THE MANAGING director of RTÉ Radio has said Gerry Ryan did not appear to be under a lot of stress in the weeks before his death.
“I would not have said he was stressed about work and I would have been the person who he dealt with on a lot of these matters,” said Clare Duignan.
She admitted to be being “very surprised” by the comments which Marian Finucane made on her radio show the day after Ryan was found dead in his apartment on April 30th.
Ms Finucane told listeners Ryan had been “really, really very stressed. He was stressed about RTÉ and other things in his life” when she had dinner with him on the Tuesday before he died.
Ms Duignan responded: “I’m not saying that the conversations that Marian seemed to base that on didn’t take place, but I have had conversations with family and close friends and I have not had a sense that was the case.”
In an interview with The Irish Times, Ms Duignan said she challenged Ryan about his failure to take a 10 per cent pay cut and warned him that he was in danger of losing touch with his listeners.
“We would have had plenty of words and exchanges about that, whether that caused deep profound stress or not, I don’t know,” she said.
However, she said she also had many similar “challenging conversations” with other presenters.
She also revealed that she and the head of 2fm John McMahon had had a conversation about Ryan’s health just 20 minutes before she found out he was dead. The pair had discussed ways of trying to persuade the presenter, who had called in sick the night before, to live a healthier lifestyle. “He was a man in his 50s; he liked to eat and drink and socialise. He was not a gym bunny and you worry about somebody like that especially when they are in a highly pressurised job.”
Ryan often spoke of his fondness for alcohol. However, Ms Duignan said Ryan missed very few days and never appeared to be the worse for wear or hungover.
“I certainly never saw Gerry in any situation where drink had interfered with his work to the tiny scintilla,” she explained
Ms Duignan also said that presenters’ salaries, which caused so much controversy in the past, would be considerably lower in the future.
