Irish-language broadcaster TG4 has urged that the existing €140,000 pay rate for its director general be increased.
It said despite a number of national pay awards and historically high rates of inflation, the ard-stiúrthóir’s salary had remained unchanged since 2016.
“The board of TG4 therefore requested that the ard-stiúrthóir’s salary be brought into line with comparable roles within other State bodies”, the broadcaster told The Irish Times.
However, it declined to reveal the size of the pay rise being sought by the board of the broadcaster.
RM Block
It said the amount “is still the subject of negotiations with various Government departments”.
Pay rates for chief executives in commercial State companies are being re-examined by their boards and their parent Government departments following a review carried out by the Senior Posts Remuneration Committee earlier this year.
The review found that pay packages for chief executives at almost 30 commercial State companies had fallen behind the market.
In April, based on the recommendations of the group, the Government adopted a new approach to top-level remuneration in the commercial State sector based on a series of pay bands to apply for particular roles.
The Irish Times reported in September that the Department of Public Expenditure had set out a pay band of between €250,000 and €300,000 to apply in relation to the top post in RTÉ and that this had subsequently been sent to the board of the broadcaster by the Department of Communications. Under the new rules RTÉ would be permitted to increase the salary of its director general Kevin Bakhurst by potentially up to €50,000 from the existing rate of €250,000.
[ TG4 should receive multi-year funding, Oireachtas committee saysOpens in new window ]
TG4 said it had received a letter from the Department of Communications on September 25th setting out the next stages of the process in relation to reviewing the pay of its director general, Deirdre Ní Choistín.
Under the new Government system, boards would be permitted to set pay for their chief executives at a point along the band set out by their parent department.
This would have to be approved subsequently by the Minister for Communications Patrick O’Donovan in the case of RTÉ and TG4 as well as by Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers.
It is understood any pay increase could be phased in rather than being introduced in a single stage.
In a submission to the Senior Posts Remuneration Committee, the Department of Arts – under then minister Catherine Martin – backed increases in pay for the top executives at both RTÉ and TG4.
The department said the salaries attributable to the director general positions in both broadcasters had “declined significantly in real terms since 2016 and have not taken account of cost-of-living pressures”.
It said the Central Statistics Office had estimated that the cost of goods and services rose by more than 22 per cent between October 2016 and May 2024.
