The partner of the late RTÉ presenter Seán Rocks said he "hit a brick wall" every time he tried to reclassify himself from a producer to a presenter.
Mr Rocks, a presenter on RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ Lyric FM, died last July following a brief illness at the age of 63.
He began his radio career on RTÉ Lyric FM in 2000 before taking the helm of RTÉ Radio One's Arena on its inception in 2009.
Catherine Bailey said Mr Rocks had gone several times to RTÉ management to get this rectified, particularly when the couple were having children.
She said he went in "to say, 'I’m being misclassified, I’m not a producer, I shouldn’t be on this allowance situation with my main wage. Can you please rectify this?’"
She said he was "fobbed off a lot" and he never got to reclassify himself, and during much of his time there, he was classified as a contractor.
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"He knew that that left us vulnerable, should anything happen to him, and he wanted that tidied up and fixed. He just hit a brick wall every time, and it was allowed to endure.
"He found it very exacerbating. He contacted colleagues and friends and said, ‘how can I sort this?’ It really got him down," she said, speaking on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh.
She said the misclassification for him was "very hard to stomach" when "all around him he was getting huge praise and recognition".
"He was a very high calibre broadcaster, and yet, on paper, RTÉ had him down as a producer," she said.
Ms Bailey, who was the partner of Mr Rocks for 22 years, said the pair met in Limerick at the opening of a restaurant after she had finished her master’s degree.
"We just hit it off like a house on fire; we had so much in common. He was attentive, warm, he was a magical man. A beautiful, warm, kind individual and a beautiful soul," she said.
Ms Bailey said they built a "lovely, wonderful life together", and both loved the arts and music. "We felt like kindred spirits, that feeling you have when you feel you met your soulmate, we had that," she added.
On his death in July, she said it was very distressing for her and the children, having thought they had "come out of the woods on his health issues".
Ms Bailey said the worst thing she had to do was tell their children that he had passed away.
It was while trying to sort out their affairs following his death that she realised the pension numbers did not seem to reflect all of Mr Rock’s career in RTÉ.
She said she contacted HR in RTÉ, who quoted a number "that seemed completely out of whack" with his earnings. She told them that the figures were incorrect.
"I was reassured very coldly, in a very clinical letter, that no, this is it," she said.
Following this, she contacted the board of RTÉ, including Director General Kevin Bakhurst, saying that the pension numbers were wrong and a misclassification.
She said she heard nothing for a number of weeks.
"Culture night happened, and there was a special to Seán. I met Mr Bakhurst at that point, but there was no interaction about the matter at hand. I appealed again in October and in November, saying, ‘can someone clarify this? I want to get these affairs sorted’.
"Then I got a letter from HR saying, ‘no, sorry, we can’t make an exception for you because it is an allowance issue’," she said.
Ms Bailey also said during his time in RTÉ, Mr Rocks was on multiple fixed-term contracts.
She believes his pension did not reflect the full scope of his 25-year career in RTÉ, despite Mr Rocks being made a permanent employee in 2019.
She said by that stage, he had "missed out on lots of payments" in terms of his pension.
"There is no comparison between what he got in his salary and his pension," she said.
Ms Bailey said Mr Rocks was treated "very different financially to other presenters".
He could not work out why, she added.
"That is not right, and it should have been fixed many, many years ago," she said.
She said she would like to meet Mr Bakhurst face to face to find out how it happened.
"Seán wanted to be staff. He raised this very often with management every single year his contract was renewed, and he "never got anywhere with it".
Ms Bailey said Mr Rocks was never remotely anywhere near the top 10 paid presenters.
"We are not talking about someone who has a sideline, a private company, an Ltd… all he got was his RTÉ income… he got a very modest wage.
"We are very disadvantaged financially because of this, particularly in missing out on those pension payments over the years.
"Because of his misclassification too, the final number for his life insurance death in service, that is out of whack completely and is deeply lacking.
"I am a single mother, with two very young children left in this very precarious situation, where I am trying to talk to insurance companies and get this sorted," she said.
Ms Bailey said she is being told: "No, it is down to RTÉ, these are the figures we’ve got from RTÉ".
"Going forward, I need this money for their future, and I think Seán would have wanted them to be looked after," she said.
In a statement to staff, Mr Bakhurst said that Mr Rocks was employed (and classified) as a presenter with RTÉ from 2010 until his untimely death in 2025.
He said Mr Rocks was "deeply respected in RTÉ and beyond, and his loss is still felt right across the organisation".
He added that this was clear in the interview given by Ms Bailey this morning on RTÉ's Today with David McCullagh.
Mr Bakhurst said he frequently met with individuals who wish to discuss their contractual situations and related benefits - and is happy to meet again with Ms Bailey - but added he is "limited in terms of my ability to intervene on behalf of individuals or to make specific requests in relation to individual cases, as much as I may want to".
"I hope and believe that when we deal with bereaved family members, we do so with compassion and understanding. Having said that, we can always do better and we remain committed to doing so."
