Representatives from RTÉ have appeared before the Oireachtas Media Committee to answer questions following revelations concerning payments to former Late Late Show presenter Ryan Tubridy.
Former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes, who resigned from her position on Monday, did not appear before the committee on health grounds. Jim Jennings, RTÉ's director of content, was also unavailable to attend.
Here's some key points raised during the committee hearing:
Watch continued coverage as the Joint Ctte on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport & Media meets to discuss recent revelations concerning the transparency of @rte's expenditure of public funds & governance issues following the statement issued by the RTÉ Board.https://t.co/GbTW1DYjkk pic.twitter.com/801qfMUPpO
— Houses of the Oireachtas - Tithe an Oireachtais (@OireachtasNews) June 28, 2023
Members of RTÉ's board and executive arrived at Leinster House on Wednesday afternoon to give evidence to the joint committee on tourism, culture, arts, sport and media, following a scandal over misstated payments to star presenter Ryan Tubridy.
Chairwoman of the board Siún Ní Raghallaigh, board member Anne O’Leary, and staff representative to the board Robert Shortt arrived together.
Interim deputy director-general Adrian Lynch, commercial director Geraldine O’Leary, strategy director Rory Coveney and chief financial officer Richard Collins arrived a short time later.
RTÉ board chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh expressed “profound regret” about the misreported payments scandal, telling members of the Oireachtas Media Committee that the broadcaster “fell far short of the standards expected of us as an organisation”.
At the opening of a meeting of the media scrutiny committee, Ms Ní Raghallaigh said: “I apologise for this egregious breach of trust with the public.
“I am also mindful that this committee, and others, were in the past presented with information that was simply untrue. That was a breach of trust with you, the elected members of the Oireachtas, for which we sincerely apologise.
“The public, RTÉ staff, and public representatives are angry and hurt.
“We know that our bond of trust with the public is tarnished.
“We know that trust is precious, and that once lost, trust is difficult to regain.
“Step by step we will work to rebuild that trust.
“We will not flinch in this regard. We know that this will be challenging, but we are committed to doing so, in order that confidence in Ireland’s national public service broadcaster can be restored.”
She also used her opening statement to restate how the issues were identified during a routine audit of the 2022 accounts, and addressed questions around whether Tubridy was paid an exit fee at the end of a contract in 2019.
“For the record, I want to confirm that he did not receive an exit fee,” she said.
Ms Ní Raghallaigh said RTÉ was committed to working closely with the Government commissioned external review of the broadcaster.
She added: “I also wish at this point to acknowledge the upset and distress being caused to the independent production sector in Ireland, a community I know well. Their wellbeing is very much contingent on the wellbeing of RTÉ also.
“As I have said previously, RTÉ is an organisation of more than 1,800 people. I apologise to each and every one of them for the distress they are experiencing as they deal with the shadow that has fallen over this organisation.
“I want to assure this committee and the public that the board is committed to ensuring that we get full clarity on this, that there is accountability for it, and that it never happens again.”
RTÉ commercial director Geraldine O’Leary said she “did not construct” the tripartite deal involving the national broadcaster, star presenter Ryan Tubridy, and Renault as a commercial partner.
“I was not in the room, I was not part of the negotiations.”
Responding to a question at the media committee member from Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster, Ms O’Leary said: “When the negotiations had been done. I was advised by the then CFO and the director general there was a commercial element being introduced to this multi-annual talent deal, which was the first time anything like this had come to me.”
On two occasions, Tubridy’s agent raised invoices of €75,000 with a barter company – typically a middle party in a business negotiation.
The invoices for the payments referenced “consultancy fees”.
Asked if she advocated for the payments to be listed as consultancy fees, Ms O’Leary said she could not remember the “precise detail”.
She said there was an urgency to pay the invoices.
RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins said he had no oversight of the barter account payments relating to presenter Ryan Tubridy.
“You’ve got to understand, the barter account was under the control of the commercial division – outside of finance.
“The director-general obviously took a close interest in this barter account. These transactions were processed through the barter account.”
He said he was oblivious to the payments under the barter account: “They came on my radar when they were raised by the auditors in March 2023.”
Mr Collins said when the misstated figures for Tubridy’s earnings were published, the finance division “can only report what we know and what we’re told”.
RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins said the mis-stated fees for Ryan Tubridy between 2017-2019 relate to a loyalty bonus he was owed which was credited against his earnings.
Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster asked Mr Collins about the €120,000 of previously undisclosed payments from RTÉ to Mr Tubridy between 2017-2019.
Mr Collins said: “This was an adjustment that was made to the figures.
“Basically, in short, Ryan Tubridy was due a loyalty bonus at the end of his contract of €120,000.
“That was never paid, was never accrued from the accounts, but for an unexplained reason that €120,000 was credited against his earnings between 2017 and 2019.
“That’s under investigation at the moment by [external financial services firm] Grant Thornton.”
He said this was signed off by former director general Dee Forbes and the CFO of the time.
RTÉ commercial director Geraldine O’Leary categorically said the decision to use the barter account for payments relating to star presenter Ryan Tubridy was made by former director general Dee Forbes.
Responding to a question from Fine Gael senator Micheal Carrigy, she said to her knowledge no other “talent deal” had come through the commercial department prior to the tripartite deal involving Mr Tubridy and a commercial partner.
RTÉ interim deputy director-general Adrian Lynch said that underwriting commercial payments to Ryan Tubridy should never have happened and led to incorrect fee figures being published.
He said the verbal guarantee made on May 7th, 2020, by RTÉ to underwrite the commercial payments to Mr Tubridy was “critical” and the “significant thing at the centre of this”.
When the sponsor did pull out, he told the committee that “RTÉ should have declared Ryan Tubridy’s earnings”.
He said he was not aware of the full aspects of the commercial deal.
“I had absolutely no awareness of how this deal was operationalised, in terms of where it was paid from or the relationship with the client, no.”
He added: “What happened here was, it comes back to the underwriting of this arrangement, because RTÉ should never underwrite a commercial agreement and, in relation to a talent, to say that they will pay out of public funds to that talent.
“So that is what then led to incorrect figures being published, completely lacking in transparency and a complete breach of corporate governance.”
Adrian Lynch said Ryan Tubridy’s agent was “particularly focused” on getting a guarantee and that the legal position was that it should not be provided.
“I’ve reviewed some of the correspondence around this and the agent was particularly focused on getting a guarantee, which there was no record that – outside of the verbal agreement – that this was provided, and the legal position was it shouldn’t be provided,” he told the committee.
He added each presenter “has a right to representation if they so wish”.
“As an agent, he (Noel Kelly of NK Management) is going to derive the best bargain he can for his clients.”
He said that it was not clear who initiated the idea of the payments from 2020-2022 being labelled as “consultancy services”.
When asked by Senator Shane Cassells whether Ryan Tubridy would appear back on RTÉ Radio, Mr Lynch said: “At the moment, obviously, for editorial reasons, it’s impossible for Ryan Tubridy (to be) back on air.”
When asked would he be back on air in the long term, Mr Lynch added: “Again, I would just say for editorial reasons, he is not on air at the moment.”
Asked later how many members of RTÉ staff are represented by Noel Kelly Management, Mr Lynch said: “It could be four or five.”
In response, Senator Malcolm Byrne said: “I do find it surprising the executive board don’t know how many people are represented.”
RTÉ board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh said former director-general Dee Forbes had been invited to participate in a process with an intermediary prior to her resignation.
She was responding to Independent TD Mattie McGrath, who also called for a garda investigation into the payments scandal.
He said RTÉ must take the public for “patsies and fools”.
“It’s unbelievable. I mean, Putin wouldn’t get away with some of the tricks you got away with.”
Robert Shortt, RTÉ's economics correspondent and staff representative on the broadcaster’s board, told the committee of the challenge in rebuilding trust in the organisation.
“Many of my colleagues have spoken far more eloquently than I could about the anger that they felt,” he said.
“We also had the protests yesterday, but my colleagues are also acutely aware of the need to keep doing their jobs, and they’re committed to keep doing their jobs. I think that’s going to be a key part of rebuilding trust in RTÉ.”
Labour senator Marie Sherlock pressed RTÉ commercial director Geraldine O’Leary on the two €75,000 invoices paid out to Mr Tubridy’s agent in 2022 and queried why she had not asked questions about the transactions.
“I’m not normally somebody who raises invoices, that’s not part of what I do,” she replied.
“So, this was an unusual situation where I was asked by the director general to raise invoices or to advise my assistant to raise invoices for NKM (management company).”
She added: “The way I understood it at the time was that there was no budget, the director general didn’t have a budget at her disposal and she asked me to use the barter account.”
RTÉ interim director general Adrian Lynch said correspondence around the undeclared payments to Ryan Tubridy represented “the total opposite” of good governance and transparency.
He said: “This is not good reading in terms of corporate governance or transparency, in fact it’s the total opposite.
“So, from an exec board point of view, we absolutely own the fact that this feels siloed, fragmented.”
Cork TD Christopher O’Sullivan said his first memories of RTÉ were of Bosco.
“My first memories were of Bosco and his magic door, and then you have obviously 40 coats with his 50 pockets, and it clearly seems to me that Bosco and his magic door are clearly still present in RTÉ, and so are his 40 coats and his 50 pockets, and I think that culture has to be changed, it has to be stamped out, and I’m not sure if the current executive board are the people who can do that, but we’ll see what happens.”
RTÉ board chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh said the management of the organisation has to “seriously be addressed”.
“We have very much a cultural issue within the organisation, you can see, this is why we’re here,” she told the committee.
“It’s a culture that’s in there that accepts that ‘well, that’s approved by the DG, so I’m not going to talk about it’.
Culture comes from the top down and there’s a role for the executive board now to actually own what the issues are here and discuss it with the board.
“I think all of the people here (RTÉ executives) would agree here now that that’s wrong.
“For the board and for me, and I’m only there seven months, but for me that was the shocking part of it as well, that there wasn’t the conversations that we all would assume would happen, but each of them in their own individual area … it’s siloed.”
She added: “Culture comes from the top down and there’s a role for the executive board now to actually own what the issues are here and discuss it with the board.
“We have to talk that through in terms of how that has permeated right down into the organisation.”
All seven witnesses before the committee were asked if they were aware of the guaranteeing and underwriting of the undeclared payments to Ryan Tubridy.
RTÉ commercial director Geraldine O’Leary answered that she only knew about the commercial element of the deal and said it was clear to her subsequently that it was underwritten by RTÉ.
She said she first saw the invoices in March of this year, but that an invoice had been raised previously within her office in May 2020. She said that Mr Tubridy’s name was not on the invoices.
“It became obvious to me that there was obviously some commitment to pay the money when I was asked to raise the invoices, but I only found out subsequently that it was underwritten,” she said.
“They were raised in my office but I didn’t see the invoices. I didn’t see the actual terminology of the invoices.
“The conversation about whether ‘consultancy fees’, which I’ve said consistently, it may well have been a conversation (between) me and the director general, but I don’t want to say it was because I cannot remember the precise conversation.”
RTÉ’s commercial director Geraldine O’Leary said deals between presenters and motor companies over the provision of cars for personal use do not come through the commercial division.
Interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said he is “pretty confident” that no journalist in the broadcaster’s news division has a deal with a car brand.
Senator Fintan Warfield asked if it was a conflict of interest for an RTÉ presenter to interview someone who is represented by the same agent, with Mr Lynch saying RTÉ works under the “highest editorial standards”.
However, he said listeners or viewers are entitled to know if that is the case.
Mr Warfield questioned whether there were grounds for an investigation into potential price-fixing or anti-competitive behaviour in the relationship between RTÉ and talent agency NK Management, which represents several of the broadcaster’s top presenters.
Chair of the RTÉ board’s audit and risk committee Anne O’Leary said she was “concerned about those contracts”.
“One of the things I’m putting on the agenda for the next audit and risk committee is to get an internal audit first so we get some more detail before I may have to do a more serious audit.
“But I take your concerns, and I’m very concerned about it as well.”
RTÉ chief financial officer Richard Collins said the national broadcaster is reviewing all transactions in a barter account used by the organisation’s commercial division, following a scandal involving mis-stated payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy through the account.
He said the “thorough investigation” would take a number of weeks.
However, he said “there is nothing that stands out” in an initial overview.
Responding to Alan Dillon TD, Mr Collins said: “I mean, the issue here that happened is that an invoice was mislabelled – the true nature of the invoice was concealed.”
Mr Dillon asked commercial director Geraldine O’Leary if there were any other payments for RTÉ talent that were off balance sheet.
She responded: “Not in relation to talent, absolutely not.”
In relation to the payments to Mr Tubridy, Ms O’Leary said she was aware the barter account invoices were being directed to the presenter.
However, she said: “I had no understanding if there was any motivation that these were secret payments.
“As I understood it – and subsequently has been proven – there was a commitment to make these payments whether there was a commercial activity or not.”
The relationship between the exec board members is quite siloed in terms of information.
She said she had “no reason to doubt” the former director general Dee Forbes’s intention when she asked her to raise the invoices on the barter account.
Asked if she had considered the ongoing restructuring of pay for presenters at the time, Ms O’Leary said: “I had no idea what the €75,000 represented in terms of Ryan Tubridy’s overall earnings, because that’s not something that I’m privy to.
“All I knew was that there was this element of a multi-element deal which I was being asked to work through.”
Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon asked interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch if the failures in the process are “solely on the shoulders” of Ms Forbes.
Mr Lynch said: “The relationship between the exec board members is quite siloed in terms of information.
“That information wasn’t shared around the payments, for example.
“So, in terms of good practice, you can see there’s a lot of bad practice.”
Interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch confirmed Ryan Tubridy was still getting paid while he was off-air.
He also said he did not believe the discovery of the payments by the auditors was related to Mr Tubridy’s decision to quit the Late Late Show.
“From what I can see in terms of the timeline, there is no relationship between these payments and the decision to step down from the Late Late Show,” he said.
Mr Lynch insisted he knew “absolutely nothing” about RTÉ underpinning the payments as part of the initial tripartite deal with Renault.
“There was a commercial decision made to give an undertaking to underwrite the commercial agreement, that is a commercial decision which comes with risks,” he said.
“When the wheels came off the bus slightly in that, it then meant that was activated and money was paid directly from RTÉ to Ryan Tubridy, and that then impacted the account we published.”
He added: “I knew absolutely nothing about that. I can say that hand on heart. I had no idea that a guarantee had been given regarding this arrangement.”
Mr Lynch said the current executive board was prepared to “own” the issues that have emerged.
“As an exec board, we totally recognise that there has been a serious breach of corporate governance here and lack of transparency, and completely own that,” he said.
“And, working with the chair, we’re completely committed to rebuilding good practice.”
Board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh said: “In terms of the culture in the organisation, it’s not correct, there’s silos, the executive board is not functioning as an executive board should and we have to address this.”
Let’s call a spade a spade, Dee Forbes is being thrown under a bus here.
Independent TD Peter Fitzpatrick said he could not understand how only Dee Forbes knew about the misreporting of the payments.
“Let’s call a spade a spade, Dee Forbes is being thrown under a bus here,” he said.
Mr Lynch also confirmed Tubridy is still in contract with the national broadcaster.
Asked by Sinn Féin TD John Brady about Mr Tubridy’s exact contractual position, Adrian Lynch said the presenter is “currently in contract”.
He added: “The contract that he was on in terms of for providing TV services as well as radio finished on 31st of May, and there was a process to renegotiate the radio-only contract, which at the moment is suspended.”
RTÉ’s commercial director Geraldine O’Leary told the committee that a review had found there was nothing fraudulent or illegal in payments made into a barter account used by the organisation’s commercial division.
Sinn Féin TD John Brady said: “In relation to the barter account, that is solely operated by the commercial director.
“To refer back to the Grant Thornton report, it talks about the consultancy fees. It says they did not reflect the substance of the transactions, the talent agent did not provide consultancy.
“Many would construe that as a fraudulent invoice, a fraudulent payment, based on that.”
Ms O’Leary said: “The Arthur Cox review of who oversaw this said there was nothing fraudulent or illegal about any of the transactions.”
Mr Brady said: “There is a view there that nothing is fraudulent, and that is being checked by the law section within RTÉ?”
Ms O’Leary said: “That is what we are being told.”
RTÉ board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh has revealed that she asked former director general Dee Forbes to resign on June 16th.
That was almost a full week before the controversy became public.
RTÉ interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said an agreement for a €75,000 payment from the broadcaster to Ryan Tubridy was made verbally between former director general Dee Forbes and Tubridy’s agent.
Sinn Féin TD John Brady asked the committee: “In terms of the five-year contract that was negotiated with Ryan Tubridy, we know of the clause for 75,000 in additional payments to Mr Tubridy.
“Where is the writing that RTÉ agreed to underwrite that agreement. Is there a side letter?”
Mr Lynch said: “I went through all the files to see if there was a side letter in relation to that.
“It was a verbal agreement given by the director general to Noel Kelly (Tubridy’s agent).”
Chair of the RTÉ board Siún Ní Raghallaigh said the pay deal relating to incoming Late Late Show host Patrick Kielty has yet to come before the board’s remuneration committee.
The deal was agreed with the chief financial officer.
Interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said RTÉ could publish the deal with Mr Kielty’s agreement.
Media committee chair Niamh Smyth again asked the RTÉ executive how many members of staff are represented by NK Management.
RTÉ’s director of strategy Rory Coveney said it was “a considerable number”, with commercial director Geraldine O’Leary said it was in “double figures”.
Clarifying his earlier remarks, Mr Lynch said it was “around 10 or 11” – adding he had been referring to the 10 earners when he said “four or five” earlier in the committee.
He said an exact figure could shortly be provided to the committee.
Incoming RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst intends to undertake “deep reform” of corporate governance at the broadcaster, an Oireachtas committee has been told.
RTÉ interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said that corporate governance in the organisation had “failed completely” during the process which led to undeclared payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy.
Mr Lynch said: “In terms of the incoming DG and having spoken to him this week, his plan is in terms of corporate governance that there will be deep reform.
“In this event the corporate governance has failed completely.
“But I think it is not systemic in the organisation in terms of the controls that are in place.
“There are controls in place, in this particular instance they were over-ridden.”
The seven RTÉ witnesses were asked if it was plausible for the public to believe that only one person within the organisation knew about secret payments to Ryan Tubridy.
Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon asked: “Do you think that the public find it exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to believe that an arrangement could have been put in place with Ryan Tubridy, a highly unusual arrangement, one that went above normal corporate practices within RTÉ, and that only one person in the whole organisation was aware of it, only one person dictated that it would occur?
“Do you accept that the public find it exceptionally difficult to accept the element of your statement last night that ultimately the responsibility for this rests with one individual?”
RTÉ interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said: “Ryan Tubridy’s actual contract is a lawful contract.
“The tripartite agreement would be a lawful commercial arrangement and is, whatever you think about it.
“Where this entire story changed was the decision to underwrite an agreement because the consequence of that meant the figures that were published were inaccurate.
“Just to be clear, I did not know anything about these payments and how they were made. I did not know they would impact the top 10 earnings.”
RTÉ board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh explained why she has asked Dee Forbes to quit.
“When the Grant Thornton report was delivered to the (RTÉ board’s) audit and risk committee, the audit and risk committee made recommendations and one of those recommendations was to ask for her resignation,” she said.
Fine Gael TD Brendan Griffin said it was a “monumental error” to ask the director general to resign, and then accept her resignation, as it had deprived the committee of the opportunity to get her to come face questions.
He questioned whether board members should be considering their own positions for allowing Ms Forbes to quit before she had faced parliamentarians.
Ms Ní Raghallaigh conceded that board members had not talked about the implications for the parliamentary committees when deliberating over Ms Forbes’ resignation.
“Our decisions taken around that were what we agreed as a board because we felt that what had happened was shocking,” she said.
The chair added: “She (Ms Forbes) still has the option to come before the committee.”
Mr Griffin also asked about the reference in the report to internal push back against Ms Forbes’ decision to underwrite the commercial deal.
Interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch replied: “That would have been legal advising around the risks of signing something like this.”
The TD then asked Mr Lynch if RTÉ would consider publishing details of its top 100 earners, rather than just the top ten.
“I just like to also say that in terms of publishing the top 100 or whatever most people in RTÉ are not paid a lot of money,” he said. “That’s a very important thing to say in terms of the staff.”
Mr Lynch was also asked why Dee Forbes had not been asked to give her version of events in the Tuesday statement.
“That was about getting the information out to the public as quick as possible but being sure enough of the facts,” he said.
He denied he was afraid what Ms Forbes’ response would be.
The interim deputy director general again dismissed a suggestion that the discovery of the invoices on March 17th was linked to Mr Tubridy’s announcement that he was leaving the Late Late Show on March 16th.
“Ryan Tubridy wouldn’t have been aware that these invoices, which were lawful by the way from his point of view, had been discovered,” he said.
Mr Lynch also confirmed that RTÉ would be prepared to publish details of Patrick Kielty’s salary as the new Late Late Show host if Mr Kielty was content with their publication.
RTÉ interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch said it was “untenable” to have Ryan Tubridy presenting his radio show while a row about undeclared payments made to him continues.
Fianna Fail TD Cathal Crowe asked who had taken the decision to take Mr Tubridy off the air.
Mr Lynch said the decision rested with him as the acting editor-in-chief.
Mr Crowe asked what had to happen for Mr Tubridy to come back on the air.
Mr Lynch said: “At the moment it is not tenable for him to be on air for editorial reasons.
“The editorial reason is we wouldn’t give our airwaves to anyone who is involved in a controversy, that just wouldn’t happen.”
Mr Crowe asked Mr Lynch if he was inferring that Mr Tubridy had done something wrong.
Mr Lynch said: “Ryan Tubridy entered a lawful contract with RTÉ.
“This is not an editorial issue, this is a significant failure in terms of controls.”
