Joe Duggan (Reporter)
AN expat radio presenter has been forced to hang up her headphones and turn off the mic for the last time.
Irish pensioner Rona Bourke has called time on her radio career after being ‘messed around’ by her town hall of Estepona for too long.
Slamming Estepona Town Hall for failing to pay its staff, ‘while paying thousands for murals and flower pots’, Bourke, 79, insists ‘enough is enough’.
The host on Radio Television Estepona for 12 years she slammed mayor Jose Urbano for not paying her for four years.
Promised her job would be safe by Urbano just before his 2011 election win, Bourke was shocked when her €200 monthly wage was suddenly stopped after he got in.
Told there was no money to pay her, Bourke battled on regardless with her weekly show for four years on the continual promise that money would start coming her way again ‘soon’.
But it never did, and three years after her on-air partner Eddie Taylor disappeared from the airways Rona has followed suit.
“The town hall kept telling me that the money would soon return, maybe I was naive to believe them,” Bourke told the Olive Press.
“I loved doing the show but I couldn’t go on working for free, it was demoralising. After four years of not being paid I have had enough.”
In further criticism of the town hall she continued:: “It’s all well and good decorating the town with flowerpots and paying thousands for giant murals but when you can’t afford to foot the payroll then something isn’t right.”
When asked about Bourke’s departure a town hall spokesman thanked her for her ‘12 years of service’ but would not comment on financial matters.
