Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Brian Stanley has told RTÉ management to “cop on” and stop hiding behind legal privilege.
Mr Stanley said the verbal agreement that allowed RTÉ to conceal payments of €375,000 over five years to Ryan Tubridy, €75,000 per year on top of his publicly stated salary, was “absolutely jaw dropping”.
RTÉ head of legal affairs Paula Mullooly told the PAC last week the note that accompanied the Microsoft Teams meeting from March 2020 in relation to the €75,000 annual top-up payments was legally privileged.
Mr Stanley told RTÉ's This Week programme that he did not accept that. “I would say to RTÉ ‘cop on’. They can waive legal privilege in this case. The normal rules have gone out the door because of what has happened here. At this stage I can’t see where the commercial sensitivity is around all of this.
“Here you have the director general [Dee Forbes] or somebody acting on her behalf discussing with the agent this deal for a five-year contract with a €75,000 a year top-up. Can anybody tell me that the note for that cannot be coughed up straight away? It could be sent to us tomorrow morning in an envelope,” he said.
“I can’t see any good reason for not providing that. I don’t accept this legal privilege. The days of hiding behind legal privilege are gone. What we need here is full transparency. The fact that we haven’t got full transparency has brought us to this mess which has been created at the very top of RTÉ.”
The Sinn Féin TD said the committee is interested in speaking to Ms Forbes, who declined to attend last week because of a health issue; RTÉ head of content Jim Jennings; Mr Tubridy; the broadcaster’s agent, Noel Kelly; and former director general Noel Curran.
Mr Stanley suggested the power wielded by agents such as Mr Kelly within RTÉ was “absolutely ridiculous – but the fixing of this won’t be done with a sticking plaster. It won’t be done with day surgery. This is a major transplant that has to happen at the top of RTÉ”.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for Public Expenditure Ossian Smyth downplayed a report in the Irish Mail on Sunday which stated the Government was considering a redundancy scheme at the station which could result in up to 400 job cuts.
“I can imagine that RTÉ employees are very worried reading that (media reports) this morning and I just want to say there’s absolutely no truth to it whatsoever. I spoke to Minister Catherine Martin this morning about it and her focus is to protect the employees through all of this and to fix RTÉ.
“I know we are talking about what went wrong in the past and we have to do that but we have to make sure that we have a public sector broadcaster in the future and that we can keep the organisation and institution working, fix it and mend it and heal it.”
Mr Smyth also said he gave no credence to 2FM being privatised.
Minister for Media Catherine Martin will seek Cabinet approval on Tuesday for an external review of RTÉ's culture and governance.
A spokesman for the Minister confirmed there are “no proposals by the Minister for staff redundancies or selling assets”.
“These, and related issues, would be matters for the RTÉ Board in the first instance. However, the Minister has met with representatives of staff and is acutely aware of their concerns,” the spokesman said.
“What is needed now is an in-depth and comprehensive examination of the fundamental issues underlying what happened, and well thought-out recommendations for Minister Martin and the Government to consider in order to re-establish trust in RTE by the public and staff. The Minister recognises the real and understandable anger the public feels. However what she wants to see is fundamental change, not piecemeal reactions.”
Ms Martin will become the first Minister to invoke Section 109 (7a) of the Broadcasting Act. The provision states a person appointed by the Minister can “examine the books or other records of account of the corporation (RTÉ) in respect of any financial year or other period and shall facilitate any such examination”.
RTÉ welcomed the announcement last week that the review would take place and assured the Minister that it will co-operate fully with the review team.
Nonetheless, the provision will add an extra layer of assurance so that the review team can have swift access to any information they need to complete their work.
Mr Stanley said he welcomed the Minister’s intervention and that Sinn Féin also supported her actions.
RTÉ's annual report and group financial statement for 2022 were presented to Ms Martin’s department on Friday and are being assessed.
A survey in the Sunday Independent found 73 per cent of the public blame RTÉ's executive board for the misstatement of Mr Tubridy’s earnings that has caused the biggest crisis to date in the organisation, 12 per cent blame former director general Ms Forbes, 7 per cent blame Mr Tubridy and 4 per cent his agent, Mr Kelly.
Almost half of the public (47 per cent) believe Mr Tubridy should never return to RTÉ, 11 per cent say he should return within a year and 11 per cent say he should return immediately.
Trust in the broadcaster following the events of the past 10 days has also declined, with 55 per cent saying they trust RTÉ less, while 35 per cent said they never trusted the station.
