You could have cut the silence with a knife, but all the knives were gone.
Noel Kelly cornered the few left over from the last time RTÉ’s senior executives were in.
Ryan Tubridy was happy for him wield it, standing firmly behind his agent in a hugely supportive but sorrowful way, because somebody had to think of the children.
So many twists and turns and talk leading up to this moment. So much drama in the Leinster House committee rooms. And finally, the man at the centre of the biggest crisis to hit RTÉ was due to make his debut in front of two sets of TDs and Senators determined to make their mark on the most avidly anticipated political/showbiz event of the year.
Viewing figures were going to be huge.
The stakes were high.
A golden shot at redemption for the man desperate to become the country’s most popular broadcaster again.
A tantalising opportunity for some relatively minor Oireachtas members to seize the moment and become breakout stars in a pre-election year.
And a hyperactive media salivating on the sidelines after the entertainer and his agent unleashed a drop of documents, then stuck in the boot with the release of two hard-hitting and uncompromising opening statements.
If the senior executives of RTÉ were flinging people under the bus during their take on the Tubridy payments scandal when they appeared before the Public Accounts and the Media committees, Tubs and Kelly drove a double-decker across Leinster Lawn and flattened the reputation of the Montrose management before parking on top of them.
Ryan Tubridy at the Oireachtas: what we learned
In the spirit of Wimbledon, one engrossed backbencher summed up the early state of play before the official 11am start.
“Ryan Tubridy has faced Kevin Bakhurst and RTÉ management’s serve and lobbed a large ball of sh**e straight back across the net at them.”
Perhaps not the best thing for the currently off-air presenter – who ardently hopes for a return to his microphone and Donnybrook habitat – to do. But Ryan knows he is in a fight for his reputation, his future and the job he cares passionately about.
His words needed to carry far beyond the walls of Leinster House and the ears of politicians and media executives.
For all that went on during almost seven gruelling hours of questioning in Kildare Street, he wasn’t really addressing the committees.
The nervous-looking were left to their own devices – although Michael Healy-Rae, true to form, bustled across to greet Tubridy before he went inside
Ryan Tubridy was making a pitch to the listeners, the people outside the gates of power – his audience.
There was a buzz of excitement in the Leinster House 2000 annex in the hour leading up to the PAC meeting, the first of the day. The committee rooms are in the basement of the building.
Senior Dáil ushers and Oireachtas officials watched as RTÉ’s top-paid personality and his team waited for the nod to head down for the hearing. There was a sense the authorities were conscious that the eyes of the nation were fixed on Leinster House and wanted to make sure events went off without a hitch.
The nervous-looking were left to their own devices – although Michael Healy-Rae, true to form, bustled across to greet Tubridy before he went inside.
The atmosphere in the small chamber was incredibly tense. Usually before meetings, the politicians make small talk to each other before the Chair calls them to attention and people in the public gallery do likewise.
This time it was very different.
The TDs and Senators took their seats. The witnesses – Tubridy and Kelly – sitting opposite. The gallery watching on.
For what seemed like an age (around five minutes) everyone just sat there in awkward, deafening silence. People looking around, waiting, saying nothing.
It was very strange.
Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley, the PAC chairman, broke the spell on the dot of 11am and the room exhaled.
It was billed as a statement but it was really a performance. It was as if a red light just went on over Brian Stanley’s head. And Tubs went live
Ryan Tubridy, corduroyed and bequiffed, sat next to his long-time agent, Noel Kelly, who disappointed a number of observers by not appearing in loud pinstripes. Solicitor Joe O’Malley, their legal adviser, sat behind them in a seat by the wall almost within stretching distance.
The managing partner at Hayes Solicitors was there in a supporting role.
“You are not entitled to contribute to or disrupt the meeting,” Brian Stanley told him.
He didn’t, but if there was an Oscar for Best Supporting Role for plucking out pages from voluminous folders of legal documents and thrusting them under a client’s nose at lightning speed, Joe’s name would be on it.
Ryan Tubridy commenced his opening monologue. It was billed as a statement but it was really a performance. It was as if a red light just went on over Brian Stanley’s head. And Tubs went live.
He gave it everything – including listing the Seven Untruths wrought upon him by the management hydra in Montrose – in a performance which teetered towards the melodramatic at times, but he had to make it box-office.
He declaimed bullet points of dispute with the executives who mentioned him 15 times in their initial “bombshell” statement but never saw fit to consult him to hear his side of the story, stabbing the air with his hand.
He repeated phrases for emphasis and slapped the desk to drive home his anger and frustration.
“I hid nothing” he cried. “I have nothing to hide.”
He spoke of his hurt and torment and thanked all the “decent people” who rallied to his side and even thanked the “good people in An Post” who delivered the avalanche of goodwill cards and letters to his door.
The politicians listened intently, not a peep out of any of them.
And finally, with echoes of Edward and Mrs Simpson, he emotionally declared his fervent wish to return “to do the job I love”.
Ryan sat back after a bravura performance.
But applause there came none. Although we half expected to hear it.
There are still six shows outstanding which Tubridy is willing to do, although as he doesn’t host The Late Late Show any more there isn’t much chance of that happening
Noel Kelly was next.
All that happened in the last few weeks “is entirely a mess of RTÉ’s own making”, he categorically declared, setting a strong marker for what was to come.
He stressed there was no secret about the details of the organisation’s commercial deal with car company Renault which would see his client trouser annual fees of €75,000 for hosting Late Late Show-style events in various showrooms around the country.
In the end, Covid put a stop to the entertainment but Tubs still got the €150,000 for two missed years. He believed this money was paid by Renault, as did his agent. Instead, the cost was borne by RTÉ.
There are still six shows outstanding which Tubridy is willing to do, although as he doesn’t host The Late Late Show any more there isn’t much chance of that happening. On the other hand, were RTÉ to put them on in the Convention Centre now and sell tickets, they would make far more money than Toy Show The Musical.
He will pay back the money if Renault don’t want to put on any more gigs.
Who will get that money, asked Senator Malcolm Byrne. After much back and forth and conferring with the support act solicitor and his agent, Ryan conceded in the light of what he now knows that it would go back to RTÉ.
As Noel Kelly outlined how he can’t understand how the station’s management came up with the facts and figures in its version of events, the star witness nodded in agreement.
He looked tired and drawn, brow furrowed, Shar Pei wrinkles on his neck and chin buried deeply in his chest. The agent finished with a flourish worthy of a Marks & Spencer food ad.
“This is not the Ryan Tubridy scandal. This is the RTÉ scandal.”
The questioning began and Noel edged the bus into the centre of the committee room in preparation for throwing management under the bus. As they, he would argue, did to him and his client.
There were high hopes for Sinn Féin’s Imelda Munster, who has brought much heat but not an awful lot of light to her bruising encounters with witnesses so far. Unfortunately, she fell into old bad habits and didn’t give a clearly irritated Tubridy much of a chance to answer her questions.
One particularly stinging barb riled him when she sarcastically compared a comment he made in 2019 about being haunted by child poverty to him and this spurring his decision to take a pay cut.
“I would urge you, Deputy, not to conflate someone being well paid and someone who does not have a conscience.”
He would later tell Labour’s Marie Sherlock: “Yes, the salary is enormous, I understand that, but that doesn’t affect my soul.”
He talked about his heart and soul a lot. Marc Ó Cathasaigh of the Green Party was very sad because Ryan had “been in my kitchen five mornings a week” and now the trust was “shattered”.
He made a point of apologising for this and hoped he could win back that trust.
Marc rushed out clarification. “It was my missus, unfortunately,” he explained. “I’m up here. My missus listens regularly.”
Unfortunately? That won’t have pleased the already forlorn Tubridy.
One sentence provided the theme of the entire day for money and accounts man Kelly and, by extension, his self-confessed mathematically challenged charge.
“We acted under the instruction of RTÉ at all times.”
That was his answer for everything.
The Kelly/Tubridy duo were well briefed, far more than the executives in the firing line last week. This disarmed the politicians somewhat, but they were also more restrained in their questioning. Not worth antagonising the greater voting public by attacking Ryan, for whom there is great affection around the country.
His agent had an impressive knowledge of his client’s fees over the years. “The 20 per cent was that Mr Tubridy’s contract was €495,000, €495,000, €545,000, €545,000 and €545,000″ he reeled off at one point, putting us in mind of the old joke about the Scottish football match result: “East Fife Four, Forfar Five.”
It was obvious that Ryan Tubridy is angry at what has happened to him. He fears he will not be able to get back to where he was before the controversy started.
“When a feather leaves a pillow, it’s very hard to get that back, and with my good name the feather has left the pillow,” he sighed.
Fianna Fáil’s Cathal Devlin sent the Toy Show little kiddies’ cringeometer through the roof when he simpered about “children who are wondering why the Toy Man is in the news so much”.
Yeah, right.
“My name has been desperately sullied. My reputation has been sullied. I am deeply upset. I am hurt. It is hard to leave the house,” said the presenter, a catch in his voice.
“I am not looking for sympathy now or a violin...” he added, before plunging waist high into treacle and talking about “the kids”.
His relationship with the children of Ireland is very important to him.
“I know that sounds grandiose, but actually it is. I want them to be happy and hopeful and proud to be Irish, and read lots of books and just be wonderful young people. That does not change, but what has happened in the last three weeks is like a frenzy.”
If there were sick bags in the building, now was the time to break them out. At least for the deeply cynical in the room.
On and on and on it went. A defanged Mattie McGrath was quiet while Meath Senator Shane Cassells almost blew a gasket, taking away from his valid line of questioning about the very dodgy invoices used to pay Tubridy for the Renault gig.
And then, “My goodness, it’s time to wrap…”
The star did a jaunty closing monologue.
“And if I do go back to RTÉ, and I hope so, it will be a whole new world order…”
It’s a very big if.
