Patrick O’Donovan, the Minister for Media, said RTÉ would not be getting any extra funding from the Government despite a recommendation from the regulator Coimisiún na Meán.
He said he thought the national broadcaster “gets enough, to be quite honest about it, from the exchequer”.
Funding for RTÉ via the exchequer and licence fees rose by €29 million to reach €222 million last year, according to the broadcaster’s latest annual report. It also brought in €160 million in commercial revenues.
RTÉ’s revenue declined due to a significant drop in income from the television licence fee. This was primarily caused by the fallout from its financial controversies in 2023.
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However, the broadcaster recorded a €5.5 million surplus last year, compared to a €9.1 million deficit in 2023, the report released in October showed.
“We’ve bailed out RTÉ after the ‘flip flop’ debacle and then everything else that came along with it,” he said, referring to revelations in 2023 over RTÉ expenditure including €5,000 spent on flip flops.
“And we won’t be giving any more exchequer funding outside of what has already been committed to by my predecessor.
“We want to see reforms at RTÉ accelerated. We want to see the redundancy programme accelerated. We want to see a smaller, more fit for purpose, more modern RTÉ.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s Today with David McCullagh show on Wednesday, he also said Coimisiún na Meán had a “job to do, which is to recommend that additional funding is given”.
However, he was “not of a mind to do that” as he still needed to see a Government-RTÉ agreement fulfilled.
“We’re a long, long way from that, to be quite honest about it. We need to get to a situation where trust is reinstated, where people are back buying their licence fee,” Mr O’Donovan said.
