LAST UPDATE | 11 Jul 2023

RYAN TUBRIDY, HIS agent Noel Kelly and their solicitors are set to face a grilling from two Oireachtas committees today over RTÉ’s failure to disclose €345,000 worth of payments to the presenter.

The group will first appear before Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee at 11am, followed by a 3pm sitting of the Oireachtas Media Committee.

The hearings can be viewed online on the Houses of the Oireachtas website, with the first hearing taking place in Committee Room 1 and the second in Committee Room 4.

A member of the Oireachtas press office has told The Journal that there are “measures in place this week to accommodate the increased volume of traffic anticipated during committee meetings”.

The three most viewed events hosted on the Oireachtas’ website have all been related to RTÉ appearances in front of the media or public accounts committees, with the website experiencing issues on 28 June due to the large number of people accessing a meeting of the Media Committee.

Today’s hearings will also be broadcast on TV on Virgin Media News and the Houses of the Oireachtas channel (22 on Saorview).

The Journal will live-blog the main information from both hearings as well as host a stream of them.

Members of the public without a television or internet connection are in luck as it was announced yesterday by the Licensed Vintners Association that “several pubs across Dublin are expected to broadcast the Oireachtas Committee meetings”.

The hotly anticipated committee appearance comes after weeks of bruising revelations at Ireland’s public service broadcaster.

Scrutiny of governance and financial affairs at RTÉ began after it admitted that fees paid to its star presenter Tubridy had been underdeclared by 345,000 euro over the period 2017 to 2022.

RTÉ executives subsequently explained that the sponsor of RTÉ’s flagship Late Late Show programme, Renault, paid Mr Tubridy 75,000 euro in 2020 under a tripartite deal, but then pulled out of the arrangement.

Two €75,000 payments made to Tubridy for the years 2021 and 2022 were made by RTÉ as it had underwritten the amounts due to Tubridy – in what TDs were told was a verbal agreement made on a Microsoft Teams meeting in May 2020.

Grant Thornton is probing the amounts that RTÉ said led to Tubridy’s fees from 2017-2019 being underdeclared; this report is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

On his first day as RTÉ director general, Kevin Bakhurst told reporters that whether Tubridy would return to the airwaves remained undecided.

Bakhurst also suggested his fate could be determined by what emerges at the Public Accounts Committee and Media Committee hearings – calling for “maximum transparency” from both Tubridy and his agent.

Tubridy has not presented his weekday morning radio programme since the issues at RTÉ came to light on 22 June.

He has apologised “unreservedly” for not asking questions when RTÉ published incorrect figures for his earnings, and said he was looking forward to returning to his radio show.

He also denied that the undeclared payments issue formed part of his decision to step down as Late Late Show host.

With reporting by Press Association