Miriam O'Callaghan latest RTÉ presenter to clarify salary in wake of Tubridy payments
Sunday with Miriam O'Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1. Photo: RTÉ
Miriam O'Callaghan is the latest RTÉ presenter to clarify her salary in the wake of the Ryan Tubridy 'secret' payment scandal.
In a statement posted online, the presenter confirmed that her salary earnings were as publicly declared and insisted that she never received additional payments from RTÉ.
She said: "For the purpose of transparency, honesty, and clarity, I want to put on the record that my most recently published fee from RTÉ — €263,500 — is correct, as are the published fees for previous years.
"I have never received additional payments from RTÉ that were not publicly declared."
The 63-year-old said she has been feeling "incredibly sad" since the story was unveiled.
She said: "It's hard to put into words how incredibly sad I have been since this story broke last Thursday.
She also revealed that there is "profound shock, anger, and sadness among everyone working there", but insisted that she loves RTÉ.
She said: "I love RTÉ — it's a wonderful place to work, full of superb people who work very hard and conscientiously every day to deliver good programmes.
"All we can do as journalists now is cover this story as rigorously as we cover every other story.
"That's what we did on last Thursday, on the day the story first broke, and that is what we will continue to do."
Earlier today, Claire Byrne clarified she had pre-booked last Thursday and Friday off from her work and it was a "complete coincidence" that it occurred as news of Ryan Tubridy's 'secret' payments broke.
She also said her current salary has fallen by €70,000 to €280,000 since her weekly TV show ended last year.
Ms Byrne opened her show on Monday with a monologue about the last few days, which has seen RTÉ director general Dee Forbes resign after additional payments of €345k to Mr Tubridy across the last five years were unearthed.
Addressing her listeners, Ms Byrne said that she knew nothing about the scandal and had booked a family holiday to Kerry months ago.
She said: "So the fact that I wasn't sitting here when the news broke was a complete coincidence.
"I wasn't even aware that presenter fees, including my own, were subjected to a Grant Thornton review. I knew absolutely nothing about it."
She said she had been "grappling" with the news since it broke last Thursday.
She had listened to on Friday where callers spoke of their "disappointment" about the situation and how important transparency was.
Ms Byrne continued: "For me, and for all the great people that I work with here every day on this show, hearing that is nothing short of heartbreaking, because I can tell you that as programme makers, our aim is always to be consistent, to be fair, to be professional and to respect the hard-earned trust that you, the audience has placed in us.
She added: "So with all of that said, there are a couple of things that I want to make clear here this morning.
"No other payment exists or has ever existed beyond my published fee."
Ms Byrne clarified the most recent published fee for her salary of €350,000 was correct for her to present and her radio show.
However, as has now ended, her salary has dropped.
She continued: "In order to be fully transparent with you here today, I want you to know that my RTÉ fee now is €280,000, and that fee was agreed for presenting this programme. And that last contract was negotiated by Noel Kelly."
Ms Byrne noted she was paid a separate fee of €25,000 to present the TV show .
She continued: "There are others who will no doubt have more to say about it, I'm sure. But my personal decision here this morning is to be open and honest with you.
"Having said that, my decision to do this is not meant to set a precedent for others or to force anyone else to release their information. That's a matter entirely for themselves.
"I felt that for me it was the right thing to do this morning. With that fee that I earn comes a duty for me to treat this position with respect.
"And I hope you can trust me and the team of journalists that I work with to cover this story about authority with the same rigour and balance as we would any other story on this programme."
In February, RTÉ's list of their top 10 salaries was published and showed Ms Byrne earned €350,000 in 2021, which was an increase of €100,000 on her 2019 total. Ms Byrne was the third-highest earner in 2021.
host Joe Duffy was second, with a 2021 annual earning of €351,000, down from €360,650 in 2020, and €392,494 in 2019.
He confirmed on Monday's episode of the show that he received €300,000 for presenting the radio programme and €51,000 for his TV work, which includes .
He said “I’ve never been offered, never rejected, never received, never been involved in any outside… the figures that are on my contract are the exact figures I receive.”
He also noted that no one would want to sponsor as "we've criticised every company in the land."
On Thursday, RTÉ confirmed that an internal review had taken place of the reporting of their top 10 most-highly paid on-air presenters.
The RTÉ board has now requested that Grant Thornton review the contracts of RTÉ’s top 10 most highly-paid on air presenters to "independently validate that all remuneration figures have been correctly stated and accounted for by RTÉ."
On Tuesday, RTÉ will also issue a "comprehensive statement" setting out its understanding of the circumstances surrounding the misstating of Mr Tubridy's earnings.
RTÉ will also publish as much as possible of the Grant Thornton review, which was commissioned by the audit and risk committee of the RTÉ board, and received by the board on Monday last, June 19, 2023.
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