Suspended RTÉ director general Dee Forbes is to be invited to back-to-back grillings at two Oireachtas committees next week, with RTÉ chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh due to meet Minister for Arts Catherine Martin this weekend over the scandal of hidden payments to former Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy.
Both the Oireachtas Media Committee and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and have agreed to hold meetings on Wednesday and Thursday of next week.
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On Friday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he was “very concerned” about the information released by RTÉ and at the suspension of Ms Forbes.
In a statement Mr Varadkar said: “On the face of it, there has been a serious breach of trust and truth between RTÉ and the Government, the Oireachtas and the people.
“Minister Martin has spoken with the RTÉ chairperson and has scheduled a meeting with her tomorrow (Saturday).
“I am keeping in touch with Minister Martin on this issue and will receive an update from her after the meeting. She will brief Cabinet on Tuesday.
“At tomorrow’s meeting, the Minister will be asking the chairperson to set out in detail, the issues involved and the steps the RTÉ board is taking. The Government considers it essential that we have the highest standards of governance, accountability and transparency from RTÉ and will consider what further action may be required.
“All of the matters involved will have to be examined and, perhaps, remedial steps taken to restore trust and confidence,” Mr Varadkar said.
“It will be equally important for the board to demonstrate that it is putting in place appropriate structures and processes to prevent a recurrence.
“The public are right to expect high standards of transparency and accountability from RTÉ as it is extremely important that we can all have trust in our public service broadcasting.”
PAC chairman Brian Stanley and Media committee chair Niamh Smyth both said their intention was to invite Ms Forbes, whose suspension the broadcaster confirmed today, alongside deputy director general Adrian Lynch, who has taken up Ms Forbes’ role as editor in chief during her suspension.
Ms Smyth said her committee was inviting the key people who it felt could get questions: Ms Forbes, Mr Lynch and Ms Ní Raghallaigh, alongside head of strategy Rory Coveney; Richard Collins, chief financial officer; and Geraldine O’Leary, the group head of commercial.
It comes as Ms Martin signalled that work on reforming the funding model for RTÉ may be paused until controversy subsides and trust is restored between the Government and RTÉ. The Minister for Arts told reporters on Friday that she wanted to hear from the executive board of RTÉ. She said “there is a question there about the future funding model of RTÉ... that will have to be done in an environment of trust and that’s not there at the moment”.
“The funding model cannot be examined when we do not have trust.”
Mr Stanley, the PAC chair, said some of the same individuals would have to come before both committees, and that they would be joined at his committee by officials from the Department of Arts. Sources in both committees insisted their respective briefs would be sufficiently broad to allow for two sessions.
“If they have to come in three days in a row or four days in a row that’s irrelevant; they have a job of work to do to restore credibility here,” he said.
John McGuinness, the chair of the finance committee, told The Irish Times his committee was not planning meetings on the topic but urged Government to take an active role in managing the scandal.
“They should immediately call in RTÉ management and board and ask for a fulsome explanation of everything: who knew what, when and where and why this account was being used,” he said, adding: “If government is not prepared to insist on the highest standard of transparency and accountability, why should others in agencies of the state have an interest in transparency?”
It is understood Ms Martin only became aware that a looming payments scandal at RTÉ related to a presenter on the station last Friday.
A spokesman for Ms Martin said that she was informed there was “an issue” in March but that she was not aware that the issue related to payments to a presenter. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan were told of the matter on Tuesday, he said.
It is not clear at what point in the period between last Friday and yesterday Ms Martin became aware in the intervening days that it related to former Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy, who received €345,000 in hidden payments over the last six years, the board of the broadcaster said on Thursday.
RTÉ has said it first became aware of the issue in “late March” of this year when it identified an issue “in relation to the transparency of certain payments”.
Ms Martin’s spokesman said that in March, the Dublin Rathdown TD was advised that a “fact-finding exercise had been commissioned in response to a payment queried by the auditors, and that the Board would consider the findings of the review when complete”.
“The review was considered by the board on Monday and yesterday’s statement by RTÉ sets out the board’s response,” he said.
“On Tuesday, the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister Ryan were advised of the matter as conveyed to the Minister by the Chair.”
