A Fianna Fáil TD has said he believes Ryan Tubridy “came out better than he went into” the Public Accounts Committee meeting on Tuesday.
In two extraordinary committee appearances on Tuesday, Tubridy said he had been “publicly cancelled” and it was “touch and go” whether he would be allowed to return to his weekly radio programme.
The former Late Late Show presenter said he wants to return to RTÉ radio as soon as possible “because it’s all I’ve got”.
“If I do go back to RTÉ, which I hope to, it’ll be a whole new world order,” Tubridy said in his closing remarks.
RTÉ has been mired in controversy since it emerged last month that it under-reported fees paid to Tubridy and failed to correctly disclose €345,000 of payments to him between 2017 and 2022.
James O’Connor, who is a member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said many of the documents released by Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly in advance of the meeting had “improved his standing”.
However, Mr O'Connor told Newstalk radio that was not happy that the 39 pages of documents had been provided to the committee members “just 90 minutes” before the meeting.
The documents had revealed emails between Mr Kelly and RTÉ which indicated that previous testimony to the PAC by RTÉ representatives had been “misleading.” There remained many questions for RTÉ to answer, particularly Dee Forbes and Breda O’Keefe, he added.
Mr O’Connor did have concerns about the claim that Renault had in previous years paid Tubridy in advance for events that had not yet been held. “That’s hard to understand. I would take that with a pinch of salt.”
It was highly unusual for someone to be paid two years in advance. What would happen now that Tubridy no longer worked on the Late Late Show, would he have to pay that money back, he asked.
RTÉ’s new director general Kevin Bakhurst now had “a golden ticket” and had the opportunity to reform the station from the top to the bottom. “This is a clean slate,” Mr O'Connor said.
Questions 'left hanging'
However, Fine Gael TD Ciarán Cannon repeated his unhappiness with evidence presented to the PAC on Tuesday.
Mr Cannon told RTÉ's Morning Ireland that after six hours of questioning on Tuesday, there were still many questions “left hanging in the air” and that was “most unfortunate.”
“One of the issues that I repeatedly raised with Mr Kelly was that he stated at the very beginning of his contributions that he had no reason to suspect that RTÉ might be trying to hide payments to Ryan Tubridy.
“Noel Kelly is a vastly experienced director of a very successful company. He has spent 23 years negotiating with RTÉ, and somebody presented him with a demand, as he described it, for an invoice that it was to be made out to a company he had never heard of, is not to mention Ryan Tubridy’s name in any shape or form, and is to be made in payment for consultancy services that were never provided.
“Now, if I had been Noel Kelly and I was deeply concerned, as he should be, about damaging the reputation of Ryan Tubridy, if details of this ever emerged, that would have set off huge alarm bells in my head. I would have asked serious questions of who is this company? Why am I making out an invoice for services that were never delivered and why am I leaving Ryan Tubridy’s name off this.”
Mr Cannon said he believed Noel Kelly had a serious responsibility to protect the reputation of his client and he had fallen down in that regard. The PAC meeting had been an opportunity for him to begin to restore public trust in Tubridy “as a person of integrity and trustworthiness, something that I believe he ultimately is, but through the actions of Noel Kelly, we remain in the fog.
“We remain in the fog, remain confused, and ultimately we remain deeply concerned.”
Mr Cannon pointed out the discrepancy between Mr Kelly’s response in the Grant Thornton report and his comments to the PAC. Either his account to Grant Thornton was inaccurate or his account to the PAC was inaccurate.
“The two simply don't stand.”
Mr Cannon said the evidence by RTÉ representatives had also been contradicted by Noel Kelly and Ryan Tubridy.
“We are deeply concerned, as we should be, about the future of public service broadcasting in this country. It's something that is, I have to say, immensely precious to me.
“This institution is so, so important to us as a democracy. It really beggars belief that we've had hours and hours and hours of testimony now. And I as a public representative representing license payers and taxpayers simply can't stand up and say, hand on heart. I trust everything I'm hearing here.”
'Line will have to be drawn'
Meanwhile, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that she does not know for how long the Oireachtas committees will continue their inquiries into the controversy, but that at some point a line will have to be drawn.
Ms McEntee told RTÉ radio’s Today with Claire Byrne that the information presented to the Oireachtas committees was “put together” and made public so that everybody could see what had happened.
There were a number of strands to the issue, she said. It was important that as a publicly funded body RTÉ was held accountable, but it was also important that all the facts be made public.
Separately there was a process whereby Minister for Media Catherine Martin was seeking a forensic review “looking at the accounts again to make sure that all of the facts are there, that they're clear.”
She said the new director general Kevin Bakhurst needed to be given time to take all the information that had been gathered and to make sure that trust was rebuilt in RTÉ.
Ms McEntee said she had not heard any of the evidence presented to the committees. “Of course I've read and while I haven't been able to see in real time, I've read what has happened.”
Both committees now had to present their reports so that all the information could be analysed along with the forensic review, she added.
When asked if she thought Ryan Tubridy should be back on air, Ms McEntee said: “Personally, I don't think it's for me to decide or to dictate who should or should not be on air.
“I think that's a matter for the director general and the RTÉ authority, and I know that he is obviously going to be taking into account all of the situations that have arisen, all of the information that he has, and then that decision will be made. So I really don't think it's appropriate for me as a government minister to dictate who should or should not be on our radio.”
Tubridy back on air
Earlier, Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said it was not his “business” or that of any politician to comment on whether Tubridy should return to on air duties at RTÉ.
That was a line no politician should cross, he told Newstalk.
When asked if the Government would be providing more funding to RTÉ, Mr Donohoe said he would not be indicating what the Government response would be.
He said the new director general had to face three key issues: the implementation of a transparent pay policy within the station, a register of interest and the funding of RTÉ.
What had really happened within RTÉ would have to be determined by a forensic accountant as “really serious” issues had arisen and people were annoyed about what had happened, Mr Donohoe said.
But it was important to have a sense of “proportionality and balance” during the inquiries, he warned.
On the issue of the TV licence and reports that Minister for Media Catherine Martin would not be advising people to pay their licence fee, Mr Donohoe said there was no stronger advocate for RTÉ and public service broadcasting than Ms Martin.
He said having a TV licence was the law and it was important to support public service broadcasting as it had a vital role to play.
