The turmoil engulfing RTÉ over hidden payments to Ryan Tubridy has intensified after fresh evidence surfaced about weak financial controls in the national broadcaster.
Tubridy will not host his radio show next week as RTÉ battles public anger and a political backlash over its failure to declare €345,000 in payments to its star presenter over several years.
Although the station’s top presenters are its highest-paid employees, the remuneration committee of the RTÉ board had no oversight role in relation to their pay. The affair centres on a succession of misleading RTÉ statements about Tubridy’s pay.
Former RTÉ chairwoman Moya Doherty, who stood down in November, said she never knew of the disputed payments despite holding the top role on the board’s remuneration committee since 2015.
The panel met six times between 2017 and 2021 and not at all in 2020, according to RTÉ annual reports.
“The remuneration committee dealt with executive pay. It did not deal with talent pay,” said Ms Doherty’s spokesman in reply to questions about her stewardship of the committee.
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The lack of presenter pay oversight at the committee, acknowledged by a second person familiar with its work, is likely to raise further questions about lax controls that have undermined RTÉ's campaign for more public funding.
The RTÉ board said on Friday night the remuneration panel’s procedures will change: “One of the actions adopted by the board is to have the remuneration committee of the board have full oversight and approval of the terms of contracts relating to on-air presenters and any material variations or amendments to those contracts.”
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In a statement to The Irish Times, the board of RTÉ said that it had “no knowledge of the payments” when Tubridy announced his departure on March 16th - but later on in that same week members of the Audit and Risk Committee (ARC) “were contacted by the auditors to alert them about concerns”.
After a defiant statement on Thursday in which he did not apologise for his role in the debacle, Tubridy issued a second statement saying he “should have asked questions” when RTÉ released the misleading information.
“I didn’t, and I bear responsibility for my failure to do so. For this, I apologise unreservedly.”
He was “disappointed” to be taken off the air next week but RTÉ said presenters cannot be at the centre of controversy. “You can’t do a show that opens up with ‘what it says in the papers’ where you’re at the centre of that story,” said Adrian Lynch, RTÉ's interim deputy director general.
After failing to say anything on Thursday about outgoing director general Dee Forbes, RTÉ disclosed yesterday that she had been suspended since Wednesday. “I have been fully engaged with the board since this matter arose in the course of the audit of the accounts,” Ms Forbes said.
RTÉ resolved to appoint external investigators after members of the board’s audit and risk committee found Ms Forbes had not provided enough clarity about Tubridy’s payments, it is understood. A spokesman for Ms Forbes had no comment.
Amid intense criticism of RTÉ within the Coalition and the Opposition, the Government brought a halt to discussions on reforming RTÉ's licence fee pending investigations into the payments.
Minister for Culture Catherine Martin, who meets RTÉ chairwoman Siún Ní Raghallaigh today, said “the funding model cannot be examined when we do not have trust.”
Discussions on licence fee reforms – including talks between Ms Martin and Minister for Finance Michael McGrath – will be paused, say senior sources.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar signalled the possibility of further action and “remedial steps” but didn’t specify any, saying RTÉ must have the highest standards. Two Oireachtas committees want to hear next week from Ms Forbes and Ms Ní Raghallaigh.
