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LAST UPDATE | 13 Jul 2023
THE NEW DIRECTOR GENERAL of RTÉ will tell the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today that the controversy surrounding undisclosed payments made to Ryan Tubridy has “created one of the most shameful and damaging episodes in the organisation’s history”.
Kevin Bakhurst will face questions from TDs and Senators on the matter for the first time since taking over from former director general Dee Forbes.
In an email to staff on Monday, his first day in the role, Bakhurst stood down the entire RTÉ executive board and replaced it with an “interim leadership team”.
He also set out plans to expedite the establishment of a Register of Interests for staff and contractors and said he will work to “co-ordinate a review of roles and grades, pay, and gender equality” as part of a “cultural change” within the organisation.
RTÉ chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh will appear before the committee alongside Bakhurst today, alongside interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch, chief financial officer Richard Collins and head of strategy Conor Mullen.
The PAC will also examine the findings of a Grant Thornton interim review of the contracts of RTÉ’s top 10 most highly paid on-air presenters and whether their published salaries were correct.
In his opening statement, Bakhurst will tell politicians that RTÉ “should not be brokering or facilitating commercial arrangements with its contractors”.
“The level of fees in contracts of this nature are too high. We should have operated with greater transparency, and should have applied much higher standards of honesty and integrity in terms of its public statements,” he will say.
“The public were misled, as were you as public representatives. That is completely unacceptable. I want to assure you that lessons have been learned, and actions are being taken.”
Bakhurst will say that it remains a source of frustration to the public, the RTÉ Board, elected representatives and staff within RTÉ that there are “gaps in evidence and missing personal testimonies, that could irrefutably evidence all aspects of the chain of events, what informed or influenced those events, and why this occurred”.
“I have instructed all divisions that they are to give the fullest co-operation possible with these investigations, and with Committee queries,” he will say.
“It is of the utmost importance that RTÉ works to create as much clarity as possible as to the sequence of decisions and actions, and by whom they were authorised or enacted.”
Bakhurst will outline that there will be a new permanent leadership team put in place “in due course” following the dismantling of the executive board earlier this week.
He will also tell the committee that all significant decisions will be agreed by the interim leadership team and a record of discussions leading to these decisions will be compiled, while the pay of the permanent leadership team will be published annually along with top 10 presenter pay.
“I am absolutely determined to implement the change and reform which will help us draw a line under this shameful period in RTÉ’s history and to rebuilding trust in public service broadcasting,” he will conclude.
Siún Ní Raghallaigh will tell the committee today that Bakhurst “is steadying the ship of RTÉ by taking swift action on a range of important matters, from leadership reform to the introduction of a register and more”.
“I particularly welcome his commitment to ongoing staff engagement.”
She will also welcome how Bakhurst is “facing up to the issues of the past and the lamentable failures that have emerged, but he is also setting out an ambitious agenda for the secure future of the organisation”.
“As Chair I am committed to being as open and transparent as possible and to placing facts in the public domain at the earliest opportunity. That is what I doing here today.”
The findings of the Grant Thornton review show that apart from Tubridy, the published pay of RTÉ’s top 10 earners has been correct from 2010 to 2022.
Work to determine whether salaries between 2008 and 2009 were correct is ongoing.
The review identified one instance where the published pay of one of the top 10 earners exceeded what they had been paid by €1,359. The reason identified was unpaid annual leave.
“In my view, the difference of €1,359 is not significant, particularly relative to the total published remuneration figures of the Top Ten Earners, and has no impact on the rankings of the Top Ten Earners, no further work was carried out in this regard,” the findings state.
This review is separate to the ongoing Grant Thornton review being conducted into the understatement by RTÉ of Tubridy’s published pay by €120,000 between 2017 and 2019.
Enterprise Minister Simon Coveney has said he will continue to recuse himself from any Cabinet discussions regarding RTÉ due his brother having previously sat on the Executive board.
Rory Coveney, formerly the stations former Director of Strategy, announced that he would step down with immediate effect on Sunday.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, meanwhile, told Fine Gael colleagues last night there has been no request for a bailout from RTÉ but said significant conditionality would be required if Government was to ever accede to such a request.
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The one with the least amount of preservatives in it….
I found a mc Donald’s hamburger under the car seat the other day one Of my kids must of dropped it, it has to be at least 2 months old but by god it did look tasty when I say it look good there was nothing wrong with it once you unwrapped the packaging, S0 I said nothing and gave it to the Hubbie Ha Ha silly old fool ate it too, :)
Jaysus you could of killed him…… Oh I get it you have him well backed
Hilary – I hope he don’t read the journal or your screwed lol
Brennan’s whole grain bread has a shelf life of nanoseconds.
Aldi Brown and pitta breads will go mouldy within two days of opening, I’ve tried everything to slow the process, (including, stupidly, the fridge), nothing seems to slow the process. Their Brown bread is gorgeous. I now open a pack and immediately freeze half of it. This works, but it’s not ideal. Any suggestions?
Slight warming in oven couple days in
@Paul, try a sprinkle of their Solesta Olive oil on your Aldi bread and you will just have to have some more thus eliminating any problems of surplus :-)
In California, where I hail from, bread doesn’t mold for weeks. It goes concrete-hard before it molds. When I got to Ireland, I was shocked (—shocked, I tell you!) to see it mold in mere minutes. Is the climate? It rains from September through April in California, but it still doesn’t yield moldy bread.
I will ponder this puzzle for many years, I’m afraid.
American bread is full of preservatives
Just look at wonder bread the one thing you notice between the two is the freshness of Irish bread
I think it might be that the bread in America contains far more preservatives? P.s I’ve never seen bread mould in minutes, not in Ireland or anywhere else.
More sugar in American bread, gives it a more cake like consistency.
Cakes go hard when they go off, then go mouldy.
American bread, like their chocolate and cheese is over processed sh1te.
Cakes go hard , biscuits go soft make the Jaffa cake a tiny actual cake
American bread is full of crap to stop mould
Processed and preserved! Not just your bread but so many other foodstuffs in the USA!
It partly explains why your are no. 1 in the world… in obesity and overweight!
Mexico is world no1 America is no 2
Thats because in America they put corn syrup or fructose syrup in bread which inhibits mould growth. The shelf life of bread is far extended but American bread can contirbute to obesity and diabetes.
And don’t store it in fridge
Why?
Water molecules detach themselves from the starch molecules and the starch molecules begin to take their original shape and harden again. The cool temperatures of the refrigerator make the dehydration process happen more quickly, specifically, about six times as fast via the process listed above.
vlad,
put down the books, go to the pub nearest to u and get sloshed……………………
So you probably don’t eat bread in your part of the world, Vlad?
he eats breaded fish…………….lol, sorry.
The hotter the bread when packed, the quicker it goes off because it ‘sweats’ more in the packaging and this facilitates the growth of mould. Of course, like any other food, the more preservatives in the product the slower it goes off….so food spoiling quickly is probably a sign it has fewer preservatives.
That’s very interesting Vlad.
My mum always keeps her sliced bread in the fridge, she swears it lasts longer.
Correct, the amylose and amylopectin in the starch in bread hydrogen bond with each other and the starch crystalises when cold and makes the bread hard. This is the process of staling and putting bread in the fridge causes this process to speed up.
Well done to Henrietta. Taking everyday questions and finding a scientific answer is the basis of science. Before we explore the solar system, we need to know the answer to certain things in our own kitchens.
Wow ! Could this be the scientific breakthrough of the century?
And what questions were you asking at her age and trying to find an answer for?
Working out how many times he could do it in one day, like everybody else.
Bernard – I’ve been up there every year for the past 10 years and it elates me to see really innovative projects, but FFS who really gives a sh*t about which gets moldier first? I’m pretty sure its in Louis Pasteur notes if we really wanted to know.
Who really gives a ****.
Well I think the fact that this young girl is concerning herself with why bread moulds or doesn’t is a very good thing for her and hopefully, she will ask herself more questions and try and solve those. That is the basis of the Young Scientist, encouraging young people to ask questions about science and answer them.
Fair play to her
Very creative yet simple
I hope she won something
I’d imagine wine would get ya mowldier than bread?
What kind of “science experiment” is this?
Give the kids some encouragement Margaret, it’s a better type of experiment than the scrotes get up to.
Food science and the discovery and invention of new ingredients is actually one of our most important industries, but don’t let that distract you from criticising the effort and work of a teenager in the area
I’m well aware of the importance of food science but hanging around to see which bread goes mouldy quicker isn’t the sort of stuff you would expect to see at a young scientist competition.
Another exhibition involved doing a survey about people’s feelings regarding climate change. Conclusion? That most people don’t really care. Groundbreaking!
I think we should aim a little higher
than this
It is easier to spot on white bread.
Considering mould is usually white before it is green, I think that might be a tad wrong.
Slow us more female scientists. If you show a male one that is sexiest.
Brown bread does not have more nutrients that white bread apart from fibre..unless you include seeds in the production, which you could just as easily do to white bread.
have your say