Brian O'Connell

Well, Sean Rocks died suddenly in July of last year at the age of 64.

He was the father of two.

He was a partner of some 22 years to Catherine.

And we did hear this week his family are questioning the financial impact now of his contractual situation with RTE.

They're questioning whether he was correctly classified and what impact this may have had on his pension and on various entitlements which now pass to his family.

We'll come back to that.

But first, I asked Sean's partner, Catherine, to tell me when she and Sean first met.

And you built a life together.

On the day when Sean died, it was a shock to everyone.

It was a shock to listeners, to all his colleagues in RT, to his family, I'm sure.

But I mean, for you, it must have been, I'd imagine, the most traumatic day of your life.

Well, as we all know, after someone dies, David, there is the very difficult task of trying to get their affairs in order.

And this is what Catherine set about doing.

Now, it was during this process, Catherine realised that to her mind, the pension numbers didn't seem to reflect all of Sean's career in RTE.

Had Sean mentioned to you that he'd had issues with RT in the past and trying to address some of his contractual situation?

Was Sean classified as a contractor or as an employee when he when he was working?

That's right.

And Catherine's first issue is the years, as you heard, he was presenting Arena when RT had regarded him as a producer with a presenter allowance.

Now, that allowance was not pensionable.

But also for many years he worked in RTE, Sean was on multiple fixed-term contracts and Catherine believes his pension did not reflect the full scope of his 25 years working across RTE, despite Sean being made a permanent employee in 2019.