As the reviews roll in for the latest blockbuster episode of the Ryan Tubridy saga, the verdict is mixed. While all agree that this much-anticipated instalment – the one where Tubs talks – delivered the requisite drama we’ve come to expect from the compellingly twisty whodunnit about secret payments in high places, there’s also a consensus that the exiled broadcaster’s marathon testimony in front of two Oireachtas committees should probably be the season finale.
“Is it over then, guys?” asks Pat Kenny (Newstalk, weekdays), more in hope than expectation. “Has the scandal bottomed out?” wonders Claire Byrne (Today, RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), also in tentative fashion. Over on Newstalk Breakfast (weekdays), host Shane Coleman is unequivocal: “It’s time to move on,” he says, “We’ve had our fun.”
Notwithstanding the fact that Tubridy’s evidence still leaves many matters unresolved, not least his future at RTÉ, one senses that the various presenters – and their listeners, moreover – are finally ready to move on. (Then again, this column expressed a similar opinion two weeks ago, so don’t hold your breath.)
Either way, Tuesday’s Oireachtas appearance by Tubridy and his agent, Noel Kelly, is the fulcrum on which the week’s radio turns: fevered speculation beforehand followed by endless analysis afterwards. Back from his holidays, Pat Kenny sounds fresh and enthusiastic as he reports for duty. He cheerily declares that Kelly – who has hovered over this story like a giant asterisk – is his agent, and that Tubridy started as a cub reporter on his old RTÉ radio show, adding that his hallmarks were “hard work, diligence, honesty”.
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Given this, it’s unsurprising to detect a smidgen of sympathy for his former colleague. He talks about their common experience of working for RTÉ as an independent contractor: Kenny recalls being told he couldn’t remain a staff member if he wished to take on more presenting gigs at the network. “There’s so many things I could tell you,” he mischievously confides, even though it’s never a great look for a current affairs presenter to brag about secrets they won’t share.
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Kenny is also positively gleeful about the documents released by Tubridy and Kelly that contradict RTÉ's version of the payments controversy. “These statements are like Exocet missiles,” he chuckles, deploying his best Falklands war-era simile, before one of his guests tastefully updates the analogy to “cluster bomb”. All this about a chatshow host’s salary. Equally, Kenny is wary about any hasty dismantling of RTÉ – “Don’t push Humpty-Dumpty off the wall” – as well as the vengeful mood among much of the political class: “People who have lost probably 1½ billion building a children’s hospital giving out about the price of flip-flops – it’s hard to take.”
Having missed much of the controversy, it’s little wonder that Kenny fires off more zingers on the matter than rivals who have been at the coalface for the previous three weeks. Yet as underlined by his sharp remark on infrastructure cost overruns, he’s keen to examine other issues.
Among other issues, the host hears Cabinet approval for the new National Maternity Hospital project going to tender described as “utter folly” by former Holles Street master Peter Boylan: considering it’s another potential white elephant, the issue is barely noted elsewhere amid the Tubridy turbulence. The sooner normal service resumes, the better.
Over on Radio 1, Claire Byrne similarly seems almost relieved to interview Minister for Justice Helen McEntee about striking barristers than endlessly picking over the Montrose payments affair. That said, Byrne still sounds engaged during Tuesday’s running commentary on the Public Accounts Committee hearings. And little wonder, as Tubridy’s return to air – albeit in the surroundings of Leinster House – makes for riveting listening.
Shorn of the bland committee room visuals, on the radio Tubridy’s opening statement comes across as a valedictory broadcast. By turns exuding wounded defiance – “seven untruths” – and folksy humility, with gratitude for everyone from “decent Irish citizens” to An Post for delivering foot-high piles of supportive letters, the presenter sounds as though he’s channelling his cinematic hero, Jimmy Stewart, recast as the plucky lead of Mr Tubridy Goes to Kildare Street.
[ Fintan O’Toole: In the end, Ryan Tubridy resorted to the Father Ted defenceOpens in new window ]
How successful this gambit is probably depends on one’s view of the speech’s schmaltz-sincerity ratio, not to mention RTÉ's altogether different take on events, but it’s a bravura turn nonetheless. It also helps that the radio coverage ends before Tubridy’s righteous air is deflated by six hours of questioning from TDs and Senators. (Incidentally, that’s one hour more than the total weekly radio output the host is currently contracted for: whatever about television, Radio 1′s schedule has never been anchored around him.) There’s no mistaking his personal pain, but Tubridy’s performance also reminds current and prospective employers – RTÉ, BBC, Newstalk, North Norfolk Digital, whoever – that his broadcasting chops haven’t disappeared overnight.
Meanwhile, other matters beckon. “We need to get back to the affairs of the nation,” Shane Coleman says on Newstalk Breakfast, and sure enough, Thursday’s programme has cohost Ciara Kelly returning to the hardy perennial of the housing crisis. Kelly – who to her credit has dropped her namesake Noel Kelly as her agent to avoid any conflicts of interest – interviews Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien, pointedly asking whether he’s used the RTÉ controversy to bury the release of the latest Housing for All progress report.
The minister indignantly rebukes the charge. But as he struggles to convincingly respond to a listener’s question on whether her children will ever be able to move out – “There’s some optimism on first-time buyers” is hardly reassuring – it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Tubridy hearings provided welcome distraction from underwhelming results. The future of RTÉ remains a live issue, but with people struggling to find anywhere to live, it’s surely time to put a lid on Tubs.
