RTÉ must "immediately account for why they failed to provide or publish" the review of Ryan Tubridy’s previously incorrect stated pay for three years, the Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon has said.
Speaking at an Oireachtas committee, Mr Dillon asked RTÉ chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh “why has the internal review identifying the €120,000 worth of undeclared payments (from 2017-19) not been provided to the committee?”.
The review, reported in the Irish Independent on Saturday, said there was “no logic” to erroneously subtracting Mr Tubridy’s unpaid bonuses from his published earnings.
Mr Dillon – Fine Gael’s newly elected parliamentary party chairman – said the revelations were "stunning".
“RTÉ have basically admitted they didn’t hand over the internal review which formed the basis of half their case against Ryan Tubridy.
“We now learn that last June, when all eyes were on this farce, RTÉ Chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh knew from her former Chief Financial Officer that the understatement of the best paid RTÉ presenter was unorthodox and not logical.
“I asked the chair why this information was not published or provided to the Media Committee on June 28th last. This dealt with half the period of Mr Tubridy’s pay where RTÉ falsely understated his earnings and since then, nobody in the RTÉ executive board thought this material should be published or provided despite being asked for it?
“Ms Ní Raghallaigh said nothing, despite appearing before various Oireachtas committees on the issue,” Mr Dillon said.
“Public confidence in the management of our national broadcaster is on the floor and keeps falling with every new revelation. Where is the bottom of this? Why haven’t RTÉ’s board come clean and provided everything that occurred at the broadcaster.
“We also learn today the cost of reviews of RTÉ of the financial mismanagement to the taxpayer is running into millions of euros. And we still don’t have the full account.
“What else is being hidden from the public? We’re here on behalf of the people - elected by the people - to interrogate how public funds are used and recorded.
“The least we can expect here is an apology from RTÉ. Not to me, but to the public who put us in positions to establish the truth and also to all of the 1,800 RTÉ staff who have been left to bear the brunt of the fallout from this brutally handled crisis by their senior management.
“This warrants a full explanation, whether you’re talking about Friday night television or giving the facts of their pay deals to an Oireachtas Committee, RTÉ truly is home of the Late Late Show."
RTÉ rebutted the media reports and said these were "not new revelations".
An RTÉ spokesman said: "The email referred to (from RTÉ's former Chief Financial Officer to the Chair of the Board of RTÉ) was a preliminary internal review. This was then forwarded to Grant Thornton to conduct a formal fact-based review (Grant Thornton II).
"It was on the basis of this email that the facts relating to RTÉ payments to Ryan Tubridy were established in the second Grant Thornton Review. It was not concealed, it was central to this review by Grant Thornton to establish the facts.
"This second Grant Thornton Review was made public once completed and provided to both Committees.
"The email had not been formally requested by the Public Accounts Committee at the time the question was raised by Deputy Alan Dillon as to why it hadn't been provided. Furthermore, the second Grant Thornton Review had already commenced at that stage.
"RTÉ has provided hundreds of documents and emails to both the Public Accounts Committee and the Joint Oireachtas Committee to date and remains in contact with both Committees."
