RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

I’d say Ryan wouldn’t want to do too much work, let alone 3 shows a day, for umpteen days. Perish the thought

Omg go back to sleep you , you haven't a clue what I meant

Well Patrick might be able to give poor Rory a dig out so. I hear Rory had recently lost his job so at least he’d be an immediate start!

I haven't asked for Irish presenters to be paid on a pro-rata basis. I've even given you an example of why we can't use the pro-rata as the basis for pay proportional to the UK population. I'll post it again. Say a UK presenter is on £200k per year (which is probably a decent salary). Given that we are more than ten times smaller, are you suggesting our presenters should be paid less than £20k per year. Clearly that doesn't work.

What's your logic for not paying anyone more than €240k per year in RTE? You've come up with a figure but haven't said why you think that's the correct figure that anyone should be paid. I'm using Tubs as an example here but if he's doing two jobs, why shouldn't he be paid for the two jobs? And if your gripe is with Tubs, stick in a different presenter in there. Lets say presenter ButtersSuki. If ButtersSuki is doing two presenting jobs in RTE, wouldn't you expect to be paid for both? There's no money savings to be had for RTE because Tubs or ButtersSuki will do just the one job for €240k. I mean, why would you burst your hole doing two jobs for the pay for only one of them. And don't forget, someone else will have to be hired on similar money to do the LLS. Therefore RTE end up paying the same amount of money eitherways. The only difference is that it's split between two presenters and not one.

I also don't know why you are against the self-employed route for some of the presenters. If RT or any other presenters were made RTE employees on your max figure of €240k, then they are on that figure (and upwards taking into account pay rises etc.) until the day they retire. So, public service holidays, pensions, sick leave etc. Throw in all the public servant perks and that €240k goes northward very quick and it's essentially a job for life. If RTE decided to take Tubs off the air, then he'd still have to be paid that money. Easy to get rid of presenters at the end of their contracts if it's not working out. Nearly impossible to get rid of people from roles in semi-state bodies where they are almost the equivalent of public servants.

They can probably get Callan for less than 90% of Tubs fees, but clearly he is getting well paid for his work too.

If RTE's top earners including the on air "talent" were treated similar to other high earners in the public sector's..........let's go with Ronan Mullan's idea of approx €195k, does anyone seriously think they'd be a mass exodus from RTE to competitors in the Irish market or to the UK?

Joe Duffy, Claire Byrne, D'arcy (God help us) et al are going to walk away from a cushy number on the state broadcaster with all the perks that entails and go take up similar roles in the private sector where they will have to do more for less and with real pressure to perform.

Not a chance. Anyone in that industry would want to have a plumb, pretigious RTE position and most would happily accept realistic salaries to have it.

So it's all rugby, football and gaa junkets, no ballet or opera or how about a very cheap one for RTE a night out to the RTE symphony orchestra

The thing with Lineker is that while his wage is obscene for the work done it is paid out by an entity which is currently running a profit. There is also the idea of Lineker being a household name and one of Englands most famous and popular players. He has that national treasure angle to bargain his pay with. He has been there and done that so to speak. He was the guy who was never booked, a golden boot winner, the captain at Italia ’90. All of that is extremely marketable. The countries most popular sport, big audience figures as a consequence, a safe pair of hands with Lineker = pay dirt for him. He retired and moved in to a media career i.e. he wasn’t just plucked to present MOTD as he had experience broadcasting. The MOTD gig would have been deemed the top of his mountain. His luck kicked in when Lynam went to ITV and the MOTD gig became available. His image, likeability and marketability landed it for him. Like Tubridy his agent would also seek to maximize earnings for their client and the BBC were willing to stump up to land a household name. There is always that balancing act going on between client and broadcaster. Lineker ran afoul of this with his recent criticism of the government. A truce happened once people sided with Lineker but when it comes time to renew contracts, and Linekers image damaged in some quarters, then the option to replace him is there. Lineker himself knows he is on thin ice and the Saturdays of milk and honey might well end. With RTE and their highest paid presenter then it is different. Tubridy has no extensive experience outside of RTE (I’ll ignore the stint at the BBC). He had experience with Tubridy Tonight and his Late Late salary was a continuation of the level given to Kenny who actually had decades of experience. Tubridy effectively landed on his feet, right place right time to coin it for himself. The difference with Lineker is that RTE is losing money hand over fist while paying obscene money. With Tubridys image now having taken a hit then it makes no sense for him to return and coin it like he once did particularly taking losses into account when making such a decision.

100% agree. 200k is a very generous cap for the hours they do. It's not the 35 in the public sector.