Former RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy was paid €12,500 a month for his radio services in the three months leading up to departure from the station, the broadcaster has said.
Fresh correspondence provided to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has detailed how Tubridy was paid for his work on RTÉ Radio at a time when crunch talks around the renegotiation of his contract were ongoing. The payments cover a period from June to August when he was mostly off the air arising from the controversy over his under-declared pay.
Members of the PAC asked RTÉ management to outline the figures as part of a series of questions posed in recent weeks.
In response, the station said that after Tubridy’s time at the helm of the Late Late Show came to an end, there were negotiations around a “short form agreement” to cover radio services until a new contract was negotiated. Those negotiations later ground to a halt.
“Subsequently, following the appointment of the new director general, a short-term agreement was put in place to cover payments for June, July and August at a rate of €12,500 per month,” RTÉ told the committee in correspondence.
The broadcaster, once the station’s highest-paid presenter, was taken off air on June 22nd when RTÉ disclosed that they had under-declared his salary.
In August, RTÉ said that he would not be returning to his presenting role. In November, he announced that he would start presenting a mid-morning show on UK station Virgin Radio from January.
The controversy arose after a routine audit revealed details of a deal between Tubridy and Renault Ireland. Under the deal, underwritten by RTÉ, Tubridy would twice be paid €75,000 in exchange for a number of appearances.
Committee members asked RTÉ what basis it had to believe it is still liable for the two €75,000 fees.
In response, the broadcaster said that at a meeting on May 7th, 2020, Dee Forbes “in her capacity as director general and chief executive officer of RTÉ gave a verbal guarantee and undertaking to the agent that if there was no commercial sponsor during the course of the five-year contract for services with Tubridy, RTÉ would guarantee that payment to him.”
“As chief executive and an ex-officio member of the board of RTÉ, as provided for under statute, the former DG had the authority to bind RTÉ to such an agreement,” the committee was told.
Two former senior RTÉ officials have also written to the PAC with further explanations about the controversy.
In one letter sent by RTÉ's former director of commercial Geraldine O’Leary, she said she could not recall who came up with the term “consultancy services” which was used on invoices to pay the €75,000, instead of a more detailed description of the commercial deal.
Tubridy’s agent Noel Kelly previously told the Oireachtas committee that he believed it was Ms O’Leary who came up with this term.
“Throughout all committee hearings and in any other questioning, I have consistently said that I do not recall the detail who came up with the term ‘consultancy services’ for the invoices that were raised through Astus,” Ms O’Leary wrote to the PAC.
Astus was the barter account, used with advertising companies to trade goods and services, from which the invoices were raised.
“As per the transcript supplied, Noel Kelly’s recollection is that it was me who advised him to put that particular wording on the invoices. I am not in a position to confirm or deny as I do not recollect the specific conversation to which he refers,” she wrote in her letter. “To repeat, there were a number of conversations with him around this time.”
Former chief financial officer Richard Collins also wrote to the PAC after being asked why he was not informed of the ultimate decision to underwrite the deal, which politicians have been told was made via a verbal agreement at a meeting in May 2020.
“I can only speculate as to why I was not updated on what was agreed at the meeting of the 7th May 2020. It would appear to me that the intention was to conceal from me that the decision made at the meeting of 30th April 2020 had been reversed,” he said, referring to an earlier meeting in April where he said he had been told such a cast iron commitment could actually not be made.
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