Four and a half hours into the meeting, Committee Room One was rocked by yet another searing insight from the interim deputy director-general. “Look, there has been an event here which is significant,” revealed Adrian Lynch.
These RTÉ people were not holding back.
“We have done our job. We brought this to light,” confided Siún Ni Raghallaigh, chair of the board. “I’m actually proud of what we did in terms of bringing it to light.”
And then failing to shed any light.
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In the fast-moving world of popular meeting room dramas, RTÉ’s latest offering – Much Ado about Nothing to Do with Us – fell short of the high standard of entertainment expected these days. The Oireachtas cast missed a trick by not borrowing a dramatic device which could have considerably enlivened their Leinster House production. It was used to great effect last year at a school board meeting in a performance by a popular family ensemble from the west of Ireland.
TDs and Senators, once they realised they weren’t going to get much change out of the senior RTÉ representatives (Ryan Tubridy has it all), should have taken a different tack.
As the profoundly apologetic Nothing to Do with Us delegation repeated its “serious breach of corporate governance and breach of trust” mantra, it quickly became clear that members of the Media Committee would not find out who else, other than the recently departed director general of the national broadcaster, knew about or played a part in the outrageous Ryan Tubridy secret payments wheeze.
But Ryan was not at the meeting.
Neither was Dee Forbes, the woman who RTÉ’s corporate galacticos now say is to blame for everything they unfortunately haven’t a clue about because Dee told them nothing.
It wasn’t until the tail end of the show that Fianna Fáil’s Cathal Crowe intoned the special words. “Where is Ryan Tubridy?”
This should have happened much earlier when proceedings began to drag. As the witnesses endlessly apologised for their heroic state of ignorance, the politicians should have started up a chant.
Where is Ryan Tubridy?
Where is Ryan Tubridy, the former presenter of the Late Late Show?
Where is Ryan Tubridy?
Where is Ryan Tubridy, not on air for editorial reasons?
Followed by endless rounds of where is Dee Forbes?
Where is Dee Forbes, former director general of RTÉ?
Where is Dee Forbes ...”
It mightn’t have got them anywhere but it would have made better telly.
Although to be fair, there was general consensus in the room about the whereabouts of Ms Forbes, as pointed out by a number of TDs and Senators: “Under the bus.”
This particular bus, which may or may not have been part of the commercial arrangement between RTÉ and motor manufacturer Renault, the one used by the semistate organisation to funnel large top-up payments to the already highly remunerated broadcaster, played a major character part in Wednesday’s proceedings. It is, indeed, a remarkable vehicle.
“When the wheels came off the bus,” is how the interim DG chose to describe the moment Tubsgate exploded in Montrose, exposing a dysfunctional management culture at the heart of the national broadcaster and a hugely demoralised workforce (The Help) disgusted by the humungous wages paid to top broadcasters (The Talent).
Even so, bodies are still being cast under it. Who will be next?
“Was Larry Bass thrown under the bus?” asked Senator Michael Carrigy, referring to that time in 2021 when the veteran television producer was appointed to the RTÉ board by the Oireachtas Committee but resigned after his first meeting.
Sadly, and it wasn’t for the lack of trying to find an answer, none of the witnesses could confirm or deny that Dee Forbes, who will not be appearing before the committee for medical reasons, was consigned under the now wheel-free charabanc by her management colleagues.
Perhaps it is up on blocks around the back of the Fair City set because there seems to be plenty of room under it.
Unfortunately, RTÉ’s director of content, who had been expected to appear at the session, was unable to attend on Wednesday as he is recuperating from a surgical procedure he had underwent on Tuesday.
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Louth TD Peter Fitzpatrick’s gast couldn’t have been more flabbered had Leo Varadkar asked him to rejoin Fine Gael. “Let’s be honest. Dee Forbes is being thrown under a bus here.”
He was also trying to get his head around this barter account used by the commercial end of things in RTÉ – a common goods and services trading system in the media business. Who used that account, he wondered. “Is that used for going to parties?”
Martyrs to the barter in Montrose.
But apparently not. And anyway it’s now been regularised by a new accounting bigwig who wasn’t around when the Tubridy special deal was being drawn up by Dee Forbes and possibly the recuperating director of content and Tubridy’s agent and, well, he’s not sure after that.
From the interim DDG to the other members of the board and the executive board, the Independent TD couldn’t understand how seven people sitting together “don’t know nothing”.
A fellah would be worried. “Are they going to throw you under a bus?” Peter asked the very smooth talking Lynch. “Do you have a fear of being thrown under a bus?”
The DDG (interim) did not. ‘Cos he knew nothing. “I didn’t operationalise any of the commercial elements.” Of course he didn’t.
He was “munstered” early on in the proceedings by a different TD for Louth, who got stuck into the witnesses with a very robust line of questioning. Imelda Munster was not accepting the line being thrown out that Dee Forbes was to blame for the Turbridy debacle, and she was not buying the lack of knowledge and curiosity on display for the politicians.
“Aah, would yah stop!” she told the chief financial officer when he told her he was unaware of the “consultancy fees” element of the Tubridy payments as he was appointed when the bulk of his contract was concluded.
There was confusion among the group when Mattie McGrath, still sticking to his opinion that Dee Forbes should be arrested, kept asking “who are you lying to?”
Soft-spoken Adrian Lynch, with his very neutral RTÉ, Donnybrook, Dublin 4 accent, was puzzled.
“Who are you lying to about what?” he asked the Rural Independent TD for Tipperary.
“Loyal to,” barked Mattie. “Loyal”.
Oh. The penny dropped and the witnesses had a little giggle.
But Mattie, having ridiculously proclaimed “Putin wouldn’t get away with some of the tricks that ye got way with”, finished on a high by asking the chairwoman why she accepted Dee Forbes’s resignation when this would mean she was not obliged to attended the committee meeting. “A disastrous decision.”
Siún Ní Raghallaigh said she had no choice but to accept it because the former DG made her decision public at the same time.
But later, under further questioning from the incisive deputy Brendan Griffin, she revealed that she had asked Forbes to resign, which she didn’t. Then Ní Raghallaigh suspended her. So Forbes resigned.
“Do you accept you make a monumental mistake,” asked Griffin, pressing for an answer.
“Maybe in hindsight now …”
And then it transpired that Ryan Tubridy’s replacement, Patrick Kielty had signed his contract but it has yet to come before the renumeration committee. That will happen on Friday.
The meeting was almost over by the time somebody uttered those traditional words: “I had no hand, act or part”. The honour fell to Rory Coveney, brother of Minister for Enterprise Simon, who had NHAOP in negotiating contracts.
Timmy Dooley fumed about “a straw hut that was built to funnel money to an individual” and Richard Boyd Barret said “the people who concocted this would have known there would be murder”.
RBB also picked up on what was one of the most jarring aspect of the testimony – the constant reference to certain people in RTÉ as “The Talent”.
He said he didn’t like it. Who are The Talent? And how do they differ from the vast, vast majority “who are not talent, apparently”.
Adrian Lynch said he agreed with him about the undesirability of the phrase.
“Well, thanks,” shrugged Richard.
The most interesting contribution of the afternoon was from RTÉ’s chairwoman who told Labour’s Marie Sherlock about the management culture in RTÉ where people work within their own departments and do not communicate with other sections of the organisation. There is no questioning of a director general’s decisions and no discussion. “That for me was the shocking part of it,” said Siún Ní Raghallaigh, who is just seven months in her role.
It was no surprise when the committee finally finished, having run way over time, that the politicians were unhappy with what they heard. Questions still remain.
And the Public Accounts Committee will ask them on Thursday, taking up from where their colleagues left off. They will go in hard, but if the witnesses know nothing, the thing the TDs will get is frustrated.
As Fianna Fáil’s Christopher O’Sullivan remarked: “Bosco and his magic door is still present in RTÉ, and so is Fortycoats and his 50 pockets.”
How does that commercial go again?
RTÉ: Supporting the (dark) arts.
That’s it.
RTÉ. Supporting the (dark) arts.
