Emma O'Kelly: RTÉ plan will break up, not reform the broadcaster

We are told RTÉ needs to be smaller. Why? The crises of last summer had nothing to do with the number of people employed — they were about wanton profligacy and a lack of governance

When staff protested a year ago, some feared the crisis would be used to break up RTÉ. Picture: Gareth Chaney

It was a year to the day yesterday (June 27) that staff in RTÉ first came out en masse on the Donnybrook campus and at regional offices around the country to stand together and express our dismay and anger at the revelations of the previous days. 

Addressing my colleagues that day, I said that we, the staff, wanted the crisis that was unfolding to be of benefit to public service broadcasting here. I said the crisis needed to be the beginning of something new, of deep and profound reform that would give the Irish public what they deserved — a proper and fit-for-purpose broadcasting organisation.