RYAN TUBRIDY’S AGENT Noel Kelly has said he “acted under instruction from RTÉ” when he mislabelled an invoice as “consultancy fees”.

The invoice was made to UK-based company ‘ASTUS’ to collect the fee of €75,000 that Renault originally agreed to pay Tubridy but was underwritten by RTÉ. 

Kelly pinned the decision to categorise the work as ‘consultancy’ on Geraldine O’ Leary, the former Commercial Director of RTÉ.

Today, Kelly and Tubridy sat through two lengthy committee meetings in which they were quizzed by a number of politicians over their part in the pay controversy.

TD Colm Burke asked Kelly why he didn’t “raise concerns” when he saw that invoices were to be paid by a UK company and not Renault. Kelly said he “didn’t raise the question”.

TD Alan Dillon asked Kelly why he hadn’t queried the instruction not to put a name on the invoices sent to Astus.

Kelly rejected Dillon’s claim that he collaborated with RTÉ to “hide” the payments that were made through the bartering system. 

“I am not RTÉ,” Kelly said. 

RTÉ’s role

Kelly claimed that Breda O’Keeffe, the former Chief Financial Officer of RTÉ, was involved in the deal between Renault and Tubridy being underwritten by the broadcaster.

In a series of emails exchanged between Kelly and O’Keeffe in February 2020 during contract talks – which were given to the Public Accounts Committee this morning – O’Keeffe told Kelly: “We can meet you halfway and increase the fee offer to €435,000 per contract year … €75,000 from a commercial relationship. We have progressed discussions with a 3rd party and look forward to discussing this with you.”

Kelly claimed these emails show that RTÉ’s former Chief Financial Officer was involved in the Renault deal and the decision of RTÉ to underwrite it.

RTÉ has rejected this claim. In a statement this morning it said it disputed the characterisation of the email. 

“For clarity, the claim relates specifically to an email that was sent by the former CFO of RTÉ to NK Management on 20 February 2020, which is being characterised as a contractual commitment on the part of RTÉ to underwrite the payments in question,” it said. 

“RTÉ does not accept this characterisation. RTÉ’s position is that the email of 20 February 2020 formed part of the discussions and engagement between it and NK Management in relation to the proposed new TV and radio contract with Mr Tubridy/Tuttle Productions and did not comprise a binding legal or contractual commitment on its part.”

Kelly said that RTÉ executive members who have appeared before Oireachtas committees have sought to “distance” themselves from the deal, and to make it seem as though the agreement was made on a Zoom call with former Director-General Dee Forbes.

Appearing before PAC last week, O’Keeffe said: “My recollection is that Mr Tubridy’s agent requested that the commercial agreement be underwritten by RTÉ and this was refused. This continued to be my position and, as far as I am aware, that of the director general, head of content and the RTÉ solicitor, up to the date of my departure from RTÉ in March 2020.

“I was not aware that any guarantee had issued until I heard about it last week in media reports,” she added.

‘Pay cut’

Tubridy and Kelly both stated that the presenter had taken a 20% reduction in pay at a time when RTÉ was making cuts. Alan Kelly disputed that saying “there was no 20% drop in salary in real terms, and to say so has no credibility whatsoever…  it was absorbed in a different way, that is quite obvious”.

TD Ciaran Cannon asked if Kelly had not considered whether these invoices would lead to “reputational damage” to both him and Tubridy.

Kelly once again repeated that he did what RTÉ told him to do.

Tubridy, after saying that he is willing to do remaining commercial events if RTÉ calls on him to, clarified that he is willing to pay back fees for these appearances if they don’t take place. 

When asked who he would be paying the money back, Tubridy reflected: “It’s a good question.”

He initially said that he would pay back Renault, and then said Astus before concluding that it was RTÉ who paid the money, so he would be paying it back to RTÉ. 

Additional reporting by Emer Moreau and Carl Kinsella