RTE’s Director of Strategy Rory Coveney has announced he has quit just days after he faced intense public scrutiny over the handling of taxpayers' money.
Mr Coveney faced a grilling from the Oireachtas media committee last week for his role in Toy Show The Musical, which saw RTE haemorrhage €2.2m.
On Sunday, Mr Coveney announced he has decided to quit, believing that it would be better if the station’s new Director General Kevin Bakhurst has a “fresh team” in his new role.
He said in a statement: “I met with Kevin over the past few days and told him I believed the tough job ahead of him would be made somewhat easier if he had a fresh lead team. I’ve tendered my resignation immediately to give him the space to do that.
"Having worked with Kevin before, I’ve absolute faith in him. He’s the right person to rebuild the national broadcaster. I wish him the very best.”
Mr Bakhurst said: “I want to express my sincere thanks to Rory for his significant contribution to public service media during his time in RTÉ.
“As Strategic Adviser to the Director General, and latterly as Director of Strategy, Rory steered the organisation through a period of unprecedented change in media, while overseeing RTÉ’s complex strategy and public affairs units. His diligence, energy and insight were hugely appreciated by many across the organisation. I wish him the very best for the future”
Rory has been with RTÉ since 2007 in a variety of roles. Prior to joining RTÉ, Rory worked for Irish Aid in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Rory is a graduate of UCC where he gained a BA in history. He also holds an MA in Interactive Media from TU Dublin.
He came under fire last week at the committee meeting into RTE payments about his role in Toy Show The Musical.
Toy Show the Musical ran at Dublin's Convention Centre last December and sold just 11,044 tickets, which cost €46.50.
But it was revealed just 20,000 people went to see the show. Only 11,044 of them were paying customers, with 5,500 tickets supplied to guests on a complimentary basis and a further 3,500 awarded as prizes.
It has been revealed the musical made just €495,961 in revenue against costs of €2,699,193. In total, the project made a loss of €2,203,231 as revealed by RTE to the Oireachtas media committee on Wednesday.
Speaking during a grilling by Brendan Griffin at the Oireachtas committee, Rory Coveney said they took a “creative” risk regarding Toy Show the Musical but clearly wasn’t a “commercial success”.
He said: “We took a creative and commercial risk to try and create something unique to Irish families.. the show was, I’m not sure if anyone here was at the show, but those who attended absolutely loved it, particularly children. It clearly wasn’t a commercial success but it wasn’t from a lack of effort from everyone involved.
Asked by Mr Griffin how it was funded, Mr Coveney said: “From RTE funds.”
Mr Griffin asked if anyone advised that Toy Show The Musical wasn’t a good idea, Mr Coveney said: “We got a lot of advice from people in musical theatre, specialists who produced…”
Asked again if they were told by anyone not to produce the musical, Mr Coveney said: “No, I mean we were aware of the risks.”
The musical was predicted to be a great success before it had even started and was expected to deliver €4.1m for a sell-out 54 shows.
In reality, there were just 27 live shows. The total venue capacity for the shows that went ahead was 53,865.
At the time, RTÉ reported that cancellations were due to illness among the cast and crew and RTÉ said the team did “everything possible” to avoid cancellations.
These cancellations ended up forcing refunds worth €251,000.
A breakdown of costs associated with the musical, which was spearheaded by Mr Coveney, shows that almost half of the cost went towards hiring the Convention Centre venue, and “showrunning costs”.
Just over half a million was spent on creative team and management costs, while €369,853 went on rehearsal costs. €156,020 was spent on “marketing and press”.
