NINE SENIOR MANAGERS at RTÉ were among the top 10 earners at the public broadcaster last year.

RTÉ today published its 2025 annual report, which shows that director general Kevin Bakhurst is the top earner.

Bakhurst has made it a policy at RTÉ that no one will be paid more than the director general.

He had a salary last year of €250,000, as well as pension contributions of €62,500, allowances of €25,000, and other costs of €2,028.

Bakhurst’s total earnings last year were €339,538.

Deputy director general Adrian Lynch was next on the list, with a basic salary of €222,838 and total earnings of €293,627.

Claire Byrne, who left RTÉ last year to take up a role at Newstalk, was the only presenter to make the overall top 10 list.

She was paid €280,000 through her company Derrough Media.

Despite leaving RTÉ at the end of October last, Byrne was paid €47,000 for the last two months of the year when she was off the air.

Bakhurst defended this payment to Byrne and said she was available to work until January of this year but that RTÉ “wanted to launch the new schedule”.

“Everyone has employment rights,” said Bakhurst in May, “and if we decide that we’re going to stop someone working for RTÉ, you can’t just chop off their salary.

“People have notice periods and you have to abide by that.”

Similar payments were made to Ray D’Arcy, who was paid close to €50,000 after he left RTÉ Radio 1 on 9 October.

D’Arcy doesn’t appear on the list of top 10 overall earners from RTÉ for last year, but does rank in the top 10 highest paid presenters list, with a salary of €219,992.

TV Licence decline

Meanwhile, there was a 5% increase in licence fee income despite a 3% decline in TV licences sold.

Licence fee income last year totalled €183.5 million, compared to €174.3 million on 2024.

RTÉ said that the decline TV licences was offset by an increase in income from the Department of Social Protection relating to free TV licences.

Graph showing decline in TV Licence sales RTÉ RTÉ

There has been a total decline of 179,267 licences, equivalent to a 19% decrease, since 2022.

Some 768,657 TV licences were sold last year, compared to 947,924 in 2022.

‘Smaller and more agile’

Elsewhere, RTÉ said it reduced staff numbers last year as part of “plans to become smaller and more agile and to reduce our cost-base”.

There were a total of 97 staff departures, with 67 of these arising from the voluntary exit programme.

The voluntary exit programme (VEP) cost RTÉ €8.5 million, but the broadcaster said it annualised savings going forward from the VEP and other staff departures will amount to €8.4 million.

A further 58 employees left under the VEP on 1 January.

As of the end of last year, RTÉ employed 1,801 full and part-time staff, compared with 1,826 at the end of 2024.