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WITH JUST OVER a week gone by since it was first revealed that RTÉ failed to disclose payments worth €345,000 to Ryan Tubridy since 2017, executives at the broadcaster have been furnished with a list of documents to be provided to the Public Accounts Committee for scrutiny.
Senior RTÉ officials appeared before the committee yesterday afternoon, where TDs pushed them on the circumstances surrounding how the payments were made and who had access to information.
The committee has requested copies of all of RTÉ’s bank accounts and of barter accounts going back 20 years, as well as Tubridy’s previous five-year contract and the arrangement with the barter company.
RTÉ has also been asked to provide details of any “pension top-ups” or other benefits, a full list of all talent agents that have done contracts with RTÉ (including whether any talent agents have any shares or ownership of any shows contracted by RTÉ) and a full list of all payments and tickets (in relation to expenditure in the barter account) and where they were divulged to.
Significant lines of questioning yesterday focused on the labelling of invoices as “consultancy fees”.
RTÉ had agreed to underwrite a Renault sponsorship of Tubridy (in exchange for not paying an ‘exit fee’ that had previously been in his contract), which meant that if events which Renault was due to pay Tubridy to attend did not go ahead, RTÉ would pay the presenter the amount.
RTÉ made two such payments to Tubridy of €75,000, but the invoices were labelled as consultancy fees.
Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins told the committee yesterday that the Director General, Dee Forbes, told him the fees were for consultancy services provided by Tubridy’s agent, Noel Kelly, during the pandemic.
When pushed on whether he questioned that reason, Collins said that the Director General gave what appeared to be a “plausible” explanation.
Commercial Director Geraldine O’Leary said she could not remember whether it was Dee Forbes or Noel Kelly who put forward the label of consultancy fees. Director of Legal Affairs Paula Mullooly accepted that the labelling was “highly inappropriate”.
Later in the evening, RTÉ Investigates on Prime Time reported that Forbes initially said that the invoices labelled as “consultancy fees” were work done for RTÉ by Kelly, who represents Ryan Tubridy and a number of RTÉ figures.
RTÉ Investigates reported that when Forbes was first asked about invoices labelled as consultancy fees, she said they were bills from Kelly at a rate of €1,200 per hour, but that she subsequently revised her explanation.
Barter account
The payments were made through a barter account, a type of account used to record the exchange of goods or services for other goods or services.
Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon asked the representatives what else the barter account was used for.
Commercial Director Geraldine O’Leary said the account was used to pay for clients to go to the Rugby World Cup. She said she could not name those clients without their permission.
O’Leary herself, one of her colleagues and four guests went on that trip. O’Leary said it is “not unusual” for commercial to host clients at events.
The committee heard that €138,000 was spent on ten-year IRFU season tickets, while €26,000 related to the 2019 Champions League final.
When Dillon asked where the money came from, O’Leary said: “I have no direct recall.”
O’Leary told the committee that there was no credit card connected to the barter account.
Chief financial officer Richard Collins said that payments are made out of the barter account by giving instruction to the barter company that operates the account.
Fianna Fáil TD Colm Burke asked how much money has gone through the barter account in the last ten years.
Collins said between €1 million and €1.5 million.
Ryan Tubridy
TD Alan Kelly sought to establish what contract Ryan Tubridy is currently under following his departure from The Late Late Show but continued presence on radio (until this week).
RTÉ’s legal director Paula Mullooly said she does not believe Tubridy has a written contract at the moment to present his radio programme.
“There may be an oral agreement as to what he’s being paid,” she said.
Interim Deputy Director General Adrian Lynch confirmed previously that Tubridy is still being paid while he is off-air.
Tubridy resigned from his role as host of the Late Late Show in mid-March this year but continued to present his radio show on RTÉ each weekday morning.
However, he has not been on air since the revelations emerged late last week.
Lynch told the Media Committee on Wednesday: “At the moment, obviously, for editorial reasons, it’s impossible for Ryan Tubridy to be back on air.”
Meanwhile, Center Parcs, which sponsors the show, has told RTÉ that it will not be renewing its sponsorship when its current contract runs out later this year.
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What actually surprised me yesterday, was how good the TD’s were, when they were all working together to get to the bottom of something. If they put the same effort into working together in the dail, for the good of the public, how much better of a country we’d actually live in.
@TheBolt: couldn’t agree more the issue in the dail is the party always come first and not the better of all.
The RTE “executives” didn’t cover themselves with glory yesterday. The CFO didn’t even know his own salary.
@David Corrigan: Or claimed he ‘didn’t know’ then he did miraculously! This is really shameful representation from RTE, more fraud will be discovered soon. Just another example of reckless use of taxpayers money. Good luck getting any TV licence payments in future.
Good starting point. We need the same for all state-funded jobs starting with those at the top in the civil service, HSE, Judges, Gardai, Teaching profession, etc. The problem is the entitled mentality of those at the top. They truly believe they are better than the rest of us rather than just being better connected. Nepotism is the norm rather than the exception in this country.
@Pat the Baker: Not just the basic salary – all the other hidden add-ons too.
Expenses should also be declared for all top earning state employees – how many have expenses that cover their daily lunch, dinner, travel, etc. How many get free tickets to the best seats at Rugby, Football, theatre, etc. How many bring their spouses & kids along on business trips that are covered by the tax payer?
I know an ex employee of Aer Lingus who used to travel free with her husband and kids using her sister’s id years after leaving Aer Lingus. That suggests abuse is rampant across all state or semi-state bodies.
It’s a failure of Government that this happened in the first place. The same issues will be found across the Stare and Semi State institutions.
@Jules: That’s a bit of a reach. The government doesn’t micromanage these companies……. Although if they receive as much taxpayer money as RTE does and are regularly out begging for more then they should come under increased scrutiny…..This should have also been picked up in an audit years ago.
Just waiting on them all resign and say the can’t attend inquiry due to an unforseen “Medical reason” Now we have sane situation in IHRB with accounts who next. Time for any organisation who get huge funded by the tax payer’s be looked at in full, maybe Revenue be more involved and a separate unit set up in Department of finance with teeth.
It’s a failure of Government that this happened in the first place. The same issues will be found across the Stare and Semi State institutions, but let’s not talk about that.
Do they think anyones paying the TV licence after This?
‘oh what a tangled web we weave,when first we practice to deceive ‘
I love the sounds of shredders in the morning!
Serious rat infestation in rte…..
The Government appointed D Forbes and the Board. Their selection reflects Government Policy.
@Jules – all departments of the Civil Service and Revenue are investigated by the Comptroller General. I believe they were at the PAC yesterday listening to RTE. The Comptroller General does not, at present, have any remit with RTE. There’s your reason for their failures.
Time to PAC in the The TV Tax.
Unfortunately this is Probably the best TV viewing ever to come out of montrose!!
Today’s buzz word is “Barter Accounts ” folks , an account for us to spend the hard earned workers tax money on jollys for ourselves and fancy trips away.
Can you actually imagine how good our country good be and what services we could provide for the people who actually really need it if we had a government who weren’t as corrupt and a bunch of mè feiners as we have now
RTE, Fianna Fail and the Catholic Church. The Troika of all that is wrong with the country over the last 50 odd years
@Michael o connor: so no good from any of the above Grow up
Look, what happened was ridiculous and RTÉ should be dealt with swiftly but this is being unbelievably milked by the media: 4 articles a day on this topic over the last 7 days from the journal alone .. classic tabloid journalism stirring up anger for readership..
@Ciaran: completely agree. Nothing will be done about it. It’s a pity the TD’s can’t come together on important issues like they did on this. I’m so happy i emigrated
@anthony hilton: Maybe they could all agree that their own expenses are unwarranted
@anthony hilton: where did you emigrate to? Sounds like the perfect spot! In my experience there are good and bad aspects to all jurisdictions.
@TheGood Feign: Finland. I would highly recommend it.
Shameful performance and actions from RTE, however it is a bit ironic when the TDs take the moral high ground when it comes to non disclosure of salaries, properties and other expenses. We have a long sorrowful history of the so called elites trying to pull a fast one.
All the while the childrens hospital is over budget to the tune of 1.3 BILLION……
They have to hide stuff first therefore it will take a few weeks to get them fiddled
How long more before the Fraud Squad start throwing shapes?
In the name of all that’s holy enough with this now, eight to ten stories and updates a day is is really overkill.
@dream catcher: Come on now, we want to see RTE fail. No more yearly handouts for them anymore! I hope the Journal keeps it going.
@Colm Kane: If you receive tax payer money at all you should be held to account for every penny of it … more so as a partly private entity with other sources of income.
Its far to easy to blur the funds and thus embezzle tax payer money if it gets mixed in with other sources, where you have “clever” accounting and “non standard” modes of payment.
We are rife with greed and corruption to the point it is fairly box standard with the whole “brown bag” payments for this or that … so ya there should be tight control over any entity touching tax payer money that should be the base standard.
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