RTÉ has opened its Voluntary Exit Programme (VEP) as the broadcaster seeks to reduce staff numbers by up to 400.
Employees who will have completed at least two years of continuous service on the date they would leave the organisation under the scheme are eligible to apply, with payments capped at €300,000.
Staff with between two and five years of service will receive four weeks of pay per year of service.
Those with five to ten years of service will receive five weeks of pay per year, and employees working with RTÉ for more than ten years will get six weeks’ pay for every year of service.
The payments will be based on an employee’s exit salary and they will not qualify for any further redundancy.
In an email to staff this afternoon, RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst said that while the Department of Public Expenditure has given RTÉ approval to operate a VEP this year, any future scheme could be less financially beneficial than this one.
Mr Bakhurst added that applications will be approved “only where a robust business case is made, and it is confirmed that the role can be suppressed or that equivalent savings can be made by suppressing an alternative post and/or redeploying an employee into that role”.
Senior management will not be eligible to apply, and final decisions on applications will be made by the Leadership Team, with final oversight by the RTÉ Board’s Remuneration and Management Committee.
The VEP will remain open for applications until 23 May, and staff members who are approved for the scheme will leave the organisation by the end of this year.
The approval of a redundancy plan at RTÉ by the Government was confirmed on 28 March.
The VEP comes as part of a five-year strategy announced in 2023 where the broadcaster outlined a plan to reduce staff numbers by up to 400.
