Former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes decided Derek Mooney’s work for the broadcaster would be classified as a producer, an Oireachtas committee has heard. The issue of how Mooney’s work was classified has caused a controversy since last week’s decision by RTÉ to restate its top 10 earners list to include the presenter, taken after it “reconsidered what constitutes a presenter”.It said Mooney had previously been designated as a producer and not a presenter over a period from 2020 to 2024. Forbes’s successor, Kevin Bakhurst, told Sinn Féin TD Joanna Byrne on Wednesday that the “decision was taken by the CFO [chief financial officer] and the director general” in 2020, when Mooney would have appeared again as a top earner at the station. Bakhurst’s deputy, Adrian Lynch, told the committee that there was an instruction given to the payments division that “per DG [director general] he was to be classified as a producer”. Mooney, Bakhurst said, had not benefited from the arrangement financially and the current RTÉ chief emphasised the issue was fundamentally different from the 2023 Ryan Tubridy payments scandal as no payments were secret, with this being an issue of categorisation. The committee also heard that RTÉ radio host Oliver Callan’s independent production company receives a fee separate from the comedian’s €150,000 payment for presenting his radio show. Bakhurst and Lynch indicated to Fine Gael TD Micheál Carrigy that Callan was the only high earner at the station earning a substantial fee through an independent production company. However, he conceded other workers may make “the odd documentary or factual series” and get a sum for such a production. The committee was told comedian Tommy Tiernan would not appear on its high earners list as he is not employed directly by the station. Committee chair Alan Kelly, the Labour TD for Tipperary North, said in light of the information the RTÉ annual statement of its top earners was worthless and should be disregarded, calling for an across-the-board exercise to establish precisely what is paid to on-air hosts across the station.[ ‘Waste of space’: What we learned about RTÉ from today’s Oireachtas committee hearingOpens in new window ]He put it to Bakhurst that if all payments were included, some on-air presenters could be paid more than the DG himself, with Bakhurst agreeing that could be the case in one or two instances. Bakhurst has previously said nobody in RTÉ should earn more than him. He said he would consider publishing this information, but cautioned that no broadcaster in Europe does this. He said he was open to publishing more information about the top earners outside the top 10, but that previous efforts had been hamstrung by data privacy laws which he suggested could need new legislation to bypass. The committee also heard that the family of the late RTÉ radio presenter Seán Rocks was suffering financially due to the categorisation of the host as a producer, and as it stood would have to leave their home in the middle of July due to hardship. Bakhurst told the committee he had met Rocks’s widow and had taken the case to the RTÉ board but suggested he was limited in what he could do as rules set for the entire organisation around benefits after an employee dies had to be applied in all circumstances. Fine Gael senator Evanna Ní Chuilinn, a former RTÉ sports broadcaster, criticised Bakhurst for his comments this week that the station had paid a price for its transparency, saying it runs a “two-tier system”. She said there were “hundreds” of people in RTÉ who asked to be reclassified as presenter, including herself, but who never receive presenter contracts. Bakhurst rejected this, saying repeatedly that he had driven a renewed transparency agenda at the broadcaster. He said he was not aware of further controversy or any untoward payments but that he would publicise them if they came to his attention.