RTÉ's attempt to quell anger over Ryan Tubridy’s pay met immediate trouble before today’s political showdown with an Oireachtas committee as politicians questioned its latest explanation for the debacle.
With politicians dissatisfied by the refusal of former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes to appear at Leinster House, top executive and board figures at the broadcaster are facing scepticism, disquiet and anger when they go before the Oireachtas arts and media committee.
RTÉ published a nine-page statement yesterday evening on €225,000 in hidden Tubridy payments in 2020-2022, while disclosing nothing new about undeclared payments of €120,000 in 2017-2019.
The broadcaster also published a report by Grant Thornton forensic accountant Paul Jacobs on RTÉ payments of €150,000 last year to Tubridy, which questioned why the money was described as “consultancy fees” and why the transactions did not mention his name.
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“On the balance of probabilities, the description on the invoices, ‘consultancy fees’ did not reflect the substance of the transactions,” Mr Jacobs said.
“The talent did not provide consultancy,” he said, referring to Mr Tubridy.
The release of misleading pay declarations for RTÉ's highest-paid presenter over several years has left the broadcaster facing a political storm at a time when it hoped to advance agreement on new public funding.
The RTÉ statement by interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said the disputed Tubridy pay deal in 2020 was negotiated by Ms Forbes and broadcaster’s then-chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe, who left RTÉ at the end of March 2020, and approved by Ms Forbes.
“No member of the RTÉ executive board, other than the director general, had all the necessary information to understand that the publicly declared figures for Ryan Tubridy could have been wrong,” Mr Lynch said.
There was no comment last night on the statement from Ms Forbes, who said earlier that she will not attend the committee “due to health reasons”. Stepping down on Monday, Ms Forbes said the affair has had “a very serious and ongoing impact on my health and wellbeing”.
However, her decision not to go before today’s committee and a meeting tomorrow of the Dáil public accounts committee came in defiance of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tánaiste Micheál Martin.
The fact that she was no longer director general “doesn’t mean that she cannot” go before an Oireachtas committee, Mr Varadkar told the Dáil.
“If things were done that were wrong, and I believe things that were done were wrong, that needs to stop,” the Taoiseach said.
“It needs to change and people need to be held to account, and the institution needs to be restored and survive.”
Late last night, RTÉ said the board chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh, Mr Lynch and “other members of the RTÉ board and executive” will attend today’s meeting in Leinster House.
Political reaction to RTÉ's statement was largely negative last night, with sources in Government and across the political spectrum arguing the broadcaster has left many key questions unanswered and prompted yet more questions.
Many complained that there was no explanation about why RTÉ repeatedly issued false information about Mr Tubridy’s earnings.
Senior political sources said it appeared RTÉ was seeking to land all the responsibility for the affair with Ms Forbes alone.
Labour Senator Marie Sherlock said it was “simply not credible” to suggest she alone “knew the full picture” about the hidden payments.
Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon said: “We are left with more questions as to the running of the national broadcaster.”
Focus is turning too to RTÉ's pay agreement for the next Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty, which remains unknown before his first appearance fronting the station’s flagship television programme in the autumn.
Asked yesterday if the broadcaster should reveal Mr Kielty’s pay, Minister for Media Catherine Martin said this was an operational matter for RTÉ, but said she was in favour of the maximum transparency.
