After a vigorous warm-up session against the media committee on Wednesday, RTÉ fielded an enhanced squad for Thursday’s crunch decider with Dáil Éireann’s public accounts bruisers.
This Leinster House crew can be vicious.
It didn’t go well for the visitors, despite the addition of four new players, who barely got off the bench for the duration of a four-hour marathon.
As the RTÉ Xl streamed disconsolately into committee room three (or live-streamed, in the case of the two witnesses joining remotely) for their expected pasting, all that was missing was Francis Brennan with his little wheelie case in tow shooing them in and shrieking: “Honest to God, what are ye like! Wooh!”
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was already buzzing following its first meeting of the day with representatives of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB), an event viewed as a minor support act before that afternoon’s Tubsgate showdown.
But then the CEO of the board abandoned his opening statement and announced a “hitherto unknown issue” had come to light in the last 48 hours which was causing “grave concern” and was to do with “matters financial in nature”.
Darragh O’Loughlin couldn’t say much more than that for now, although he revealed there was a non-runner in the horseracing regulatory management bumper with news that the chief financial officer (CFO) had taken “voluntary leave” the day before.
Podcast: RTÉ under fire at the Public Accounts Committee
The CEO begged the indulgence of the committee after what Fianna Fáil’s Cormac Devlin described as his “bombshell” statement and confirmed that disclosures have been made to all the relevant authorities.
“It sounds to me more like involuntary leave,” surmised Cormac’s colleague Paul McAuliffe.
A witness from the Department of Agriculture said what she really needed to do now “is support the IHRB in this awful time for them”.
Whatever this awful thing might be, muttered the TDs, none the wiser.
After a pained session of “my understanding is” and “that’s as much as I can say” and “I am acting on what I believe is good legal advice”, followed by an unsatisfactory detour into equine doping investigations, the nervy horsey crowd galloped out through the gap with promises to return with more information in due course.
Moreover, the members couldn’t afford to get too bogged down with one CFO who has “taken voluntary leave without prejudice to his position” when they already had a second CFO in their sights for the afternoon fixture.
[ IHRB thrown into disarray by ‘bombshell’ revelation of ‘grave financial concern’Opens in new window ]
That was the unfortunate Richard Collins, RTÉ’s chief financial officer, who endured an absolutely torrid session in front of the PAC after being on the receiving end of a walloping from the media crowd the day before. To compound his misery, many of his tormentors on Thursday were back for seconds.
In a toe-curling string of lowlights, the excruciating standout came when Sinn Féin’s Johnny Brady asked how much he is paid.
The CFO sighed and laughed nervously. “I think that’s a private matter.”
Public money, he was reminded by the chairman, Brian Stanley. So answer the question.
Mortifyingly long pause.
“I don’t know what my exact salary is, off the top of my head…”
As the CFO stuttered and squirmed, Fianna Fáil’s James O’Connor became highly indignant. “This is absolutely outrageous!” he spluttered. “The chief financial officer of RTÉ can’t tell us what he’s paid. Are we supposed to buy that?”
Brian Stanley intervened again. He wanted an answer.
Collins swallowed. “Okay, I believe my salary is around €200,000 base salary plus a car allowance of €25,000.″
And as Brady turned his attention towards acting director general Adrian Lynch, he murmured: “It’s in or around that.”
[ Justine McCarthy: Tubridy is paying a high price for not exposing RTÉ's deceitOpens in new window ]
As expected, there were no declarations from Tuesday’s non-runners. No Dee Forbes, who remains indisposed, and no Ryan Tubridy, who remains silent for now.
Fortunately for both of them, chairman Stanley said at the outset that his committee has assumed new, stronger, powers of investigation and they are now able to ask people to attend when they are in the whole of their health.
There are three people who they really want to give evidence: Forbes, Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly, a man who could claim to be The Agent of All the Talents, particularly where RTÉ is concerned.
And speaking of the Talent, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, quietly spoken but flinty RTÉ chairwoman, had something to say about the use of the “T” word. “The term as it is currently used reinforces a ‘them and us’ culture. It implies some have greater worth than others. The first step in culture change is to consign this term to the dustbin.”
Some do have much greater worth than others in RTÉ but one had far greater worth than others: Ryan Tubridy. And after much huffing and puffing about the issue on Wednesday, the principal witnesses finally admitted that a secret deal to pay him substantially more money than he was already earning during a time of severe retrenchment in Montrose was totally dodgy.
“An act designed to deceive,” opined the chairwoman.
RTÉ under fire at the Public Accounts Committee
Former RTÉ chair Moya “Riverdance” Doherty appeared as a witness, or rather, she wafted in, a beatific smile on her face which seldom dimmed. She wasn’t asked anything until after two hours into the hearing but looked delighted to have been called upon to speak.
The “slush fund”, otherwise known as the barter account, used to fatten Tubridy’s wedge when the rest of the staff in RTÉ were being asked to survive on slivers, and also used to pay for lavish client hospitality beanos? In all her years with the organisation, Moya said she was completely unaware of its existence and never heard any mention of it around the place.
It was the Fine Gael backbencher from Cork North Central, Colm Burke, who called it a “slush fund” after Richard Collins tried to explain about the barter account, which he knew little about and from where invoices for “consultancy fees” were raised to cover the cost of secret golden manacles for Tubs.
“The barter account sat outside the normal system of control,” explained the accountant.
“Yes, it’s a slush fund!” exclaimed Colm, who is a solicitor and has proved to be one of the most effective performers on the PAC in recent years. There is no showboating from him – he just gets on with asking the right questions.
So it’s a slush fund then, isn’t it?
There came a weak squeak from the doleful-looking witness.
“Okay.”
[ RTÉ’s PAC hearing: 10 things we learned on an ‘extraordinary’ dayOpens in new window ]
And so to the tripartite agreement, which sounds like an important protocol signed by international leaders but in reality was a rather grubby mechanism to get more money to Ryan Tubridy via his extremely effective agent, Noel Kelly.
The powers that be in Montrose found him irresistible.
There were three strands.
RTÉ – Radio Telefís etc.
RT – Tubs.
R – Renault.
Between the three, in this commercial deal, the car company and Late Late Show sponsors would get personal appearances from Top Talent Tubridy at events and would pay €75k per three appearances but in a cost-neutral way which would cost them nothing. RTÉ would pick up the tab, off the books.
It wasn’t actually cost neutral, pointed out Sinn Féin’s Imelda Munster.
“It was cost neutral to the client,” replied Geraldine O’Leary, the commercial director.
So much intrigue for one man and his emoluments. Paul McAuliffe then introduced the concept of a “balloon” payment at the end of the golden manacles escapade which would further cloud the financial sleight of hand.
Nothing illegal was done, mind.
Fine Gael’s Alan Dillon had the CFO wrestling with the concepts of concealment and deception and whether fraud might fit into the same category. Richard Collins wasn’t sure. He didn’t put together the deal and has since brought the slush/barter account into the proper ledger.
More pauses.
“…Maybe the taxpayer was defrauded.”
With the CFO bearing the brunt of the questions, the interim DG escaped more lightly. But, embarrassingly, he had to admit that his insistence on Wednesday that Ryan Tubridy couldn’t possibly have got wind of the scandal to come in advance of his shock decision to step down from The Late Late Show was ill-judged.
“It’s possible.”
A terrible day for the RTÉ team. Thoroughly demolished by the PAC. It was like shooting fish in a barrel for them.
With another rematch on the cards soon.
And maybe some non-runners returning to what Alan Kelly called “the most extraordinary public accounts meeting” he has ever attended.
