RTÉ pay controversy: Where are we now?
- As the RTÉ controversy continues over Ryan Tubridy’s pay, RTÉ board members and executives appeared before the PAC (Public Accounts Committee).
- RTÉ's interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch told the committee it was “possible” Ryan Tubridy had been aware the issue of the additional payments before his departure from the Late Late Show.
- Ms Ní Raghallaigh, chair of the RTÉ board, said the reporting of the payments to Ryan Tubridy were an act “designed to deceive”. She said RTÉ needs to look at how it spends its money starting with its highest earners.
- Patrick Kielty reveals his salary for presenting The Late Late Show will be €250,000 per season plus €20,000 for the rehearsals and planning for the new season. He said he will pay for his own flights and accommodation.
- Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly should appear before an Oireachtas committee, adding it would be “the right thing” for them to do.
- RTÉ's appearance at the media committee yesterday was a “missed opportunity” to get answers, and today was a “very crucial day” for the organisation, Simon Harris has said.
Best reads:
- Jennifer Bray has ten things we learned from RTÉ executives’ bruising day in front of the Public Accounts Committee.
- For a different take on yesterday’s proceedings, Miriam Lord writes: Where is Dee Forbes? Under the bus, was the general consensus in the committee room. Read her piece here.
- In his analysis Arthur Beesley says the hearing showed the profound challenge facing RTÉ over the pay crisis.
- And one of our most-read articles is Fintan O’Toole’s piece from Tuesday: Ryan Tubridy chose silence instead of speaking out. An extended silence should follow.
- What is a barter account? Colm Keena explains.
So it’s a slush fund then, isn’t it?
There came a weak squeak from the doleful-looking witness.
“Okay.”
Miriam Lord: A terrible day for the RTÉ team, thoroughly demolished by the PAC and with another rematch on the cards.
With that, we’ll leave you. Until tomorrow.
If you’re just joining us and struggling to catch up with a full day’s coverage, here’s Jennifer Bray’s wrap-up of all the news emerging from RTÉ's Public Accounts Committee appearance.
RTÉ's presentation of Tubridy payments ‘designed to deceive’, chair tells PAC
If you’re puzzled as to exactly what the role of each of the people appearing in quotations and clips through the day might be, here’s a handy guide filed by Shauna Bowers.
Moya Doherty served as chairwoman of the board of RTE from 2014 until 2022. Previously, she was a director of television production company Tyrone Productions and was a founding director of the independent national commercial radio station Radio Ireland, which was later rebranded to Today FM.
Willie O’Reilly, former group commercial director of RTE, left the company several years ago to devote more time in the charity sector. He worked in broadcasting for more than 30 years both in the private sector and in RTÉ, where he was executive producer of The Gerry Ryan Show for a ten-year period.
Adrian Lynch is the interim deputy director general of RTÉ, having previously worked as channel controller for RTÉ One and RTÉ 2. He joined the national broadcaster in December 2014, according to his LinkedIn.
Geraldine O’Leary is the Director of Commercial at RTÉ. She joined the national broadcaster in 1997 as manager television sales and was promoted to director of sales and marketing in 1999, before being appointed as commercial director in 2003. She was appointed Group Head of Commercial in 2018.
Paula Mullooly has held the position of Director of Legal Affairs at RTÉ since 2019. A graduate of law at Trinity College Dublin, Ms Mullooly acted as legal counsel to Independent News and Media before joining RTÉ.
Rory Coveney, director of strategy, has been with RTÉ since 2007 in a variety of roles. Since his appointment to directorship in 2011, he has sound to lead a new strategy function encompassing corporate strategy, new ventures and innovation, public affairs, and strategic risk management, according to RTE’s own website.
RTE’s Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins has been in the role since 2020. Prior to joining RTÉ, he spent 13 years in the retail sector. Most recently he served as Director of Finance at Dunnes Stores, he was also finance director at Superquinn during the company’s integration into the Musgrave Group.
Siún Ní Raghallaigh, chairwoman of the board of RTE, took up the role in November last year, having worked in media or television production since 1987. Most notably, she served as managing director of TG4 between November 1994 and March 2001, before leaving the broadcaster. She later returned to the organisation as chairwoman of its board in April 2012 for a 10-year term. She was also chief executive of Ardmore Studios and Troy Studios, which work on international films, located in Limerick, until 2021.
Anne O’Leary, the chair of the audit and risk committee, was first appointed to the board of RTE in 2014, with her term coming to an end in November 2024. She is a member of the institute of directors, with RTE describing her as an “experienced business executive with a proven track record in helping companies develop new routes to market and exploit technology to optimise potential”.
Robert Shortt joined RTÉ as a journalist on the News at One in 1998 and has since worked across many of the programmes in the News & Current Affairs division. He is the RTE staff representative on the board, with his term due to end in November.
Board member Dr PJ Mathews is an associate professor in the School of English, Drama and Film at UCD and specialises in Irish literature and culture. He was appointed to the board in November 2014 and his term will come to an end next November.
Was former RTÉ managing director of news and current affairs Jon Williams among those attending the Champions League final using barter account funds? The Liverpool native has addressed the question on his Twitter feed:
What is a barter account? Undoubtedly a common question around dinner tables, workplaces, pubs and beyond today. Colm Keena explains.
RTÉ management has been told to go away and come back with a sheaf of documentation in relation to this scandal and to reappear again next Thursday.
It’s been a day of some sensational revelations which is going to land the broadcaster further into the mire. Perhaps, the most jaw-dropping revelation is the amount of money that was funnelled through the slush fund, sorry barter accounts, to keep RTÉ advertising clients happy.
This included €110,000 for travel and hotels to the Rugby World Cup, 10 year IRFU season tickets at the cost of €138,000 and Champions League final tickets costing €26,000.
In 2019 commercial director Geraldine O’Neill brought clients from Drumcondra to a U2 concert and her husband “probably came with me as every guest have their partners”. The guests were brought from a Drumcondra restaurant to Croke Park only a short distance.
Then there was the possibility that Ryan Tubridy did know that others knew about the secret payments to him before he announced his retirement on March 16th. RTÉ's chief financial officer Richard Collins revealed that Deloitte first raised issues about the payment on March 7th, nine days before Tubridy announced his shock retirement.
Finally we are told that legally speaking Tubridy no longer has a contract with RTÉ yet he was, until last week, still on air. There are still many questions that need answering at the end of all of this.
On the whistle analysis from Jennifer Bray: 10 things we learned from RTÉ's PAC appearance: from ‘god-like’ agents to Tubridy timeline.
There was an awkward moment halfway through the committee hearing when chief financial officer Richard Collins was asked what his salary is, especially given it was going to be published anyway, she writes. A long pause followed, before he revealed he is paid around €200,000 with a €25,000 car allowance on top. “It’s an extraordinary amount of money,” said Sinn Féin’s John Brady.
That’s it, they’re done. Brian Stanley starts listing all of the documents that the executives have been asked to provide to the committee but gives up and says that when the transcript of today’s proceedings have been finalised, the list will be forwarded. It might be shorter to list the ones they have not been asked for.
Geraldine O’Leary, pressed on the three events that were staged at Renault properties, says she is not sure but “I understand RTÉ equipment was not used” to record the proceedings. Alan Kelly says that equipment might not have been but RTÉ crews were. Ms O’Leary says she would have to check that. “Well, it’s the opinion of quite a few people in RTÉ that you didn’t,” says Mr Kelly.
Labour TD Alan Kelly lived up to his reputation as AK-47 with his second round of questioning at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
He wants 20 years of transactions that were conducted through the barter account. He want to know how much RTÉ spent on Toy Show - the Musical which he described as an “unmitigated disaster”.
He then asked about the status of Ryan Tubridy within the organisation. Does he have a contract or not?
If Tubridy’s contract ended in May after he finished the current season of the Late Late Show, how is he still employed in RTÉ?
Interim deputy general Adrian Lynch said a subsequent offer had gone out to Tubridy through an agent but it is “now in dispute”.
RTÉ's head of legal services Paula Mullooly said “we have stated that the previous contract is at an end. I know the agent disputes that. There is no written contract in place at the moment. I don’t know if there is a written agreement about his appearances on radio until a new contract is signed.”
Mr Kelly responded: “How could somebody be employed under one contract that finished up and then work under a new contact that has not been signed?”
Ms Mullooly responded: “I can tell from a legal point of view there is no new contract. There may be an oral agreement.”
The second half of the Public Accounts Committee was a little more muted, writes Jennifer Bray, but just as interesting. Much of the focus in the second portion was around the barter account, and given the fact committee members have asked for stacks of extra documentation on this, we can expect to hear much more in the coming weeks.
Some examples were given about spending in the account, including €111,000 for flights and accommodation for advertising clients in 2019 to the Rugby World Cup, 10 year IRFU tickets worth €138,000 and tickets and accommodation for the Champions League final in 2019 worth €26,000.
We heard a little more, too, from former chair Moya Doherty, and many had been hoping to hear her take on what has happened.
Firstly, she said neither her nor her colleagues knew of the controversial barter account, which is an account used for the exchange of goods or services.
“That is staggering and absolutely shocking that we didn’t even pick in the corridors of RTÉ of the existence of the barter fund,” Ms Doherty said.
She said she appreciated it may be common in the commercial world, but it raised a tension in that balance between commercial and public service. RTÉ journalist Robert Shortt also gave evidence and said he was shocked about the existence of the account.
Overall, there was a sense that RTÉ senior executives were a little more forthcoming than yesterday’s hearing, but there are still unanswered questions, including namely: whose idea was it to label the €75k top up payments as “consultancy fees”. All eyes will be on the PAC, again, in the coming days and weeks to see if it does indeed compel Dee Forbes to answer that very question.
Pat Leahy reports from Brussels: RTÉ needs to learn that the culture at the station has to change, the Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has said.
Mr Donohoe said that it was clear that processes would have be changed at the broadcaster. “But running alongside that there has to be evidence to people like me that the culture in relation to those processes at a senior level has changed and will change,” he said.
Mr Donohoe, who was one of the Government ministers opposed to increasing public funding for the station last year, said that the need for culture change at the station “certainly makes those questions of future funding more complex.”
However, he said, “we need an RTÉ at the end of this”.
Mr Donohoe said it was a matter for discussion whether RTE’s current hybrid of public funding and commercial revenues could be sustained into the future, but he said that the mix between the two was “a big part of the difficulties”. But he said he didn’t want to come to any conclusion at this point that the model couldn’t work.
Asked about the use of the term “slush fund” Moya Doherty said: “None of us knew of the existence of this barter fund. For me as chair and my colleagues on the board, that is staggering and absolutely shocking”.
RTÉ journalist Robert Shortt has just given evidence to the committee. He says he is “shocked” to know of the existence of barter accounts and it is not something that many in RTÉ current affairs would know about. He was asked about 10 year IRFU tickets and Champions League final tickets. He responded: “I don’t mean to make a joke here. In RTÉ the joke is that the RTÉ Guide is the perk, that we might get a free RTÉ Guide every week, that’s about it. Staff generally do not have any sight of what was described here today.”
Rory Coveney, brother of Simon, is the director of strategy with RTÉ. Rory Coveney says he never had a conversation with Dee Forbes about “top talent negotiations”.
PAC chairman Brian Stanley said RTÉ management has defended the high salaries paid to “talent” because otherwise they would walk in a competitive market.
He asks Mr Coveney who else would pay the kind of salaries some RTÉ presenters earn.
“There was one specific case when one of our stars left for Newstalk [Pat Kenny]. It is timely to reflect on that,” Mr Coveney said.
He added that he had never spoken to the Dee Forbes or anybody else in management in RTÉ about the necessity of “top-talent fees”.
There was one specific case when one of our stars left for Newstalk.”
Asked about the number of transactions on the barter account, Richard Collins tells the committee there were “hundreds”.
Director of Legal Affairs Paula Mullooly says she is reluctant to provide the committee with note taken in relation to zoom call in which RTÉ's underwriting of the Renault deal due to desire to protect legally privileged document in light of active and threatened legal actions
Catherine Murphy asks RTÉ's chief financial officer Richard Collins if he felt former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes was not being truthful when she said pay top-ups for Ryan Tubridy were actually consultancy fees for NK Management. He answers “yes” to that question.
RTÉ's interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch told the committee it was “possible” Ryan Tubridy had been aware the issue of the additional payments before his departure from the Late Late Show.
Responding to a question from Sinn Féin TD John Brady as to whether he might have been told the issue was to be raised and that this might have “influenced” the timing of his departure, Mr Lynch said: “Based on the information from yesterday, it’s possible.”
Alan Kelly tells Siún Ní Raghallaigh that if he had been the line minister involved she would no longer be the chair of the Board of RTÉ. “If you went to a meeting and didn’t tell me what you didn’t tell Minister [Catherine] Martin in relation to asking for the resignation of the director general, you wouldn’t be in your position. I don’t think any minister would put up with that and I don’t expect this minister to put up with it. That is information you have to tell the minister.” Moya Doherty says she would have told the minister involved.
RTÉ interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch reveals that Patrick Kielty waived €50,000 in potential expenses offered to him by RTÉ.
Independent TD Verona Murphy asks why Ryan Tubridy was taken off air when it appears he did nothing wrong.
Interim director general Adrian Lynch said it was his decision along with that of the Director of Content to take him off air.
Ms Murphy said it could potentially exposé RTÉ to hundreds of thousands if not millions in compensation. It is a decision that has “ruined Ryan Tubridy”.
Mr Lynch said what Mr Tubridy did was not illegal, but it was not right.
Some €1.25 million has gone through barter accounts in the last 10 years. RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins was asked for three times this was used. It included €111,000 for flights and accommodation for advertising clients in 2019 to the Rugby World Cup, 10 year IRFU tickets worth €138,000 and tickets and accommodation for the Champions League final in 2019 worth €26,000.
Asked for her view of the expenditures, chair of the RTÉ board Siún Ní Raghallaigh described them as “outrageous ... expenditure like that should have gone through the procurement system. I do believe that that’s now been put in place.”
“I have been around public accounts for a long time and this is the most extraordinary meeting I have attended,” said Labour TD Alan Kelly. He wants all RTÉ's bank accounts, barter accounts disclosed to the Public Accounts Committee.
Political correspondent Jennifer Bray writes: In his contribution, Fianna Fáil TD Cormac Devlin remarked there had been a change in tone in today’s hearing, in comparison to yesterday and previous days.
He’s right: none of the executives who appeared shied away from the agreeing that the situation is “a mess”, that some of the explanations have been “ridiculous” and that the arrangement in question was “appalling.”
In fact the only moment of hesitation came on behalf of the station’s chief financial officer Richard Collins who appeared completely thrown by a question on how much his own salary was. After a long pause, he said he believes it is around €200,000 with a €25,000 car allowance. Sinn Féin’s John Brady didn’t waste any time in remarking on how he felt about a “chief financial officer who doesn’t know his own salary.”
What have we learned though?
A few things.
Firstly, through Collins, we heard his account of Dee Forbes explanation for the €75k invoice labelled as “consultancy fees.” He said he was told by her that it was “for advice that Dee Forbes had received around how RTÉ structured itself and presented itself during Covid-19.”
Secondly, we learned that the RTÉ board is going to be overhauled.
We also know now that Ms Forbes may be compelled to appear before the PAC when she is physically ready to do so. We know that the salaries of more top earners will be published, and we now that RTÉ is considering changes that would end the days of major agents holding outsized power. Presenters may also have to declare all interests.
For the first half of the committee, it seems that the answers are certainly more forthcoming today.
RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins says he is paid around €200,000 with a €25,000 car allowance on top. “It’s an extraordinary amount of money,” says John Brady. “Essentially what you became was a messenger boy for Dee Forbes. You took a message from Dee Forbes, didn’t question it and brought it back to Deloitte”. Mr Brady suggests that Mr Collins should have done more to question the false invoice payments.
Sinn Féin TD John Brady asks Siún Ní Raghallaigh if the rest of the RTÉ board shared her view that the payments to Ryan Tubridy were “designed to deceive”. Yes she said and the executive board feels the same way.
Political correspondent Jennifer Bray writes: Committee members are now getting into the crux of the issue now: how the €75k top-ups were made and why the invoices were labelled as being for “consultancy fees.”
Paula Mullooly, director of legal affairs of RTÉ, told the committee that it was “highly inappropriate” that the invoices were labelled as consultancy fees, when it has since emerged that they were top-up payments.
Some of the most revealing exchanges so far have been between Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster and RTÉ's chief financial Richard Collins, who has revealed some significant new information.
The committee was always going to want to know if these payments, and how they were described, rang alarm bells.
So did they?
It seems the answer from Collins was both yes and no. He described asking Dee Forbes what these invoices for “consultancy fees” were for. The conversation happened after the auditors let their concerns be known.
“I can’t remember exactly how she explained it. It was to do with how RTÉ was structured during Covid-19. It was advice that Dee Forbes had received around how RTÉ structured itself and presented itself during Covid-19. I relayed back what I was told.”
Collins then said: “She gave what appeared to be a plausible explanation.”
And yet, under further questioning from committee chair Brian Stanley, Mr Collins then said: “I was concerned, but I knew that the director general had a close relationship with Noel Kelly.”
Fine Gael TD Colm Burke says the so-called barter account was nothing other than a “slush fund”. He said he had worked in business for 30 years and a €75,000 fee for consultancy services was never probed properly. He also wonders how the barter company was able to charge a handling fee of 35 per cent.
RTÉ's chief financial officer Richard Collins says that the incoming director general Kevin Bakhurst will be drawing up a register of interests that all presenters will have declare.
Consultancy fees
There has been some sensational evidence at the PAC from RTÉ's chief finance officer Richard Collins.
On March 7th, Deloitte approached him stating that there were things in the RTÉ audit they were not happy about.
“They raised the issues of the invoices [the €150,000 payments to Tubridy] and what they were for.”
Mr Collins approached director general Dee Forbes about the payments. She told Mr Collins that they were consultancy invoices to services provided during Covid-19 for NK Management.
“The services were in relation to how we restructured during Covid-19. He [Noel Kelly] was giving advice in terms of how we dealt with sponsors.”
He related it back to Deloitte. “The response I gave to Deloitte – they were not happy about it.”
Mr Collins said he did not know the “consultancy fees” were destined for Ryan Tubridy.
RTÉ interim director general Adrian Lynch has described the arrangement made with Ryan Tubridy whereby RTÉ underwrote the deal with Renault as “absolutely appalling”.
He says the only evidence he has found is that this was a deal agreed between director general Dee Forbes and NK Management on May 7th, 2020.
Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor has queried why the agent Noel Kelly has a “God-like status” within RTÉ.
“An act designed to deceive”
Here’s our political correspondent Jennifer Bray.
“An act designed to deceive” – these were the words of Siún Ní Raghallaigh, chairwoman of the RTÉ board. By any measure, it’s a stunning statement but one which gets to the heart of the matter around the underrepresentation of payments to Ryan Tubridy.
It is significant, too, that the Public Accounts Committee has been given extra powers including around compellability, meaning that when former director general Dee Forbes is well enough to do so, she will likely be ordered to appear before the PAC.
Furthermore, acting director general Adrian Lynch told the committee that RTÉ's executive board failed to ensure good governance.
It’s a long way off the original statement made by RTÉ when this scandal broke, where the blame almost seemed to be directly squarely on Ms Forbes and away from the board, as it was contended that it did not have enough information to discern the full facts. Now, Mr Lynch says the entire executive board will be reconstituted.
More from Ms Ní Raghallaigh:
“Finally, can I say something about the use of the word ‘talent’. Words matter and the term, as it is currently used, reinforces a ‘them and us’ culture in RTÉ.
“It implies some have greater worth than others. The first step in cultural change is to consign this term to the dustbin.”
RTÉ board chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh has not held back at the Public Accounts Committee.
“As a trained accountant and a former financial controller, I am appalled as to how payments were recorded and presented in the RTÉ accounts.
“What was the motivation here? It appears to me that this was an act designed to deceive.”
Here’s more from our political reporter Jack Horgan-Jones:
Interim director general Adrian Lynch will signal a shake-up of top executive ranks at RTÉ following the scandal over Ryan Tubridy’s pay. In an opening statement to PAC this afternoon, he will restate RTÉ's “deep regret” and concede that the executive board “failed in its responsibility to act as a collective and failed to ensure good governance in this matter”.
He will add there was an “overreliance on the prerogative asserted by the director general [Dee Forbes].
“We acknowledge and accept this failure by those members of the executive who were aware of the contract.”
He will say that he has spoken to Kevin Bakhurst, the incoming Director General, and that he understands Mr Bakhurst’s “first task will be a reconstitution of the Executive Board of RTÉ”.
Patrick Kielty reveals his salary for presenting The Late Late Show
BREAKING NEWS from our Northern editor Freya MacClements. Patrick Kielty has revealed his salary for presenting The Late Late Show. Here is his statement in full:
“I’m pleased to finally be able to share that I’ve signed a three season deal to host the Late Late Show beginning this September.
“I’m being paid €250,000 per 30-show season. If additional shows are requested by RTÉ, they’ll be paid on a pro-rata basis.
“I’m also receiving a one-off payment of €20,000 to cover the pre-production and rehearsals from now to September.
“The contract allows me to submit flight and accommodation expenses, but I’ve waived this. I’ve made it clear to RTÉ that I will be covering my own flights and accommodation costs.
“I’ve also asked RTÉ to carbon offset my flights. I genuinely hope this helps clarify things going forward. I can’t wait to get started.”
This from political reporter Jack Horgan-Jones: The top civil servant in the Department of Media will tell the Public Accounts Committee that RTÉ must show “appropriate leadership” after being “badly damaged” by revelations about Ryan Tubridy’s pay.
The committee will hear that there is a need for the broadcaster to “give a full account of all the circumstances that have led to the making of these payments [to Ryan Tubridy] and the understatement of earnings”.
Katherine Licken, the secretary general of the department, will tell the PAC that her department is “working intensively” to ensure that “the governance structures and culture that enabled this matter to arise, in the first instance, are comprehensively addressed”.
Who will attend today’s Public Accounts Committee meeting?
Here is the list of RTÉ attendees to appear at the Public Accounts Committee at 1.30pm. It may also include the former RTÉ board chairman Moya Doherty and former group commercial director Willie O’Reilly.
- Adrian Lynch – Interim Deputy Director General
- Geraldine O’Leary – Director of Commercial
- Paula Mullooly – Director of Legal Affairs
- Rory Coveney – Director of Strategy
- Richard Collins – Chief Financial Officer
- In terms of the RTÉ Board, the representatives are:
- Siún Ní Raghallaigh – Chairperson of the Board
- Anne O’Leary – Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee
- Robert Shortt – Member of the Audit and Risk Committee and RTÉ staff representative on the Board.
- Dr PJ Matthews -Board Member
More from Pat Leahy: Mr Varadkar said he did not think the chairwoman of RTÉ's board, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, should resign despite not informing Minister for Arts and Media Catherine Martin that Dee Forbes had been suspended.
Asked what RTÉ needed to do to win back the confidence of the Government, the Taoiseach said: “the most important thing RTÉ has to do is to win back the confidence of the public, and of the licence-payers.
“I think the most important thing they can do today, is to give full and frank answers, full and frank information to the Oireachtas committee. Because that’s really what people need to see,” he said.
The Taoiseach said Ms Martin was approaching a person to head the Government’s review into RTÉ and expected that the Coalition would announce that tomorrow, or early next week. He said questions about the funding of the broadcaster were a separate matter to the current controversy, but he said that public service broadcasting “is not just about RTÉ”.
He said the Government would need to resume its work on the reform of the television licence at some point in the future but added that funding from the licence needs “to be distributed more fairly, so that it doesn’t all go to RTÉ ... that other people can access it as well”.
This from our business reporter Joe Brennan and it is likely to be more bad news for RTÉ: Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said on Thursday it is difficult for the Government to make any major decisions on RTÉ's funding model amid the “maelstrom” surrounding the broadcaster’s €345,000 of hidden payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy.
Mr McGrath said: “there does seem to be a cultural problem at senior levels” in the State-owned broadcaster and that it has yet give an adequate account publicly of the nature of the transactions.
The only way forward for RTÉ is to provide complete “warts-and-all” transparency on the background of the controversial payments, the Minister said to reporters in Dublin as he attended the launch of a Financial Services Union strategic plan.
“It’s difficult for Government to make any fundamental decisions around the future funding model in the maelstrom RTÉ is in,” he said. “We would hope that this is going to be dealt with over a relatively short period of time, and the decisions can be made. But the Government’s commitment to public service broadcasting is assured and will continue into the future.
“The precise model and the mechanism of that will need to be worked out. There is a lot of noise on this issue at the moment. We just need clarity on exactly what happened, why it happened – and that will enable the Government to move on and make important public policy decisions so that the ordinary staff in RTÉ can get on and continue with their work.”
A Government review of the loss-making RTÉ funding model has been ongoing, but a final decision on the outcome has now been paused pending the completion of an external review of governance and culture at the broadcaster, which was ordered amid the furore around the underreporting of Mr Tubridy’s salary.
The broadcaster has been pushing the Government to introduce a compulsory licence fee for households, whether they have a television or not, as it is currently losing about €65 million amid licence fee evasion and avoidance.
Leo Varadkar says Ryan Tubridy should go before a committee
This from political editor Pat Leahy: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly should appear before an Oireachtas committee to give an account of the top-up payments he received from RTÉ, adding that it would be “the right thing” for them to do.
“We are trying to get to the bottom of what happened when it comes to these unusual clandestine payments in RTÉ,” Mr Varadkar told journalists at the EU summit in Brussels.
“RTÉ executives and board members have come at an Oireachtas committee to answer questions,” he said.
“There are other people who could shine a light on this, and they include Ryan Tubridy, they include his agent and they include Dee Forbes, and I still think they should be willing to come before the committee and answer questions.
“There are procedures, they will be treated fairly, and I think that would be the right thing to do from their part. They may have a story to tell, and I think it’s right that they should be allowed to tell their side of the story.”
Two questions that have yet to be addressed relate to the €75,000 payment. Why was it that Dee Forbes sought to make this payment in the first place given that, at the time in 2020, Ryan Tubridy was earning €495,000? Where else was he going to go? What broadcaster in Ireland would pay him that amount of money?
The other questions relate to his successor Patrick Kielty. Will he now walk away given the hassle involved? His resumé would suggest that the last TV series he hosted was in 2016 for BBC Northern Ireland called Delete, Delete, Delete. It may explain the alacrity to which he accepted the job as Late Late Show host and his willingness to allow his salary to become publicly available. Who needs who more, RTÉ or Patrick Kielty?
Ireland’s EU commissioner Mairead McGuinness, a former RTÉ journalist, told the Today with Claire Byrne show that RTÉ needs to address the “five Ws” – who, what, where, when and why of the Tubridy saga.
RTÉ management needs not only to get its ducks in a row but “to stop ducking. Everything has to be clearer than yesterday”. The consequences for RTÉ's reputation as a result of this debacle is serious, he said.
“I know what happens when people lost faith in the banks. They [RTÉ] will need to rebuild trust with their audience,” she said.
“There has to be fundamental change. Everything has to be in the open because of the unique position that RTÉ holds.”
Ms McGuinness also suggested that ought to include a register of all outside gigs by RTÉ staff.
Fianna Fáil Senator Timmy Dooley is not holding back on RTÉ Radio 1′s Claire Byrne Show.
RTÉ management are either “really deceitful or disingenuous in the extreme”, he said, adding: “the management structure is operating in a grey, shadow area that one would not expect from an organisation that is dependent on the goodwill and loyalty of the licence-payers.”
The last week has shown the best and worst of RTÉ, he said. RTÉ journalists have done an amazing job in holding management to account, the worst is management not following or seeming to know about due process and procedure, Mr Dooley said.
If RTÉ management were a government, the government would have fallen by now, he suggested, adding there are a number of people at the top of RTÉ who will have to consider their own positions.
RTÉ's committee appearance on Wednesday a ‘missed opportunity’
My colleague Shauna Bowers has more political reaction to RTÉ's committee appearance on Wednesday.
RTÉ's appearance at an Oireachtas committee on Wednesday was a “missed opportunity” to get answers, and Thursday is a “very crucial day” for the organisation, Minister for Higher and Further Education Simon Harris has said.
On Wednesday, a four-hour meeting of the arts committee heard RTÉ chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh acknowledge “shocking” governance failings in the national broadcaster as it faces a deepening conflict with star presenter Ryan Tubridy over hidden payments in a deal with Renault.
The broadcaster’s board members and executives are due back in the Oireachtas at 1.30pm for a meeting with the Public Accounts Committee.
Speaking in Dublin on Thursday morning, Mr Harris described the meeting as “crucial”.
“I think, in many days, yesterday was a missed opportunity. I think there remain serious outstanding questions and I hope the answers to them are forthcoming. It is really important that questions are answered and answered in their entirety, both the actual question and the spirit of the question,” he told The Irish Times.
“I think yesterday we saw a number of issues that are concerning. It’s clear there is an issue around timeline.”
Mr Harris spoke about the importance of public-service broadcasting in a functioning democracy.
“To help all of that be protected, we need the management to step up and to not allow today end without providing the clarity that is needed,” he added.
Call for role of Noel Kelly in Tubridy negotiations to be explained
Sinn Féin TD Brian Stanley, chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said the role of agent Noel Kelly in the negotiations for the Ryan Tubridy pay deal with RTÉ needed to be explained.
It appeared that an outside agent was calling the shots, Mr Stanley told RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland. “He had way more influence than he should have.”
Mr Stanley also told Newstalk Breakfast that today’s PAC meeting would be hoping for “more credible” answers than had been given at Wednesday’s media committee meeting with representatives of RTÉ.
The replies on Wednesday appeared to suggest that “all these senior people operate in silos even though they all belong to the one company, housed on the one campus. Listening to them you would think they lived in different countries,” he told Morning Ireland.
Governance at RTÉ seemed to be “bizarre” particularly in relation to responsibility, accountability, financial systems and practices with “absolutely bizarre and costly methods” of doing transactions and making payments, he said.
“There’s an awful lot of information you have to be dug into and to be uncovered in relation to all of this.” It was not credible that all of the responsibility for this “lay at the feet” of former director general Dee Forbes, Mr Stanley said.
There were nine members of the board of the authority, how could all of them have remained “in the dark” and not question the “unusual transactions”, he said. Mr Stanley added that further investigation was also required into the role of “NK Communications and Noel Kelly”.
“One of the things that came out of the Grant Thornton report was the actual power of Noel Kelly, the fact that in the final stages, in fact, at the final hurdle in the negotiations, he sent across the draft letter for the seniors in RTÉ to sign it.
“You have an outside agent actually calling the shots, having influence way beyond the way it should work. “But I think the big question as well that has to be answered is, why in the name of God, did anybody feel that Ryan Tubridy would walk as he was getting €495,000,” Mr Stanley said.
“Where exactly would he have walked to? Who was going to pay him more than that on the island of Ireland? So you could say he might have went to England? That perhaps is the case. But are there stations in England that scarce of people that they would poach from Ireland? I think it’s ridiculous the whole scenario that is being presented,” Mr Stanley said.
The senior RTÉ people coming before the PAC today had been in situ during the period of the negotiations for the Tubridy deal. “I think they will have answers. They have had the opportunity to get the answers to this over the last week, if they don’t have it at their fingertips it’s not credible.”
PAC chairman Brian Stanley has just been on Morning Ireland. “We hope to get more than yesterday. The explanations were bizarre. We need better than the non-explanation yesterday,” he said.
There is a lot of information to be uncovered, he said, adding the notion that RTÉ operates in silos is not credible and that it is not credible either to lay everything at the feet of former director general Dee Forbes.
It is “off the wall” that she was only one who knew about these transitions.
Mr Stanley says the members need to hear more about the involvement of Ryan Tubridy’s Noel Kelly in all of this. He may represent as many as 20 people within the organisation.
“One of the things that came from Grant Thornton is the power of Noel Kelly. Why in the name of God did anybody feel that he [Ryan Tubridy] would walk as he was getting €495,000 without a top-up of €75,000?
“Who on the island of Ireland is going to pay him more than this? I think it is a ridiculous scenario the way it was presented.”
Mr Stanley also said it was “bizarre” that the RTÉ chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh did not inform the Minister for Culture Catherine Martin at a previous meeting that the board of RTÉ had asked for Ms Forbes’s resignation.
Good morning, my name is Ronan McGreevy, and I will be covering the unfolding RTÉ story as senior executives face a second day at an Oireachtas committee, this time the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
It is day seven of the RTÉ saga. A week is a long time in politics, as the old saying goes, but it is an aeon in the career of Ryan Tubridy who hitherto had an unblemished career as Ireland’s best-paid broadcaster. Now his future in RTÉ is in real doubt.
The PAC will meet at 1.30pm in Committee Room 3 of Leinster House to examine matters relating to recent revelations regarding the transparency of RTÉ.
The meeting with current and former representatives of RTÉ and officials from the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media led by the secretary general, Ms Katherine Licken, will examine commercial arrangements entered into by RTÉ and its presenters, including those underwritten by RTÉ that have impacted on and relate to the expenditure of public money.
PAC chairman Brian Stanley issued a statement last night explaining that RTÉ would not normally come under its remit as it is not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General but that the committee sought and received an extension of its orders of reference to facilitate its examination of these matters.
“This examination will include the corporate governance arrangements at RTÉ in the context of the significant public funds it receives on an annual basis and commercial arrangements entered into by RTÉ which have impacted on, and relate to, the expenditure of public money,” he said.
“These matters for discussion and examination have arisen in the context of recent and ongoing revelations regarding RTÉ's payments to presenters.”
