RTE’s star presenter Ryan Tubridy has said he will offer to pay back two payments at the centre of a “fiasco” the broadcaster has been embroiled in, as he laid bare the personal impact of the furore.
Former Late Late Show presenter Tubridy said that he was due to make six more personal appearances for commercial sponsor Renault as part of a contentious deal at the centre of the crisis that has engulfed RTÉ.
But he added that “if that work is not called upon to be done, of course the money goes back”.
In two extraordinary committee appearances at Dublin’s parliament, 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.
He stated he could be out of a job by Friday, but wanted to return to RTE Radio as soon as possible “because it’s all I’ve got”.
RTE 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 euro of payments to him between 2017 and 2022.
The furore has since widened amid further disclosures about RTÉ’s internal financial, accounting and governance practices and its expenditure on corporate hospitality for advertising clients.
Newly appointed director general Kevin Bakhurst stood down RTÉ’s executive leadership board on Monday as he vowed to restore trust in the embattled organisation.
RTÉ operates on a dual funding model, with the majority of its revenue secured from a licence fee and the rest generated from advertising revenue.
The Government has paused discussions on a new long-term funding arrangement until the current crisis abates.
They have already announced two separate external reviews of RTÉ and also moved to send in a forensic auditor to examine the broadcaster’s accounts.
The Public Accounts Committee and Media Committee in Dublin are conducting their own probes into the affair.
As Tubridy appeared before both committees on Tuesday, he at times appeared emotional, slamming his hand on the table during his opening statement and claiming there had been misinformation and a “fog of confusion” around what fees he had been paid.
Tubridy also emphasised that none of the payments represented “overpayments of any sort”, but instead were under declarations by RTÉ.
He said that a €120,000 payment due at the end of his 2015-2019 contract had been waived by him, and said that RTÉ then suggested that it should be accounted for by retrospectively under-reporting his salary across several years.
“We made clear that the 120,000 should not be taken off or deducted for prior year actual earnings,” he said, calling such a suggestion odd.
The former Late Late show host also reiterated on several occasions that his decision to step down from RTE’s flagship chat show was not linked to the discovery of the accounting issues by auditors in March.
Tubridy announced publicly that he would step down from the programme after 14 years at its helm on March 16, and presented the last episode in May.
“My name has been desperately sullied, I think my reputation has been sullied,” Tubridy told the committee, stating that he had been subjected to a “frenzy”.
“I’m deeply upset. I’m hurt. It’s hard to leave the house if you really want me to be honest about it,” he said.
“People here have families. People need to think about – you’re public representatives – you know what it means when you’re in the middle of something.
“This is my first rodeo being in the public eye (like this). I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if any of you’ve been cancelled before but let me tell you, you don’t want to be there.”
He thanked people for their support, and said that members of the public had expressed their support to him.
People were seen commenting and reacting to the proceedings being screened in some bars across Dublin.
In one of the most significant revelations from the day, TDs were given an email which challenged RTE claims that ex-director general Dee Forbes had done a “solo run” by agreeing to underwrite a €75,000 a year deal involving RTÉ, Tubridy and Renault.
The deal involved Tubridy making three appearances per year at Renault events. RTÉ executives have previously explained that Renault paid Tubridy the first €75,000 ayment, but then pulled out of the tripartite deal.
Two other €75,000 payments made to Tubridy were made by RTÉ as it had underwritten the amounts due – in what TDs were previously told was a verbal-only agreement made on a Microsoft Teams meeting in May 2020.
But an email between Tubridy’s agent Noel Kelly and former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe in February 2020, CCing Ms Forbes and director of content Jim Jennings, informed the agent of RTE’s willingness to “provide you with a side letter to underwrite this fee for the duration of the contract”.
Labour TD Alan Kelly said that the documents were “compelling” and “completely” contradict RTÉ's account of events.
Noel Kelly told TDs they had been “under siege” in recent weeks, and that Tubridy had been made a “poster boy” for the controversy.
He said RTÉ had attempted to “distance itself” from its decisions, that the deal with Renault was “known widely within the executive board of RTÉ”, and this was “a mess of RTÉ’s making”.
“Suddenly the most trusted man in Ireland, Ryan Tubridy, it was like ‘throw him under a bus’. Why?” Mr Kelly said.
RTÉ has rejected the claim it gave an “incorrect version of events” over an agreement to underwrite payments to Tubridy, and reiterated its position that it was during a verbal commitment given by the former director-general during a video call on May 7th that the €75,000 payments were underwritten.
RTÉ’s new director-general Mr Bakhurst is to appear before the Public Accounts committee on Thursday, his fourth day in the role, along with other RTE executives.
Tubridy has not presented his weekday morning radio programme since the issues at RTÉ came to light on June 22nd.
