Good morning – Jane Moore here. 

A week after RTÉ announced that it publicly understated Ryan Tubridy’s earnings by €345,000 since 2017, seven senior executives from the broadcaster’s board will come before an Oireachtas committee to face questions on the matter this afternoon. 

RTÉ Board chairperson Siún Ní Raghallaigh and board members Anne O’Leary and Robert Shortt will attend the Oireachtas Media Committee at 1.30pm. 

Also in attendance will be Adrian Lynch, the interim deputy director general, director of strategy Rory Coveney, director of commercial Geraldine O’Leary and chief financial officer Richard Collins.

I’ll be bringing you all of the latest updates as they happen. 

Tubridy’s contract ‘has come to an end’

Ryan Tubridy pictured on the series finale of The Late Late Show. Andres Poveda / RollingNews.ie Andres Poveda / RollingNews.ie / RollingNews.ie

Ahead of this afternoon’s committee, RTÉ has issued a statement to say that Ryan Tubridy’s contract has “come to an end” following his decision to step back from The Late Late Show. 

The national broadcaster also stated that negotiations around his radio show contract have been paused amid the ongoing controversy surrounding the undisclosed payments.

“RTÉ has written to his agent that the contract (including all arrangements therein) has come to an end,” the statement reads.

Negotiations had commenced regarding his radio responsibilities. Those negotiations have been paused as with all negotiations as per Board statement.

As we mentioned previously, the Public Accounts Committee, which will question RTÉ representatives tomorrow, have been coordinating with the Committee on Parliamentary Privileges and Oversight in an effort to allow it to examine RTÉ’s accounts. 

The Committee on Parliamentary Privileges and Oversight, which also acts as the Committee on Remit Oversight, is a cross-party committee that adjudicates on these matters.

The remit of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) is limited to the accounts that are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General, which does not include RTÉ.

However, the extension of its remit would allow the committee to examine RTÉ’s accounts.

The Journal reported on Monday that the motion would be before the Dáil today.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne this morning, Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn confirmed that the motion would go before the Dáil this evening.

“The Committee on Remit Oversight, which is a cross-party Oireachtas committee that adjudicates on these requests, and our committee have agreed that a motion will go before the Dáil this evening permitting the PAC to look at all of this with a number of conditions,” he said.

The conditions include that the PAC will look at RTÉ’s accounts from 2017 to date, that there would be a completion of their work as a committee by 31 December this year, and that they will bring a report before the Dáil.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn also told RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne that he believes it is a fair and reasonable request that the fee being paid to new Late Late Show presenter Patrick Kielty be made public. 

“I think it would be absolutely untenable to not bring that information into the public domain,” the Sinn Féin TD said.

“I think there’s a culture in the higher echelons of many organisations, but whatever about the private sector, it’s unacceptable in the public sector, to have this type of an approach. This sort of sense of entitlement where you can make obscure arrangements around payments.

“And I think people are outraged about that. I think the good people, the decent people, the vast majority of people in RTÉ, who believe in public broadcasting, who carry themselves with the utmost integrity and fairness and balance, they feel utterly let down and betrayed here.

“So we owe it to them to reinstate the good reputation of public service broadcasting in this country, to get to the bottom of all this and make sure it never happens again.”

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the government “do not believe it is credible that former DG, Dee Forbes, was the only person with knowledge of these events”.

The Taoiseach added that the the government expect “nothing but full and open transparency” from RTÉ management at Oireachtas committees today and tomorrow.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar also stated that RTÉ said the further Grant Thornton review – which is examining payments made to Ryan Tubridy between 2017-2019 – will be concluded within four weeks. 

“We do not believe that that timeline is satisfactory and have asked that the report be provided more quickly than that, and [Minister Catherine Martin] is engaging with RTÉ in that regard,” he told the Dáil during Leaders’ Questions today. 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that "we do not believe it is credible" that the former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes was the only person with knowledge of controversial payments to Ryan Tubridy | Read more: https://t.co/y0sVdO04oe pic.twitter.com/fz1cAnM91e

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) June 28, 2023

The Fórsa trade union has expressed deep concern at the recent events in RTÉ and said it fully endorsed the call by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on the board and senior management of the public service broadcaster to make the restoration of public trust a key priority.

Following a meeting of the union’s National Executive in Dublin today, Fórsa general secretary and president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Kevin Callinan said a restoration of trust could only be achieved through a full explanation by management which clarifies completely who was responsible.

“Public service broadcasting is vital to the functioning of a healthy democracy and the current crisis threatens to undermine trust and confidence in the organisation and puts at risk the reputation of the many staff who have had no involvement with this debacle and remain committed to the highest standards of public service,” Callinan said.

Fórsa said it supports the RTÉ Trade Union Group and shares the frustration of RTÉ workers who took pay cuts in the recent past to secure the future of the organisation.

It also welcomed the review announced by Minister Catherine Martin into the culture within RTÉ, but urged that it be fully transparent and provide for the interests of RTÉ workers to be represented by their trade unions.

Media Committee begins

The Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media is underway. 

Niamh Smyth, the chair of the committee, has said that committee member Chris Andrews of Sinn Féin has “a material interest” in today’s session. John Brady is taking his place.

Siún Ní Raghallaigh, the chair of the RTÉ Board, is about to give her opening statement. 

Siún Ní Raghallaigh has apologised to the public over the “breach of trust” caused by the payments. 

“We know that our bond of trust with the public is tarnished,” she said. 

She said RTÉ will work “step-by-step” to rebuild that trust. 

“We are committed to providing you with as much detail as possible and we wish to be as open and frank as we can.”

Ní Raghallaigh said Tubridy’s earnings were correctly accounted for in the RTÉ accounts and the earnings he received were what he was contractually entitled to. 

“In addition, for the record, I want to confirm that he did not receive an exit fee,” she added.

Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster is the first member of the committee to ask questions.

She says the idea that Dee Forbes is the only person who knew everything about the payments is not credible.

“The public wouldn’t swallow it and neither will we,” she said.

Munster asks RTÉ commercial director Geraldine O’Leary if she agreed with Tubridy’s agent that he should be paid through the barter account. 

O’Leary says she was asked by former director general Dee Forbes to do so. She says she was “advised by the DG that there was pressure” to settle Tubridy’s €75,000 fee each year, and to deal with NK Management about settling it.

Munster then asked if it was O’Leary who instructed that the payments be issued as ‘consultancy fees’.

O’Leary answers that she can’t answer “because I cannot remember the precise detail”. 

Imelda Munster then asks chief financial officer Richard Collins why he did not question the issuing of the payments as consultancy fees. 

Collins says he wasn’t aware of what they were and was not in control of the barter account, as it came under the control of commercial. 

“Ah, would you stop,” is Munster’s response. 

Fianna Fáil Senator Shane Cassells is next up. He asks deputy director general Adrian Lynch: “How did you let one man become bigger than RTÉ?”

Lynch says a guarantee was verbally given in relation to the fact that if the sponsor – Renault – fell out, RTÉ would pay Ryan Tubridy.

“That is the significant thing at the centre of this. In that instance and when that did occur, RTÉ should have declared Ryan Tubridy’s earnings,” he says. 

Lynch says that RTÉ “should never underwrite a commercial agreement, and in relation to the talent, to say that they will pay out of public funds to that talent”.

“That is what then led to incorrect figures being published, completely lacking transparency and a complete breach of corporate governance,” he says.

Cassells asks: “Can you guarantee me that you were never part of a chat, a verbal exchange, a chat in the corridor with Dee Forbes or others, regarding this side deal that allows Ryan Tubridy’s sponsorship deal to be underwritten by RTÉ?”

“100%,” Lynch responds. 

Adrian Lynch says that for editorial reasons, it is not possible for Ryan Tubridy to be on air at the moment. 

Asked if he envisages Tubridy being back on air in the long-term, Lynch gives the same answer. 

Independent TD Mattie McGrath. Oireachtas TV Oireachtas TV

Independent TD Mattie McGrath asks Siún Ní Raghallaigh why she accepted Dee Forbes’ resignation. 

Raghallaigh says she received Forbes’ resignation at the same time that it was made public.

McGrath states that the board could have refused Forbes’ resignation in order to complete an investigative process.

“That was the decision that was taken by the board,” says Ní Raghallaigh.

“It was a disastrous decision,” McGrath responds.

“Putin wouldn’t get away with some of the tricks you got away with, and I hate to use that parlance,” McGrath says. 

Committee chair Niamh Smyth asks him to stay on topic, after he accuses RTÉ of “promoting” the Covid-19 pandemic.

Earlier on, RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins said the mis-stated fees for Ryan Tubridy between 2017-2019 relate to a loyalty bonus he was owed, which was credited against his earnings.

Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster asked Collins about the €120,000 of previously undisclosed payments from RTÉ to Tubridy between 2017-2019.

Collins said: “This was an adjustment that was made to the figures.

“Basically, in short, Ryan Tubridy was due a loyalty bonus at the end of his contract of €120,000. That was never paid, was never accrued from the accounts, but for an unexplained reason that 120,000 was credited against his earnings between 2017 and 2019.

“That’s under investigation at the moment by Grant Thornton.”

He said this was signed off by former director general Dee Forbes and the CFO at the time.

Labour Senator Marie Sherlock. Oireachtas TV Oireachtas TV

Labour Senator Marie Sherlock asks the board if they are aware of any other “top-up” payments with any other high-earner at RTÉ, similar to those received by Ryan Tubridy.

All of the representatives say they are not.

Marie Sherlock asks chief financial officer Richard Collins if anyone else at RTÉ has a clause in their contract for an end-of-contract payment. 

He says he believes there have been some in the past, but he is certainly not aware of any at the moment. 

RTÉ Board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh. Oireachtas TV Oireachtas TV

Asked if she accepts that she is providing over a “dysfunctional executive”, Siún Ní Raghallaigh says there is “very much a cultural issue within the organisation”.

“You can see it. This is why we’re here. It’s a culture that’s in here that accepts that ‘well, that’s approved by the DG so I’m not going to talk about it’. I think people here would agree now that that’s wrong.

“For me, I’m only there seven months but for me, that was the shocking part of it as well, that there wasn’t the conversations that we all would assume would happen.”

Asked about the business model at RTÉ and the national broadcaster paying “enormous sums” to a small number of presenters, Ní Raghallaigh says she “absolutely believes” it’s something the board has to look at.

“I would argue that RTÉ is sometimes bidding against itself, because there isn’t a market there,” she says.

She adds that it’s something she has discussed with the incoming director general Kevin Bakhurst, “along with the issue of agents”. 

Robert Shortt, RTÉ economics correspondent and staff representative on the broadcaster’s board, told the committee of the challenge in rebuilding trust in the organisation.

“Many of my colleagues have spoken far more eloquently than I could about the anger that they felt,” he said.

“We also had the protests yesterday, but my colleagues are also acutely aware of the need to keep doing their jobs, and they’re committed to keep doing their jobs. I think that’s going to be a key part of rebuilding trust in RTÉ.”

Labour senator Marie Sherlock pressed ÉTE commercial director Geraldine O’Leary on the two €75,000 invoices paid out to Tubridy’s agent in 2022 and queried why she had not asked questions about the transactions.

“I’m not normally somebody who raises invoices, that’s not part of what I do,” she replied.

“So, this was an unusual situation where I was asked by the director general to raise invoices or to advise my assistant to raise invoices for NKM (management company).”

She added: “The way I understood it at the time was that there was no budget, the director general didn’t have a budget at her disposal and she asked me to use the barter account.”

Following a five-minute break, Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon is now asking questions of the RTÉ representatives. 

Asked what sort of pressure was placed on her by Dee Forbes, Geraldine O’Leary says: “I was not across any commercial deals in 2021 and 2022, and in 2021, the director general spoke to me on a number of occasions about whether there was another commercial deal that could be done, and my answer was no.

“I was very conscious that the first deal still hadn’t been delivered. So the answer was no.”

She added: ”I had no reason to doubt the DG’s intention when she asked me to raise the invoices on the barter account.” 

Sinn Féin Senator Fintan Warfield questions whether the top 100 salaries in RTÉ can be published rather than the top 10. 

Adrian Lynch says the suggestion is “noted”. 

Fintan Warfield then asks how many journalists and presenters at RTÉ are given free cars.

Geraldine O’Leary says she is “not across any deals between customers and talent”, adding that any deals done for cars are usually done through an agent or the talent themselves.

Adrian Lynch says that he is “pretty confident” that no RTÉ journalist has a deal with a car brand.

Adrian Lynch tells Independent TD Peter Fitzpatrick that Ryan Tubridy is being paid while his contract talks are on hold.

“If you’re saying Ryan Tubridy did nothing wrong, why not put him back on the air?” Fitzpatrick asks, adding that it is costing taxpayers money. 

Lynch later clarifies to Sinn Féin TD John Brady that the contract Tubridy was on, for both his TV and radio roles, concluded on 31 May. 

John Brady asks chief financial officer Richard Collins why the barter account was brought onto the RTÉ balance sheet and whether he had concerns about how it was being used. 

Collins says: “Not concerns about how it was being used, but I had some concerns about how it was being accounted for.”

He says it wasn’t good accounting practice to have an RTÉ bank account sitting outside of the account.

He says one of the reasons he wanted to bring it onto the balance sheet was because there was “quite a lot of activity in it in 2019″.

Geraldine O’Leary clarifies that there were three transactions in the account in 2020 and 11 in 2021. 

Brady requests that a ten year record of the barter account be published.

John Brady then asks if there is writing to underpin the commitment by RTÉ to underwrite the €75,000 Renault payments.

Adrian Lynch says it was a verbal agreement given by former director general Dee Forbes to Noel Kelly, Tubridy’s agent. 

“When I was reviewing the files, in one of the contracts that were returned, I think it was one of the draft contracts, there was a letter attached to the back – I think it was from Noel Kelly’s office for Dee Forbes to sign  – which was a written version of this guarantee,” he continues. 

Fianna Fáil Senator Malcolm Byrne. Oireachtas TV Oireachtas TV

Fianna Fáil Senator Malcolm Byrne asks how many people in RTÉ are represented by Noel Kelly. 

Adrian Lynch says four or five. 

Byrne asks who is in the room when Ryan Tubridy’s contract is being negotiated. Lynch says that the chief financial officer at the time, someone from legal and Noel Kelly would be there, adding that the director general attended some meetings.

Lynch says he became aware of the verbal agreement to underwrite the deal between Tubridy and Renault “literally this week at like 3am on a Monday” after going to look for the physical agreement underwriting it “and I didn’t find one”. 

This was when he discovered that the agreement was given verbally on a Teams call, he says.

Malcolm Byrne asks if RTÉ will publish a register of interests, the arrangement that Patrick Kielty has entered into for hosting the Late Late Show, and whether the board believes that anyone working at RTÉ should be paid more than the Taoiseach. 

Adrian Lynch says that the register of interests will be considered and that, if Patrick Kielty is not opposed to it, they will publish his arrangement. 

Beginning his questioning, Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin asks about the timing of the internal review flagging concerns. Deloitte flagged the issue on 17 March, the day after Ryan Tubridy announced that he was stepping down from The Late Late Show. 

Adrian Lynch says Tubridy would not have known about the audit flagging the transactions when he made his announcement.

“When it was discovered… by the auditors that there was something unusual going on, that was the beginning of a process. So Ryan Tubridy wouldn’t have been aware that the invoices – which were lawful, by the way, from his point of view – had been discovered,” he says.

Brendan Griffin asks Siún Ní Raghallaigh why she accepted Dee Forbes’ resignation. 

Ní Raghallaigh says Forbes still has the option to come before the Public Accounts Committee to answer questions. 

Ní Raghallaigh also says that she asked Forbes to resign on 16 June – almost a week before the controversy became public. 

Brendan Griffin asks Siún Ní Raghallaigh whether she accepts that it was a “monumental error” to accept Dee Forbes’ resignation. 

The chair of the RTÉ Board says she stands over the decision. 

As the committee begins to draw to a close, chair of the committee Niamh Smyth asks who negotiated Patrick Kielty’s contract to present The Late Late Show. 

Richard Collins says he negotiated it. 

Smyth asks if he has made the board aware of what that deal is.

He says he has made Siún Ní Raghallaigh aware, who says the contract still has to come before the remuneration committee, which meets on Friday. 

Adrian Lynch says making Patrick Kielty’s contract public will “depend on the other party” – meaning Kielty himself, but that it will be published if he is satisfied. 

Niamh Smyth says she finds it “extraordinary” that no one on the board can answer how many people at RTÉ are represented by NK Management. 

Rory Coveney says he doesn’t know exactly, but “it’s fair to say it’s a considerable number”.

Geraldine O’Leary says it is “definitely double figures”. 

Adrian Lynch says it is probably “10 or 11″ people in RTÉ. He adds that that information will be provided “immediately” after the committee. 

Politicians who are not members of the committee are now being given the opportunity to ask questions. 

Independent TD Michael McNamara asks how much money RTÉ has paid to Revenue over “bogus self employment”.

Richard Collins says €1.2 million has been paid. 

McNamara asks how RTÉ determines the worth of a presenter. “It’s very clear in Ireland that your commercial rivals are not going to pay anything like the sums that you are paying people,” he says. 

Adrian Lynch says the market has changed significantly in the last five years. 

He says salaries of top talent has come down by 40% over the last ten years, which has been driven by how media is consumed. 

Asked how they justify paying more to presenters than other commercial rivals could, Lynch says it comes down to the individual and whether they are able to compete in an international marketplace. 

Richard Collins now tells the committee that Deloitte flagged the issue of the payments with him in “early March”, but the issue wasn’t investigated at that point. 

“The director general was spoken to and I was spoken to,” Collins tells Brendan Griffin. 

Brendan Griffin asks if Dee Forbes could have contacted Ryan Tubridy before 16 March. Collins says he doesn’t know. 

“Well we’ll never know that I suppose, will we?” Griffin responds. 

In a slight segue, the RTÉ reps are now being quizzed about the controversial Toy Show musical.

The show was staged at the Convention Centre last Christmas but was criticised for being a financially unsound endeavour.

TD Niamh Smyth says it’s not acceptable for the reps not to divulge how much the production cost due to commercial reasons.

People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd Barrett is now questioning the RTE reps.

He asks whether pay cuts within the broadcaster were flatly rejected by those represented by the PR agency NK Management.

Adrian Lynch responds that the payments were not declared in the way they should have been.

Boyd Barrett says: “I don’t like that expression, ‘the talent’ … who are ‘the talent’?”

He also criticises the practice of contracting presenters in, rather than employing them as regular staff.

In a concluding question, Mattie McGrath is asking how the RTÉ board can justify having staff on zero-hour contracts while others are having their pay topped up.

Lynch says everyone in RTÉ is on an “employment contract” with the same terms and conditions as anyone else.

Committee chair Niamh Smyth has wrapped up the meeting by saying that Tubridy and his management will be asked to go before the committee.

The meeting has raised nearly as many questions as it answered – keep an eye on our website for further developments.