RTÉ’S DIRECTOR OF Commercial, Geraldine O’Leary, has announced her early retirement with immediate effect this afternoon.

In a statement, said said RTÉ has been a “great source of pride and honour” to her. She added that “bringing my retirement forward by a number of weeks is not something I had anticipated”.

“However, I recognise that a fresh leadership team, starting today, is vital as Kevin Bakhurst sets out to renew RTÉ, and I have agreed to facilitate that. The talented Commercial Team at RTÉ will continue to co-operate fully with all requests for information. I would like to thank them, along with my industry colleagues and friends, past and present, who have shown me much needed support in recent weeks,” she said.

Dee Forbes was the former director general whose scheduled departure was hastened as a result of the payments scandal. Yesterday, it was announced that Rory Coveney had resigned as RTÉ’s director of strategy

Earlier today, the new Director General of RTÉ Kevin Bakhurst stood down the entire Executive Board with immediate effect and replaced it with an interim board announced this afternoon. 

O’Leary came under fire at recent Oireachtas committees after it emerged that RTÉ did not disclose that it paid presenter Ryan Tubridy around €345,000 above his salary over six years.

During the committee hearings, O’Leary discussed how RTÉ took out a membership of the exclusive Soho House private members club in London at a cost of €4,200.

O’Leary told members that the club membership was retained for meetings in London because they didn’t have access to an office as it had been closed down previously. She said the membership is in her name and it’s paid on an annual basis.

She also revealed that clients were booked to fly out to major sporting events through RTÉ’s now infamous barter account.

She said in her statement today that in her 40 years in the advertising industry she believes she “acted with integrity” and that her “positive reputation has been hard earned”.

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“I truly hope that this will be my legacy. I believe in the importance of public service broadcasting. And I am proud of the vital contribution that RTÉ’s commercial activities have played in sustaining public service media in our dual-funded system. I look forward to watching RTÉ recover and thrive under the stewardship of Kevin Bakhurst.”

Kevin Bakhurst, the new Director-General of RTÉ thanked O’Leary for her “huge contribution to RTÉ over many years”.

“Geraldine has guided our commercial team through significant change and many challenges. She has brought in substantial commercial revenue over the years to help deliver high quality programmes and serve our audiences. Geraldine is much liked and admired by both our commercial partners and her colleagues at RTÉ. And she is rightly recognised as a trailblazer in what was a tough and male-dominated industry,” he added.

O’Leary joined RTÉ in 1997 as Manager Television Sales and was promoted to Director Sales and Marketing in 1999.

In 2003, she was appointed Commercial Director RTÉ Television. She was appointed Group Head of Commercial RTÉ in January 2018 and was responsible for leading all of the divisional and cross-divisional commercial staff and operations at RTÉ.