RTÉ IS SET to spend up to €375,000 employing a PR consultancy over the next three years.

It is now just over one year since the RTÉ payments scandal broke and a study published in May underscored the impact of the scandal on the broadcaster’s reputation, with RTÉ plunging to the bottom of a “corporate reputations” league table.

The RepTrak ranking, published by public relations firm The Reputations Agency, ranked RTÉ in 99th place putting it below the FAI and An Bord Pleanála, and just one step above worst-ranked X, formerly Twitter.

Now, in a new tender published on Friday on the e-tenders website, the broadcaster has put an estimated price tag of €375,000 – or €125,000 per annum – on the ‘RTÉ PR Consultancy tender’ over three years.

The three year contract will coincide largely with RTÉ seeking to implement its recently published new strategy document, entitled ‘A New Direction 2025 to 2029’ as the Government is set to make a decision on a future funding model of RTÉ later this month.

The ‘New Direction’ plan includes proposals to move the production of Fair City and The Late Late Show from its Montrose base in Dublin as RTÉ aims to eliminate 400 jobs in coming years through voluntary redundancy.

In the tender, RTÉ states that it is a leader in Irish media and “provides comprehensive, cost-effective, free-to-air multimedia services to the public in Ireland and interested audiences internationally”.

It states that the purpose of the contract “is to invite submissions from suitably qualified tenderers to supply public relations and public affairs consultancy services for RTÉ”.

The tender states that these services “range from training to consumer activities”.

The tender states that RTE “has a unique role and remit set out in statute”.

It states that the scope of its remit, its corporate governance, its relationship with stakeholders in industry, how RTÉ is funded and changes in broadcasting and media policy “are matters of regular public discussion and debate”.

It states that from time to time, RTÉ will need to engage public affairs specialists for training, strategic advice and support services, support around key stakeholder engagement and communications support.

The PR contract awarded will be for one year, with options to extend up a maximum of three years.

Those seeking to tender for the work have until 5 August to do so. The tender is due to be awarded on 28 August.

A spokesman for RTÉ said on Friday night: “This public tender for PR consultancy services relates to the Board of RTÉ only.”

Most recently these services have been provided by Dublin-based PR agency Q4PR to the Board of RTÉ.