RTÉ has said no member of its executive board other than former director general Dee Forbes could have known the public was misled on payments to Ryan Tubridy.
In a lengthy statement this evening, the broadcaster said the then director general and the former chief financial officer negotiated the deal.
Interim director general Adrian Lynch said Ms Forbes “had all the necessary information in order to understand that the publicly declared figures for Ryan Tubridy could have been wrong”.
Mr Lynch said the payments, which were to be paid by commercial partner Renault but underwritten by RTÉ, were negotiated by “the director general and the then chief financial officer (Breda O’Keeffe) supported by the RTÉ solicitor and approved by the director general”.
The statement comes after RTÉ staff staged protests at the broadcaster’s offices around the country as questions intensified around the €345,000 worth of undeclared payments made between 2017 and 2022 to Mr Tubridy, which emerged last week.
Tuesday’s statement covers fees paid to Tubridy between 2020-2022 and said a report found no illegality in the payments.
Ms Forbes, who resigned as director general of RTÉ on Monday, was not consulted in the drafting of the statement and Mr Lynch warned she may dispute some elements of it.
The statement outlines the terms of a tripartite agreement between RTÉ, Mr Tubridy and a commercial partner. This agreement was separate to Mr Tubridy’s central contract with RTÉ.
The agreement involved Mr Tubridy’s appearance at commercial events.
It explains that Mr Tubridy was to be paid 75,000 euro annually under this tripartite commercial arrangement, with the payments underwritten by RTÉ.
The payment was made by the commercial partner in the first year. The same sum paid to Mr Tubridy was then provided back to the commercial partner by RTÉ by way of a credit note on future spending with the broadcaster – meaning the deal was cost-neutral to the business.
Mr Lynch said Tubridy was not aware of the credit note provided by RTÉ to the commercial partner.
However, this arrangement ended during the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving RTÉ liable for the next two years of payments.
Mr Lynch said Ms Forbes had verbally agreed to the terms of the commercial arrangement in a video meeting.
He said other than Ms Forbes and the commercial director, no member of the executive board had knowledge of two invoices from Mr Tubridy’s agent dated May 9th, 2022 and July 6th, 2022 relating to the two amounts owed under the ceased commercial arrangement.
He said the commercial director has stated that her knowledge of those matters was limited to the instructions received by her from Ms Forbes in connection with the payments in question.
Those instructions were received at a point in time when the arrangements, on foot of which the May 9th, 2022 and July 6th, 2022 invoices ultimately came to be raised, had already been negotiated and agreed, and to which the commercial director was not party.
In addition, RTÉ paid, via the UK Barter account, for the costs of hosting the commercial sponsor events in 2022.
The actual cost of the events was €30,586.
These payments were recorded in the barter account at a value of €47,477.
This evening's statement from RTÉ does not cover the years prior to 2020, but Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has aid there must be answers on that time period too.
Speaking in the Dáil earlier, Mr Varadkar said: "I don't know exactly why it's the case that we don't have more detail on the payments between 2017 and 2019, I'll endeavour to find out more about that today.
"I know that there is an enquiry going on in relation to that... and we will get that information. I'm not sure why we can't get that information today as opposed to two days time or next week, but I will follow up on that, as will the minister."
Government and opposition TDs have called on Ms Forbes to appear before Oireachtas Media Committee hearings, however, a spokesperson said she would not be attending due to health reasons. - Additional reporting from Press Association
