RTÉ did not query employment status of any workers prior to 2018 review
RTÉ commissioned a review of all contractors in 2018 to ascertain if they were classified correctly.
RTÉ had never lodged a single query with the Department of Social Protection regarding the employment status of its workers prior to 2018, when it first commissioned an external review.
The broadcaster, which is currently facing a review of 700 of its employees as to whether or not they had been bogus self-employed, with a potential liability of up to €20m, said that the fact it had not lodged queries with the employment status section of the department prior to that date does not mean that it believed all of its workers were correctly classified up until that point.
“RTÉ commissioned the review of all contractors in 2018 to ascertain whether or not people were classified correctly. Of those reviewed, 81 were offered contracts of employment, of which 79 accepted,” a spokesperson for the broadcaster said.
The review in question was conducted by consultants Eversheds in 2018.
The fact that RTÉ had never approached the department regarding the status of its workers prior to that year has emerged via a response to a parliamentary question by Sinn Féin TD Mairéad Farrell.
Social Protection Minister Heather Humphreys said that RTÉ had requested no social insurance determinations with regards to its employees prior to 2018.
“However, the question remains, what of those before 2018? We know that this is an historical problem. We also know that the numbers estimated to have been misclassified have grown significantly over time,” Ms Farrell said.
RTÉ, however, said it “does not accept” that there would likely have been many more employees misclassified prior to 2018.
Its spokesperson also acknowledged that the broadcaster has not taken any steps to ascertain what proportion of its workers, if any, were misclassified prior to that date.
Ms Humphreys said with regard to her own department’s probe of RTÉ, which began in late 2020 and is not expected to conclude for several years, that RTÉ had “provided the department with lists of workers engaged on a contract basis in 2018, 2019, and 2020 and these formed the basis of the investigation”.
Asked what criteria RTÉ had used to shortlist those workers, the broadcaster’s spokesperson said that the department had “requested specific information from RTÉ, relating to those years, which RTÉ supplied”.
The Scope review of RTÉ is a controversial one given that it excludes many workers — including former TV contractors Angie Mezzetti and Marian Farrell — who claimed to have worked on bogus self-employed contracts prior to the timeframe under consideration.
Bogus self-employment is where a worker acting in the capacity of an employee of a company or agency is classified as self-employed for PRSI purposes and as such does not receive the same statutory social insurance contributions and holiday benefits that PAYE workers receive.
Roughly 145 employees have so far received a Scope decision, with two thirds of those having been reclassified as employees.
RTÉ has appealed more than 50 of those decisions, with 18 of those appeals subsequently withdrawn.
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