The cast of TV3 crime soap Red Rock earn 25% less than actors on arch RTÉ rival Fair City, the Herald has revealed.

The newspaper is reporting that Red Rock stars earn €344 for a day shift, while if you're on Fair City you can expect to take home €459 per day.

The rate of Fair City's pay for actors was revealed under the Freedom of Information Act in May, along with the news that 15 of its 26 scriptwriters receive close to €3,500 each for an episode.

RTÉ came in for some criticism when it emerged that a single episode of Fair City costs the national broadcaster approximately €55,000 to produce.

The 198 episodes produced in 2015 cost a total of €10.8m.

Meanwhile, TV3 has pumped €7m into its own soap thus far.

Red Rock producers refused to comment on their own actors pay, though an industry insider did tell the Herald that staff had to work harder without the "luxury" of a combination of state funds and ad revenue.

The soap has been engaged in a battle with its RTE counterpart since its hit Irish screens back in January 2015. The latest season of Red Rock is set to air on TV3 from September. Red Rock has now been picked up by Amazon in the US and will launch on BBC One from next Monday. 

Fair City remains the country's most popular soap, however, generally pulling in an average of 550,000 viewers per episode.