LAST UPDATE | 27 Jun 2023
RTÉ HAS ISSUED a nine-page statement providing further information relating to undisclosed payments made to Ryan Tubridy which have convulsed the broadcaster in scandal for the past week.
According to the statement, no member of the RTÉ executive board – other than the Director General Dee Forbes – had all the necessary information to know that the publicly declared figures for Tubridy were wrong.
Dee Forbes has yet to make a reply to this statement, given by Interim Deputy Director-General Adrian Lynch who said:
“It should be noted that the former Director General, Ms Dee Forbes, save for comments provided to Grant Thornton in the compilation of its review, has not had the opportunity to respond to the details set out below and may therefore challenge or disagree with our understanding and position.”
The statement also excused Tubridy of any wrongdoing and said, based off the Grant Thornton findings, “there was no illegality and payments were made pursuant to an agreed contract”.
Only Forbes and RTÉ’s commercial director knew of the two €75,000 invoices in 2022, the payment of those invoices through the barter account and the circumstances surrounding those invoices, the statement laid out.
However, the commercial director has said that “her knowledge of those matters was limited to the instructions received by her from the DG in connection with the payments in question”.
The broadcaster also provides a timeline of the negotiations between the organisation and Ryan Tubridy’s agent, NK Management.
The timeline says that in 2019, RTÉ was focused on “achieving cost savings” so entered into fresh negotiations with Tubridy’s agent between October and December.
One of the commitments that RTÉ had publicly stated was to reduce the salaries of their top 10 earners by 15%.
On 19 December 2019, RTÉ set out a proposal to NK Management which included details of an offsetting of an exit payment in his previous contract. It also detailed a 15% cut in fees from RTÉ and referenced a potential, additional commercial agreement (what later became the Renault deal) to the value of €75,000 per contract year.
The treatment of the exit payment – of which there is no publicly reported detail – is now the subject of the Grant Thornton review of the 2017-2019 period, according to the statement.
In the Grant Thornton review, forensic accountant Paul Jacobs, says that he was informed by Dee Forbes that there was an ‘end of contract payment’ due to Tubridy in 2020. She said that contract was negotiated and in place before she took over the job in 2016. RTÉ was keen to make a cost saving in respect of this “end of contract payment”, she told the review.
She also said something similar in her own statement this week: “We were keen to make a cost saving for RTÉ in respect of a contractual payment which was due to be paid.”
It is not known how much this payment would amount to.
From January to March, RTÉ said further discussions on terms and conditions continued and a draft contract was sent to NK Management on 10 March. In his response on 20 March, Noel Kelly included a draft ‘side letter’ stating that RTÉ will guarantee and underwrite the proposed €75,000 yearly commercial arrangement.
Between 20 March and 21 July, there were further internal and external meetings, as well as discussion and correspondence to finalise terms of the contract, the ‘side letters’ and the arrangements with the commercial sponsor.
On 7 May, there was a video meeting between Noel Kelly, Dee Forbes and an RTÉ solicitor. During that meeting, there was a verbal guarantee provided that RTÉ would underwrite the commercial agreement, according to tonight’s statement.
Between 21 and 24 July, a number of key documents were executed, according to RTÉ today. They included a five-year contract for 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2025 for Ryan Tubridy’s television and radio services, a side letter from RTÉ guaranteeing contract fees and another side letter terminating both parties’ obligations under the previous contract.
Over the next four days, the outline of the commercial agreement with the commercial partner was confirmed and communicated to Kelly who in turn issued an invoice for €75,000 for “Bespoke Partnership between Renault and Ryan Tubridy to include personal appearances. Programme of activity to be agreed between Renault, RTÉ and NK Management”.
On 31 July, RTÉ issued a credit note to Renault which reduced the cost of their overall sponsorship by €75,004 to ensure, as they had been promised, that the arrangement would be cost neutral.
As the Covid pandemic emerged, it became clear that personal appearances could not be fulfilled in 2020.
On 20 January 2021, RTÉ released incorrect figures of Tubridy’s salary when they published earnings for between 2017 to 2019.
On 26 March 2021, NK Management requested to meet with RTÉ. Between 29 March and 22 April, various internal communications took place in RTÉ regarding the best way to proceed so that Tubridy could receive the agreed additional commercial deals.
On 31 December 2021, the deal – known as the ‘Tri-partite Agreement’ between Renault, RTÉ and NK Management – concluded.
Between 13 January and 29 March, NK Management chased RTÉ for payment, relating to the underwriting of the commercial deal with Renault for 2021 and 2022.
According to the Grant Thornton review, Jacobs identified from documentation that there was a conference call between RTÉ and NK Management. “The document states that the Talent’s Agent said that he had spoken to the Commercial Director about Year 2 of the Five Year Contract but she said that it was not her problem and he said that it was not their’s [sic] either and that they should not have to come up with solutions,” he wrote.
On 25 April, Dee Forbes and Noel Kelly held a discussion, according to tonight’s statement, which resulted in an email request by the agent for invoicing details.
On 9 May, an invoice for €75,000 for 2021 was raised by NK Management.
On 25 May, RTÉ paid the invoice, via a UK barter account. The amount was recorded at a value of €115,380.
On 6 July, an invoice for €75,000 for 2022 was raised by NK Management.
On 20 July, RTÉ paid the invoice, via a UK barter account. The amount was recorded at a value of €115,380.
According to the Grant Thornton review, both invoices had the description ‘consultancy fees’.
It was also revealed tonight that RTÉ paid, via the UK Barter account, for the costs of hosting the commercial sponsor events in 2022 to the tune of €30,586. This ended up being valued at €47,477 in the barter account.
Jacobs, in the Grant Thornton review, says that during his examinations, he asked an individual, whose name is redacted from the report, to “explain if anyone identified with her as to why the Barter Account was used in this instance”.
“She advised me that she assumed there was no budget elsewhere to make these payments,” he wrote.
On 15 February, RTÉ again released the earnings of its top 10-most highly paid presenters for 2020 and 2021. Again, the amounts for Ryan Tubridy were incorrect.
Although the timeline does not give an exact date, RTÉ’s statement this evening said that in March 2023 during a routine audit of RTÉ’s 2022 accounts, the two transactions in the barter account were queried, which in turn prompted the Audit Risk Committee to obtain external legal advice and appoint Grant Thornton.
Paul Jacobs, a partner at Grant Thornton, delivered his report on the matter to the Audit and Risk Committee on 16 June this year.
A forensic accountant, he said that Renault entered the Tri-partite Agreement on the basis that it was cost neutral. Therefore, Tubridy’s agent raised the July 2020 invoice for €75,000 with Renault. And in the same month, RTÉ raised a credit of €75,000 with Renault on their airtime spend. Jacobs said this meant “in effect RTÉ funded the €75,000 payment to Talent”.
“The underwriting and guarantee provision under the Five Year Contract was triggered for years 2 (2021) and 3 (2022) because there was no subsequent extension or new agreement,” he explained.
RTÉ’s statement said that Ryan Tubridy did not know about the credit note raised for Renault for Year 1.
Under a headline of ‘responsibility’ in the statement this evening, Lynch said: “No member of the RTÉ Executive Board, other than the Director General, had all the necessary information in order to understand that the publicly declared figures for Ryan Tubridy could have been wrong.”
He also said that RTÉ’s solicitor’s office provides legal advice in relation to contracts but takes instructions from the business. “It does not have authority to set, agree or approve the terms of any contract,” he added.
The statement also makes clear the Grant Thornton review makes no finding of wrongdoing on the part of the commercial partner Renault.
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