text: Radio DJ Colm Hayes is not cribbing that his pay was cut by a fifth - Irish Mirror Online
  Radio DJ Colm Hayes is happy to see his pay slashed by a fifth
  Hayes admits RTE stars were living way over their means
  11:39, 21 JUL 2013
  He had his salary slashed by a fifth but Colm Hayes is not complaining.
  The 2fm presenter was RTE's 10th highest earner in 2009 but has now dropped out of the list after agreeing to the chop, which saw his earnings drop by about €43,000 to €170,000 a year.
  The broadcaster told the irishmirror.ie: "I absolutely accepted the cut."
  Does he think RTE stars come in for too much stick over their big pay packets?
  He said: "Like anybody, if somebody offers you a certain amount of money you are not going to refuse it.
  "There was a culture that existed during the Celtic Tiger, I come from the commercial radio sector and I know what is available.
  "I know the amount of money that can be made and I know the sort of money they earn in commercial radio.
  "I am not cribbing about that, best of luck to them.
  If I revealed what I was earning in FM104 years ago would people have attacked me then?"
  But he stressed he doesn't feel hard done by having his wages reduced.
  Colm added: "You cut your cloth to fit.
  "There was a time when there was great revenue being generated in radio and TV.
  "Everything collapsed and everyone has got to say absolutely we want this to survive, we've all now got to take a couple of steps back which most people have, certainly in RTE everybody has.
  "I have friends who have their own companies, are finding it really, really tough and they've all taken a cut.
  "We were living so far beyond our means and we were being given loans by banks that should never have given us loans.
  "I was getting letters, 'Do you want €10,000 for a kitchen?'. We were living in that culture and it is accepted we had to go back to reality."
  But Colm can understand criticism of the salaries.
  He recalled: "If some people are struggling, they seem to be cut left, right and centre and maybe their social welfare is down.
  "I think when they see people are earning particularly good money, they can absolutely say whether people should get that wage or not.
  "That's the way it is and it will always be like that and I mean, in a lot of cases, yes they are probably right."
  As presenter of the primetime 11am-1pm slot on 2fm every week day he sees first-hand the pain being experienced by people battling to keep their heads above water.
  Colm said: "On air we are talking to people who are really struggling all the time, on various levels.
  "They feel they've been let down by Government, by society, they never went and took €3million loans and never went to Anglo but as a result of all that craziness and
  greed they are suffering so, yes, they are going to voice their opinions and I can understand that. We are a public service broadcaster.
  "I think it is really important we are not controlled by certain elements, which happens in commercial radio. For that reason there is a liberated and a freedom, especially for the callers and listeners to get involved in RTE and it really is important that continues and we give them a voice and that means survival."
  The death of Gerry Ryan three years ago resulted in Colm flying solo with his own show after a 10-year on-air partnership with Jim-Jim Nugent.
  With the Strawberry Alarm Clock on FM104, the pair established themselves as the number-one breakfast show in Dublin before being poached by RTE to anchor the breakfast show on 2FM.
  It was a huge challenge to take over what was part of Gerry Ryan's slot and he admits he did feel the pressure to keep listeners tuning in.
  The DJ revealed: "It did take a while to get used to being on my own.
  "It is always good to have someone else in the studio you can banter off, but the way the show was designed was that the person on the phone would be the other person we are bantering off, so I really focused on the caller being that other person. You start any show and there is pressure. When I think back to moving from FM104, the lovely safe home of the Strawberry Alarm Clock to 2FM, I mean that was pressure.
  "There is always pressure but you don't sit there and think this is going to haunt me or whatever.
  "What you do is you are moulding the show into being your own show.
  "You never try to emulate another broadcaster, like we sat down and decided what way we wanted this show to go, what would be best for me,
  and for the listeners so it became very quickly my show, it's important to do it in your own style."
  Like all presenters, he always has one eye on the listenership figures, although he tries not to dwell on them too much.
  He revealed: "When you start it was like sitting your Leaving Cert four times a year waiting for the results. But again you get used to it."
  The most recent figures saw a 5,000 hike in listeners to his show which, not surprisingly, he is very happy about. "The previous one we were up 1,000 listeners and I think the one before that we increased 3,000, so the show has grown, even in the last three books [figures].
  "It took us two and a half years to connect, for people to get used to what we were doing, and there is growing in it now, we have statistically seen it."
  Colm Hayes and Jim Jim Nugent
  Did he and his former co-presenter Jim- Jim fall out after their breakfast partnership was split?
  He said: "No, we didn't fall out. I think Jim-Jim fell out with RTE. When it was offered to me to do the show, the 11am to 1pm, I felt at that stage it was a good move for me to make in my career.
  "I had been off the breakfast show for 12 weeks, [he and Lucy Kennedy were brought in as a temporary measure to fill in for Gerry Ryan following the star's tragic death].
  "Jim was doing the breakfast show with Paddy and I didn't know where they were going with that show, what was going to happen, and Jim decided he didn't like what was being offered to him and he left, so in that respect I didn't fall out with him at all.
  "I mean, we haven't seen much of each other, it's like when you move to another football team you know, he is back at FM104 on the Strawberry Alarm Clock where he started."
  When he is not hard at work in Montrose the 51-year-old loves spending time with his family including his two kids Alex, 19, and 13-year-old Holly.
  Colm added: "I'd be liberal-minded and tough when required and a bit of a pushover as well, they both know which buttons to push. I would say I have
  a particularly good relationship with both my kids."
  Like most parents he worries about the implications of the economic downturn on their future.
  He explained: "I worry about them every day of the week. Alex is in college and I do fear for what is coming for him when he finishes.
  "I'd really hate him to have to emigrate and similarly with Holly.
  "It is a crazy Irish solution to a crazy problem whereby 'It's alright, sure they'll go away', then we can massage the figures whereby it looks like we've reduced unemployment by literally carting off our young people to Australia."
  Trying to stem the tide of suicide in Ireland is something the broadcaster also feels strongly about.
  Colm added: "A show like ours gets a lot of calls and emails from people who are really at that point of desperation in their life, and we try to get them help
  and try and talk to them off air.
  "We need just to break the cycle against suicide, to make them realise that one in three people in Ireland will have some level of mental illness at some stage in their life.
  "If only they could even look over before they do it and see the tsunami of grief they leave with their family and friends."
  He is angry that people are being driven to take their own lives because of money woes often brought on by pressures from banks and other lenders.