Eamon Dunphy says RTE’s biggest earners should be prepared to make sacrifices in order to maintain and save the jobs of their lower paid colleagues.

Speaking to Morning Ireland the former Milwall player and founder of the ‘If you see Jack Charlton kick him in the bollocks and run away’ website, told Cathal MacCoille that pay cuts and doing extra work were just a couple of the measures that could be taken. However, in an untypical moment of controversy, Dunphy suggested that certain RTE celebrities should be willing to offer what he called the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ if it were for the greater good.

Grainne Seoige - time to take one for the team?

“What I’m saying, right, is that if someone like Gerry Ryan wants to do anything other than pay lip-service, fat, blubbery lips at those, then he should be prepared to do what it takes. This country is full of spivs and charlatans, chancers and blackguards, who talk endlessly but say nothing.

If Gerry Ryan is really concerned about his fellow staff members then shouldn’t he take part in a reality TV show in which he is left to starve on one of the abandoned Blasket Islands? Can you imagine the viewing figures? Who wouldn’t want to watch him starve to death? That revenue would mean jobs would be saved, along with his salary, and it would be good for the organisation as a whole.

But would he do it? I don’t think he would because he’s selfish. He’d rather live than see people keep their jobs. It’s the ultimate in self-obsessed egotism.

And it’s not just Gerry Ryan. Do you know how much we could get for Ryan Tubridy’s organs? Why hasn’t Grainne Seoige done a sexy photo shoot for FHM then donated to the money into the ’save the research assistant we don’t really need’ fund? And nobody can tell me Bryan Dobson shouldn’t spend his evenings dressed as a tramp, panhandling  a couple of hundred quid at a time. But it won’t happen, these people think they’re stars. But they’re not stars. They’re irrelevant. They’re useless and hopelessly arousing”.

Dunphy has himself offered to take a 10% pay cut, strip naked for an RTE remake of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, as well as offering to car pool with Miriam O’Callaghan and Joe Duffy but not Dave Fanning due to his well-known toxic flatulence problem.

RTE were not available for an official comment this morning but a source told the Irish Sentinel that ‘all options’ were being considered in order to save money. They also refused to deny rumours a production team had been sent to Inishnabro to ensure no lambs were present on the island.