that RTÉ continued to pay presenters Ray D’Arcy and Claire Byrne even after they left the organisation in October 2025. For the remainder of the year, Mr D’Arcy received €50,000 and Ms Byrne received €47,000. RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakurst said the €97,000 in payments was “totally the right decision”. He said RTÉ wanted to take Ms Byrne off air after she said she was leaving so it could launch its new Radio One schedule, while he characterised the timeline around Mr D’Arcy as “effectively his notice period”. He said they had employment rights and a legal fight would have cost a “shedload more”. Speaking on her Newstalk programme on Friday, Ms Byrne said she wanted to address the “elephant in the room” and said she was “happy to stay on and work” at the organisation until the end of her contract. “I resigned from RTÉ in the summer, my contract though, ran until the end of the year, December 2025,” she said. “And I made it clear, I was happy to stay on and work there until the end of my contract. “But RTÉ came to me and told me that they wanted me to finish up at the end of October. “That was their right and their decision. So that’s how that happened, from my perspective.” We need your consent to load this Social Media content. We use a number of different Social Media outlets to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan said his department has asked RTÉ for a breakdown of salary packages from 2020 “to be prepared for a meeting on Tuesday “because the box is open again”. “This morning I asked my officials to make it known to RTÉ that not going back to 2020 is not an option, and by the way, that does not just focus in on Derek Mooney,” he told RTÉ’s News at One. “Claire Byrne answered her part of it this morning, she said she made herself available to do work, even though she was heading out the door. She was under a contractual obligation, but the company decided not to avail of her services and we haven't heard from the other presenter, who's who obviously is no longer with RTÉ. “But we've heard from the director generally, who said that there was contractual obligations there. It's obviously something, that I'd like to flesh out a bit more with their representatives on Tuesday.” He added: “I don't want to have him as a scapegoat here. We will be looking at everything from 2020 now, to be quite frank about it, because the box is open again.” “I’ve asked for a full list, a breakdown of salaries to be prepared for me for Tuesday, and that's packages, not salaries, packages to include everything else that can be above and beyond a salary, and I think that's what the public need at the moment.” In regards to how RTÉ reclassified Derek Mooney from producer to presenter, Mr O’Donovan said: “Derek Mooney has been regarded as anything other than a presenter. He was a presenter, he is a presenter, he's always a presenter. It's like a duck, if it walks and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. “But for some reason, unbeknownst to the current chairman, he was recategorised. Now, why that happened, I don't know.” Claire Byrne, who left RTÉ in 2025, was paid €280,000 by the broadcaster last year, followed by Patrick Kielty on €266,323 and Miriam O'Callaghan on €244,797. Meanwhile, in regard to Derek Mooney, Mr Bakhurst has defended the broadcaster's “justifiable” decision to reclassify presenter Derek Mooney as a producer back in 2020 and said the move was not a side deal. Revealing that the discrepancy only came to light at RTÉ HQ "in the last three or four weeks", Mr Bahkhurst said he stands by the revised salary lists covering the last five years. “We actually took independent legal advice when the issue arose in the last few weeks about the decision that was taken in 2020 and the legal advice was it was a perfectly justifiable decision, given that Derek’s contract is as executive producer. “But we take a different view. We think transparency is really important and most people know Derek as a presenter, and I think we’d expect him to be classified as presenter, even though I think the majority of his work is as an executive producer.” Asked if the reclassification was a side deal to avoid pay cuts from 2020, Mr Bakhurst said: “No, I don’t think it was.” In 2021, the RTÉ pay scale dictated that producer roles could earn a maximum amount of €90,000 per year. Mr Mooney was listed last year as earning a total of €202,264, implying that the majority of his salary knowingly came from presenting duties. However, due to the Mr Mooney's "hybrid" role of both presenter and producer between 2020 and 2024, Mr Bakhurst said that his contract covered both roles. "His salary always covered both those things, and his role changed over the years, and changed when he came off the weekday slot on RTÉ One, and it changed at the moment, and he's doing a bit more TV in the coming days,” said Mr Bakhurst. When the Ryan Tubridy payments scandal hit RTÉ in 2023, it was revealed that "side deals" had been struck. Consequently, presenters at the broadcaster were asked to take a 15pc pay cut. However, Mr Bakhurst denies that any such deal existed in the case of Mr Mooney. "The legal advice is that it was a perfectly rational decision to take at the time. As I say, we take a different view, because we want maximum transparency for the audience, the politicians who pay for RTÉ,” he said. The development is hugely embarrassing in the wake of the separate Ryan Tubridy payments scandal. Chair of the board of RTÉ, Terence O'Rourke, said it is "possible" Derek Mooney could have appeared on the broadcaster’s top 10 highest earners list in previous years after his earnings were retrospectively added to the 2024 rankings. Mr O’Rourke said the issue only came to light in recent weeks during a review of presenter classifications prompted by an Expert Advisory Committee report into RTÉ’s culture and governance. He said he “would prefer if this had not happened”. Mr Mooney was classified as a producer rather than a presenter, Mr O’Rourke told RTÉ’s Prime Time on Thursday night that “management at the time made that decision”. Mr O’Rourke was also asked about payments made to former RTÉ presenters Claire Byrne and Ray D’Arcy after they had stopped their presenting duties. “Their contracts said they were contracted to present up until the end of the year, and there were different decisions made about when they would stop presenting,” he said. “If we had ceased to pay them, I think we would have had some interesting solicitors' letters. So, I think it was the right thing for the organisation to carry out. We had a choice at that stage about how to treat them, and we think it was the right and fair thing to do. “I didn’t do that, management did that, and I’m happy that they made the right decision. “They weren’t doing nothing, they were available if anything happened they would have still been on contract to present. “My job is to make sure as best we can that we look at every nook and cranny, and it takes a while to do that, we’re on the journey. We have made lots of improvements, we still have more things to do, and that’s my job to make sure RTÉ is as best as we can make it. “What we did today is part of that, getting it right when we see things that need to be put right and I’m not embarrassed about that at all.” In a statement on Thursday evening, RTÉ said: “In line with the implementation of the Government’s Expert Advisory Committee’s recommendations, RTÉ has reconsidered what constitutes a “presenter” for the purposes of compiling the Top Ten Table for 2025. RTÉ has made the decision to consider all personnel holding dual roles (such as producer-presenter, or editor-presenter etc) for inclusion in RTÉ's top 10 highest-earning presenters for 2025. “For clarity, in 2020 (and up to and including 2024) Derek was designated by RTÉ as a producer, and not as a presenter, in line with his contract of employment.” Mr O’Rourke said: “The board supports the ongoing commitment by RTÉ to transparency, as evidenced in today’s announcement. We acknowledge the scrutiny brought by RTÉ in preparing RTÉ’s 2025 annual report and fully support the decision to review the previous categorisations of RTÉ’s top ten highest-paid presenters.” Director-general Kevin Bakhurst said: “In keeping with RTÉ's commitment to increased transparency, we are today confirming - and publishing - our decision to include all those presenters who are in dual roles in the annual top ten presenters. As well as publishing the list for 2025, we are also re-presenting the top 10 list for 2024 for consistency and comparison purposes. The list also confirms the continued application of the RTÉ pay cap for all RTÉ employees at the level of pay of the director-general.” Further down in the 2025 list of top ten earners revealed today were at No.4 Brendan O’Connor on €239,988, followed by Ray D’Arcy, who has now departed RTÉ, on €219,992, David McCullagh on €206,393, Darragh Maloney in eighth on €197,840, George Lee on €194,406, and Dáithí Ó Sé in 10th place on €192,809. Kielty, RTÉ’s second-highest earner last year wrapped up his third season presenting The Late Late Show two weeks ago but a deal for him to return has yet to be done. The DG’s salary has a knock-on effect because he has stipulated that nobody else in Montrose can earn more than him, including the stars. Mr Bakhurst is due to get a pay rise of €20,000, taking him to €270,000, which would allow more room for manoeuvre for Kielty. It is believed that his return to hosting duties is the most likely outcome. Earlier on Thursday, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee announced it would be turning its attentions again to the finances RTÉ, which is in receipt of a €725m bailout over three years. PAC's interest has been piqued by 41 RTÉ staffers travelling to Prague for the World Cup qualifier between Ireland and Czechia.