Ryan Tubridy’s appearance before two Oireachtas committees will be a key factor in relation to his future with RTÉ, the broadcaster’s new director general Kevin Bakhurst has made clear.
Asked at a press conference on Monday about Mr Tubridy’s future, Mr Bakhurst, said “we’ll see how the week goes and what comes out of it”.
A decision would have to be made soon about the former Late Late Show presenter’s future, he said, “for Ryan’s sake and for everybody’s”.
Mr Tubridy is scheduled to appear before the Oireachtas Media Committee and the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to answer questions about the secret payments to him that have thrown the national broadcaster into a crisis. His agent, Noel Kelly, who played a central role in negotiating the payments with RTÉ, is also to appear before the committees.
[ Harry McGee: What is happening in the Oireachtas this week in relation to RTÉ?Opens in new window ]
Asked if he wanted to see Mr Tubridy back on air, Mr Bakhurst said it was “really important” to see what emerged at the committees. He had not as yet made a decision on the matter, he said.
The head of RTÉ said he wanted to see “maximum transparency” from Mr Tubridy and his agent at the committee hearings. The attitude of staff at RTÉ towards working with Mr Tubridy should he return to work at the station was also a “major consideration”, he said.
Mr Bakhurst, who previously worked for the UK communications regulator Ofcom, was asked about reports that Mr Tubridy and his agent had been exploring broadcasting opportunities in the UK recently. “If there are opportunities there, I sincerely wish him well,” he said. “It is a tough media market in the UK at the moment and so it is not going to be straightforward for him.”
Asked about the role played in RTÉ by Mr Kelly, Mr Bakhurst said he did not want to single out any particular agent but “I don’t think it is healthy that any single agent has such power in a particular company.”
He said it was important that the pay levels of top presenters came down but it was also important that RTÉ continued to attract “top quality talent”.
Mr Bakhurst told reporters he was being paid €250,000 a year in his new role, with a €25,000 car allowance, and that this was less than what he had been earning at Ofcom.
He said the former commercial director Geraldine O’Leary, who announced her early retirement on Monday had, along with others, not been given a “fair chance” to respond to some of the questions they were asked at Oireachtas committee hearings over the past two weeks.
“It is perfectly right to ask all the questions that were asked, but you I think you need to be given a chance to respond,” he said.
[ RTÉ crisis: Who is in and who is out after top tier of management are stood down?Opens in new window ]
There were “trade offs” involved in his reconstitution of the executive board at RTÉ, which he announced on Monday morning, and the need to continue to provide witnesses and information to Oireachtas committee hearings.
Ms O’Leary had retired and would no longer be appearing before committees, but the chief financial officer, Richard Collins, was still with the station and would be attending a meeting of the PAC on Thursday, he said. Mr Collins would be “with us for another couple of weeks”, he said.
Asked about the tenor of his conversation with Ms O’Leary at the weekend, he said it was “sad”. She was a “thoroughly decent person” that he had known for many years.
Rory Coveney did not “get a payment as he was going out the door”, he said, responding to questions about the former director of strategy’s resignation at the weekend.
Mr Bakhurst said he had spoken with Jim Jennings, the former director of content, who is unwell, and that Mr Jennings had made it clear he did not want to be part of the leadership team at the station “going forward”. They would be having further discussions when Mr Jennings was well again, he said.
He said he did not yet fully understand the details behind payments to Mr Tubridy in the period 2017 to 2019 but believed the presenter had not received a €120,000 bonus payment but rather that it was “an accounting thing”. The matter was being investigated by Grant Thornton.
Mr Bakhurst said the interim deputy director general, Adrian Lynch, was examining the issue of presenters and staff who had commercial arrangements outside the station and whether these were in line with the guidelines that existed.
“I would take a pretty dim view of people who have breached those guidelines, particularly if they had done it persistently,” he said. When Mr Lynch had gathered all the facts, a decision would be taken then as to whether there should be sanctions or an “amnesty”.
Asked for his assessment of how RTÉ had found itself in the position it was now in, he said: “I genuinely don’t know. I don’t begin to understand some of the decisions that have been taken.”
Mr Bakhurst said he would never have taken on the job of director general “if I didn’t believe in the importance of public service broadcasting and the importance of RTÉ for the audience in Ireland.”
*This article was amended on Tuesday, July 18th, 2023. A previous version of this article incorrectly described Richard Collins as “former” RTÉ chief financial officer. Mr Collins is and remains the Chief Financial Officer of RTÉ.
