Kevin Bakhurst has told staff at the Irish public broadcaster that he plans to be a “visible and available director-general”.
Bakhurst’s first action as he took up his post on Monday was to stand down the RTÉ Executive Board. A temporary interim leadership team is being formed to run the organisation on a day-to-day basis, ahead of the hiring of a permanent leadership team.
In an email to staff, Bakhurst said change will be essential if trust in public broadcasting in Ireland was to be rebuilt. “I want to underline that RTÉ, under my leadership and that of the re-constituted Interim Leadership Team, will be an organisation dedicated to working closely with you, 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. This will take time, but it will happen. It must. There is too much at stake.”
Bakhurst stressed that as “custodians of public money”, RTE’s financial integrity should be on a par with its editorial integrity. It followed a routine audit of RTE’s 2022 accounts found an issue relating to the transparency of payments made to Ryan Tubridy, the presenter of the popular The Late Late Show for the past 12 years.
The crisis that followed led to the early departure of Bakhurst’s predecessor Dee Forbes.
Plans to introduce a Register of Interests is being brought forward and RTÉ’s Freedom of Information Officer has been asked to look at RTÉ’s legal obligations as well as the operation of registers and declarations of interest in the civil service and in broadcasters internationally.
Bakhurst ended his email by saying there needs to be a change in the culture at RTE to enable it to quickly and meaningfully evolve into an organisation that is focused on its people and the public we serve.
