Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
WHY WAS RYAN Tubridy paid more than what RTÉ said he was paid from 2017 to 2019 in public declarations by the national broadcaster?
This is a central question in the payments scandal, but despite weeks of committee hearings and statements, has still not been answered.
The saga arose after it emerged that RTÉ publicly understated Tubridy’s earnings since 2017 by €345,000 – the headline figure in the whole controversy.
We know that €225,000 of this relates to Tubridy’s commercial deal with Renault dating to 2020.
Of that, €75,000 was paid by Renault in 2020, and a further €150,000 was paid by RTÉ (which guaranteed the payment) in 2021 and 2022 after the car manufacturer pulled out of the deal.
But the remaining €120,000 paid to Tubridy from 2017 to 2019 has not been accounted for and remains something of a mystery.
Questions have been asked about how this discrepancy arose and auditors Grant Thornton have been asked to look into what happened between 2017 and 2019 regarding Tubridy’s pay.
Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly gave their explanation for their side of what happened at the Oireachtas committee this morning.
The pair have claimed that RTÉ actually understated some of his earnings from the national broadcaster those years – despite being asked by them to not do so.
They claim that the €120,000 was always part of Tubridy’s annual salary across the three-year period.
Ahead of his appearance alongside Tubridy before the Public Accounts Committee this morning, Kelly provided a paper trail which he claims sets the record straight about this.
What we learned is exactly how RTÉ came up with the €120,000 figure it paid to Tubridy in addition to his published salary – though we still don’t know why they didn’t properly account for it.
The crux of the problem dates back to 2021, when RTÉ published Tubridy’s earnings from 2017 to 2019.
For context, RTÉ publishes the annual salaries of its top earners every year, though only discloses earnings from two years previously – for example, the most recent earnings published in March of this year cover 2021.
When the scandal first broke in late June, it emerged that RTÉ had released incorrect figures in 2021 on Tubridy’s salary from 2017 to 2019.
The broadcaster said that the total value of these undisclosed payments was €120,000.
Up until now it’s been a mystery how this happened, but in their statements to PAC this morning, Tubridy and Kelly both laid the blame squarely at the feet of RTÉ.
Kelly in particular told committee members how the payments to Tubridy were set out in black and white in published accounts for the presenter’s production company, Tuttle Productions, in each of those years.
These annual accounts, which were provided to the committee, state that Tubridy earned:
In other words, Tubridy earned €20,000 more in 2017 and €50,000 more in 2018 and 2019 than RTÉ officially reported at the time - or €120,000 more in total than was initially publicly stated.
Curiously, Kelly further claimed that RTÉ knew precisely how much Tubridy was paid in each of those years, despite going on to publish different salary figures for the presenter in 2021.
A letter to Kelly’s company NK Management from RTÉ’s then-Chief Financial Officer Breda O’Keeffe in December 2019, showed the figures Tubridy was actually paid from 2017 to 2019 (under the terms of his contract):
But the paper trail shows that the national broadcaster subsequently sought to alter the record of the amounts paid in what Tubridy and Kelly said was accountancy treatments.
On 19 February 2020, a letter from O’Keeffe to Kelly headed ‘Contract Discussions 2020′ stated that the presenter would waive a bonus of €120,000 that Tubridy was due to receive at the end of his 2015 to 2020 contract.
In their opening statements to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, Kelly and Tubridy both said that Tubridy agreed to waive this payment.
Speaking at the Oireachtas Media Committee this afternoon, the presenter explained that the payment was intended as remuneration for work Tubridy may have done in addition to his presenting duties – but that he waived it because that work was not done.
“In reality, this was a fee to be paid at the end of the contract, where I would make myself available at any stage during the contract to do additional optional work for RTÉ,” he said.
“As it turned out, in 2020 when that contract concluded, I was not called upon to deliver any of these additional pieces of work.
“So although I was entitled to payment for making myself available, I waived this entitlement. I didn’t issue any invoice on the basis that I didn’t want to be paid for work that I did not do.”
However, O’Keeffe’s letter stated that from an accounting point-of-view, the €120,000 exit fee would be “written off and offset against 2017, 2018 and 2018 fees” as outlined in an “attached side letter”.
A letter of agreement outlined exactly how RTÉ proposed to do this: by offsetting €20,000 against Tubridy’s payments for 2017 (‘Year 3′), and €50,000 against his payments for both 2018 (‘Year 4′) and 2019 (‘Year 5′):
No explanation has been given as to why RTÉ wanted to do this.
Yet the figures each align with the discrepancies between RTÉ’s stated pay for Tubridy and his actual pay for each of those years – in other words, it is where we find the missing €120,000.
For his part, Kelly has also outlined how he disagreed with RTÉ’s proposal to do this.
An email from Kelly to O’Keeffe, sent a month after O’Keeffe’s initial letter, contains an edited version of the letter of agreement, in which the part of the agreement referring to the accounting proposal is redacted in red:
Kelly claims that the redactions are evidence that he and Tubridy argued against RTÉ’s proposed accounting, and that RTÉ accepted their point (though RTÉ itself has yet to indicate whether it did so one way or the other).
The documents also contain one final version of this letter of agreement, signed in July 2020 by both RTÉ and Noel Kelly on behalf of Ryan Tubridy.
However, while the first two bullet points (about the early termination of Tubridy’s 2015 to 2020 contract) remain, there is no longer a reference to RTÉ’s proposal to offset the €120,000 waived payment against Tubridy’s earnings from 2017 to 2019:
Kelly offered no explanation for this, implying that the need to do so lies with RTÉ.
“For some reason, it looks like their confused thinking returned and they published the wrong figures in January 2021 effectively causing huge reputational damage to Ryan in the process,” he said.
Tubridy likewise said that he believed RTÉ, O’Keeffe and external auditors had “accountancy reasons” for doing this – re-iterating that his company accounts fully reflected his earnings at the time.
“The narrative of the last three weeks has been that not only did I take this payment but that I somehow contrived to hide it,” he said in his opening statement.
“I reiterate: I actually waived my entitlement to this payment, and I didn’t receive one cent of it. I hid nothing. I had nothing to hide.”
The presenter added later in the committee: “We made it clear the €120,000 should not be taken off or deduced for prior year earnings.”
At the time of writing, RTÉ has yet to offer an explanation for why it accounted for the payment this way – though the broadcaster issued a statement this morning disputing Kelly and Tubridy’s version of events.
The statement primarily addressed the €225,000 payments related to the Renault deal – which are separate to the €120,000 and will by analyised by The Journal in separate coverage today.
In response to a query about the €120,000 payment from The Journal, a spokesperson said the broadcaster would not be commenting.
“That is part of the review currently being carried out by Grant Thornton. RTÉ is not in a position to comment while this process is ongoing,” a statement read.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I wonder why….nobody was allowed to have any other medical problem but Covid, I work in a hospital and they were nowhere near full capacity, none of them, public or private, and what on earth was the thinking behind stopping screening, bizarre.
@Jun Stone: A scandal of epic proportions.
@Jun Stone: the state of the health service in this country. We really need to get on top of this. It should our number 1 priority as a nation
@Jun Stone: two of my friends both had minor surgery recently without any problems. One was two weeks ago and the other was a month ago. They were ongoing issues causing discomfort but needed to be done. In the past they had been cancelled, as in last year, I must say I was shocked to hear they got them done while all I see are articles like this during covid. Are they just not, or were they just not preforming more serious surgeries /appointments etc?
@Jun Stone: If you work in a hospital then you should be more than aware that patients were admitted, patients were examined, fully investigated, scanned with CT and MRI, reviewed by multiple teams, received chemo/radiotherapy and operated on during lockdown. You may not have worked 24+ hour shifts during lockdown but I and my colleagues did.
@Philip Kavanagh: and many more (including myself) had follow up cancer scans cancelled. I had two appointments in two separate Dublin hospitals cancelled during the lockdown. One has been rescheduled so far
@Jun Stone: couldn’t agree more. Frankly, having looked at the IFR as things become more clear through proper testing, covid-19 seems to be not as infectious as we initially feared. Even the CDC in the US have released similar findings. I was actually in A&E in April in Castlebar and found that I was brought into the covid-19 triage setting despite having not had covid symptoms – I had chest pain suspected to be linked to heart issues which thankfully was found to be a bacterial infection. I also saw old people brought into the same ward even though they hadn’t been confirmed to have covid-19. So my opinion is if that practise is common to other hospitals then many cases were likely transmitted in the hospital. My great aunt has now fallen ill with a stroke as her routine check ups since her stent placement have ceased. My grandmother who has heart problems has also had her quarterly check ups cancelled indefinitely. All in all, in my circles I have seen lockdown cause more damage than covid-19. My mother had covid-19 in March and was sick with a bad chest infection for about 3 weeks but recovered with steroids. In fact, that’s what most people I know who’ve had say they have had. About 5 years ago I was out of work for 2 weeks and totally bed ridden with viral bronchitis, so I’m not really sure what to believe. I agree we should take measures but I’m not so sure lockdown is in the best interest of total public health in all its facets. I know people have used Sweden as an example but the deaths per million are more or less the same as Denmark. Anyway, let’s look after the vulnerable, and not forget that people with other diseases which need attention are also vulnerable!
@Anna: I’m not and cannot comment on individual cases. @Jun Stone claims that non-Covid patients were ignored or sacrificed on the altar of Coronavirus. I am saying from first hand experience that her comment is a lie designed only for click-bait. I would be very interested to know what hospital she works in and what her exact role entails. Her comment also implies that the hospitals (and therefore their staff) were doing half-nothing during the lockdown. Again so far off the mark, she clearly doesn’t know what she’s commenting on.
@Philip Kavanagh: and many had their vital routine follow ups cancelled . Two in my house included. Do not minimise that because it’s very serious . Simple but vital echocardiograms are cancelled , stress tests cancelled , all bowel cancer follow ups & screenings are cancelled. Breast check cancelled , need I continue ? Chemotherapy is not cancelled thankfully or aa&E but that’s about it in public hospitals .
@Laurel Didn’t: Did you treat Covid patients? Did you make the decision to put them on Airvo or bipap or just intubate them? Did you prone them? Did you send them for CTPA because you had a gut feeling that they had lung clots? Have you spent the last month calling patients who were admitted with Covid (and were lucky to survive) to hear how they are still short of breath, suffer from fatigue, have not gotten their sense of smell back, etc., etc.)? I lived in Sweden, I speak Swedish and I worked in a Swedish hospital. Sweden has had 523.71 deaths per million. Denmark has 103.36 deaths per million. You’re either not good with statistics or you’re just lying.
@Isabel Oliveira: I’m not minimising anything. And I certainly will not be accused of taking missed scans and screening as not being serious. I meet and treat patients everyday. Also believe it or not, frontline workers have health issues and families too. The delays in screening and treatments affect them also. What I said is that the health service did not simply grind to a halt for months. Patients were investigated and treated, and the best was done in an extraordinary situation.
@Sam Glynn: that was the plan, everyone public patient and no electives to be carried out? There may have been some underlying concerns re your friends procedures even though they may appear to have been minor?
@Philip Kavanagh: of course they were! nobody’s implying that nothing happened in hospitals during Covid but where I work and the affiliated public hospital were not operating to capacity and my husband also works in a private hospital, different one to me, and it was also not operating to capacity, maybe different where you work.
@Philip Kavanagh: do not twist what I said I work in a private hospital for a consultant, running clinics and booking procedures and theatre for same…no clinics were run during the Covid pandemic period and only cancer ops were done. The hospital was not full. No routine screening was done . Hope that answers your question. I’m early 60’s and not bothered about ‘clicks’!!!!
@Isabel Oliveira: you know me, I don’t lie…hope your well.
@Jun Stone: So you do admin in a private hospital….You don’t examine, admit, work-up, treat and care for patients. You have no idea what issues patients were presenting with to ED during lockdown. And I am not twisting your words – to quote “nobody was allowed to have any other medical problem but Covid”. Click bait at its most obvious.
@Philip Kavanagh: actually my daughter is a doctor in yet another hospital here in Dublin treating Covid patients. Try not to be so condescending, I may be ‘just admin’ in your opinion but I have first hand knowledge of what actually went on in the hospital I work in as I have been working all through the pandemic.
@Philip Kavanagh: I appreciate your points Philip and I humbly acknowledge that I am not a doctor nor have I treated covid patients. But I did ask the team in Castlebar how busy they were and their response was not full capacity. Where are you getting your info about Sweden? Japan is another example – low deaths. Seasonal influenza causes up to 650,000 deaths per year according to the WHO. Currently we have 560k from covid-19 and given how deaths have been terribly reported perhaps it’s less in reality. Philip we’re not denying that it’s a nasty bug to catch, but given the perspective the aforementioned figures grant, I’m not pro lockdown at all. Re Sweden, I’m comparing Scania with Hovedstaden and Sjealand. Most comparable in terms of locality, demographics etc.
In the VHI or Laya … no problem … you can jump the queue …
If you can pay … get seen today.
If you cant pay .. join the long delay!
Yet EVERY taxpayer pays for the public health service to the tune of €19 Billion a year .It is 11% of GDP .. whereas other countries spend far less at avg of 9% of GDP
What a despicable 2-Tier society is Ireland!
Sign the Petition and demand that this abomination be fixed and fast.
Counting trolleys is a laugh … put a few production engineers in charge of that place and get proper metrics and processes in place … 4 procedues per day v 8 in private hospitals v 16 in other EU countries ….
@Neuville-Kepler62F: Signed and shared.
@Neuville-Kepler62F: It’s not going to happen, the various imbedded unions will stand in the way of any meaningfull progress, it would probably be cheaper if the government paid for all our private health care at this stage. No government over the past 30 years has ever been able to tackle the problems in our health service.
@Alan: but they all said they would.
@Neuville-Kepler62F: Very good comment te how inefficient public hospitals are compared to private ones. We are spending an absolute fortune on healthcare as a country and not getting good value at all. Our doctors and nurses are wonderful. The organisation is a shambles.
@Alan: .. interesting idea. outsource all current public health to private management. Dont limit to Ireland.. look at outsource to other EU countries. Nothing should be discounted at this stage to sort out the sorry mess. – Belfast Bus!
Where is MM now and O Brien his lackey
That figure was already in the hundreds of thousands long before we’d ever even heard of Covid-19. Trying to blame appalling waiting lists on this pandemic is a bit rich, and ignores almost twenty years of similar numbers.
have your say