Dee Forbes is not going quietly. In a statement raising yet more questions about Ryan Tubridy’s pay, RTÉ's former director general makes it clear she did not act alone in the unorthodox 2020 deal with the star presenter. She also claims no knowledge at all of €120,000 in hidden Tubridy payments in 2017-2019, a period when she was RTÉ's top executive and the editor-in-chief. It seems an utterly dysfunctional situation.
Forbes’s suspension on Wednesday made her the first casualty of the affair. Tubridy’s temporary removal from the air made him the second. There will be others, in all likelihood. But the biggest casualty of all is RTÉ itself, whose credibility as a public service devoted to the truth has been shaken. This is to say nothing of the inevitable financial strains looming after its campaign for more public funding hit a wall.
After days of unrelenting turmoil, Forbes has left RTÉ definitively. But her parting shot draws other as yet unnamed figures into the vortex, demanding answers from RTÉ about who exactly knew what about the extraordinary pay arrangements for the then presenter of The Late Late Show. That there is still no RTÉ explanation whatsoever for why the public, the Oireachtas and the Government were repeatedly misled for years about Tubridy’s pay leaves a dark shadow.
Who was ultimately responsible?
Like Tubridy in his first statement before her, Forbes did not apologise when she issued an initial comment on Friday. And just like Tubridy left it until a second statement to apologise for the hidden payments, Forbes has now apologised “unreservedly to everyone”. Her resignation statement came shortly before 7.30am on Monday. The breakfast-time missive prompted a curt response from the RTÉ board that did not delve into the substance of what Forbes said. With the organisation in the grip of an existential crisis, conflicting claims and huge gaps in the explanations offered thus far demand a comprehensive account from the broadcaster. There is no sign of it yet.
Forbes has been front and centre of the debacle since the beginning, her suspension making it clear that she was seen as a central figure. This Forbes accepts, saying she “led the discussions” with Tubridy’s agent but adding that the talks were carried on “together with other RTÉ senior executives”. She does not name the other executives, but makes sure to reference their seniority. This is the first sign that Forbes is not willing to take responsibility on her own. Central yes, but not the only one.
“Following detailed discussions including numerous internal communications over many months with RTÉ colleagues, including finance and legal colleagues, an agreement was reached which delivered cost savings for RTÉ,” Forbes says of the deal struck with Renault, the long-time Late Late sponsor.
Who else in RTÉ knew what was going on?
All of this prompts questions as to who exactly was in the loop. The RTÉ board, chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh and former chairwoman Moya Doherty have all insisted they knew nothing of the disputed Tubridy arrangements until auditors raised them in March. But Forbes points to a degree of financial and legal oversight that was not, apparently, in the sights of the board. “I did not at any stage act contrary to any advice,” she says, raising questions as to who the advisers were and what questions were posed when such advice was sought.
The clear implication is that others with important responsibilities did in fact know. Recall, however, that Forbes herself was a member of the RTÉ board, attending all eight meetings of that body in 2020. Did she ever brief the board at all on these matters? Did the board ever ask about the top presenter’s contract? If so, what was it told? It not, why not? We simply don’t know the answers. But we should.
In relation to the 2020 deal, Forbes says she and senior colleagues “were attempting to retain Ryan Tubridy’s services as a valued presenter and negotiate a new contract”.
This of course is in line with RTÉ's standard explanation for high presenter pay. But it is not clear whether Tubridy had a counter-offer of terms better than his already generous remuneration from the national broadcaster. Who else in Irish broadcasting could better RTÉ terms? At the time, it seems RTÉ's other top-ten presenters were taking a bigger pay cut than Tubridy. Why exactly did Forbes accept the best paid of them all would take less of a cut?
Why was the Renault deal not examined more closely?
Also in question is the propriety of allowing a big corporate sponsor to make payments directly to a presenter. Tubridy had a “separate commercial contract” to receive €75,000 exchange for duties of three events annually. Three events: €25,000 each. Three. This was “cost-neutral” to Renault but full of cost to RTÉ. In essence, a public body was paying appearance fees benefiting a private business in which its top presenter received fees akin to a supermodel. When Renault pulled out after one year, RTÉ paid the money anyway because it had guaranteed the payments.
Why did Forbes agree to this? Why did she – as custodian of RTÉ's finances – allow the organisation assume binding contractual responsibilities to pay such money but “never expected to become liable” for it? That seems the very essence of a bad deal – and so it proved, with huge reputational consequences for RTÉ and its mission to hold power to account.
Who knew about the pre-2020 payments?
The €120,000 in hidden payments to Tubridy before 2020 seemed to come as news to Forbes, even though she was supposed to be in charge of the organisation. “I have no knowledge of those payments and the board has not raised those questions with me,” she said. How? Why?
If Forbes didn’t know, then who did exactly? Who sanctioned that arrangement? And who released the money? We are no further advanced in the quest for answers than at the outset of the affair four days ago.
Two Oireachtas committees want to hear this week from Forbes but that was always unlikely. Before her resignation, she was already in conflict with her employer. Now she accuses the board of flinging her under a truck, saying it has not treated her with “anything approaching the levels of fairness, equity and respect” that anyone should expect.
Forbes says the affair has had “a very serious and ongoing impact on my health and wellbeing”. That suggests she won’t be available for Oireachtas committee hearings, the implication being that a political dressing-down in public would only worsen the impact on her health.
It will fall to others to answer. The damage done already is unlikely to be the last of it.
