Background
Marian Finucane was born in Dublin and educated at Scoil Chaitríona, and the College of Technology, Bolton Street, Dublin.
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Marian Finucane
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Education
National University of Ireland, Galway.
Career
She has worked with the national broadcaster since in 1976, beginning as a continuity announcer. She was the first presenter of Liveline. She currently presents The Marian Finucane Show at weekend lunchtimes on RTÉ Radio 1.
She practised as an architect until 1974 when she joined RTÉ as a continuity announcer, having been recruited by Eoghan Harris.
In 1976 she became a programme presenter working mainly on programmes concerned with contemporary social issues, especially those concerning women, in particular Women Today. Finucane in 1979 was the recipient of a Jacobs" Award for Women Today.
Her Liveline programme on radio, a combined interview and phone-in chat show on weekday afternoons. The Radio Journalist of the Year Award followed in 1988.
Her television work included information programming on RTÉ such as "Consumer Choice" and the Garda investigation programme Crime Lincolnshire.
Their daughter, Sinead, developed leukaemia, and died, aged eight, in 1990. On Gay Byrne"s retirement in 1999, she took over his early morning radio slot to present The Marian Finucane Show. Another broadcaster, Joe Duffy, took over her Liveline programme.
On 24 June 2005 she presented her final Marian Finucane Show in that time-slot.
Later that afternoon she received an honorary degree from National University of Ireland Galway. Apart from her media work this degree was in recognition of her work raising funds along with Clarke, towards the building of an Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome hospice and orphanage in Cape Town, South Africa.
In June 2005 she was replaced in her radio timeslot by Ryan Tubridy, and took over morning slots on Saturday and Sunday. Even my mammy called her a bad word".
Earnings
Marian Finucane earned €180,507 in 2003 and €239,265 in 2004 at RTÉ and €570,000 in 2008.
The Director-General of RTÉ said there was "no question that by today’s standards" the salaries paid to its top presenters last year "were excessive". I have to repeat that they were set at a different time in a different competitive reality where some of this talent might be up for poaching by other organisations and in RTÉ’s view at the time, they delivered value for money". Labour"s Liz McManus criticised RTÉ for not releasing the data sooner and said that: "This information should be easily available and there should be no question of concealing it or making it in any way inaccessible".
In March 2013, it was revealed she had earned €492,000 in 2011 for four hours of programming each week.
In 2012, her earnings from RTÉ were set at €295,000 per annum.
Achievements
Politics
Fine Gael said the 2008 figure would rub “salt in the wounds of the many people who have lost their jobs or taken significant pay cuts in an effort to achieve wage restraint”.
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