Hidden transactions meant Ryan Tubridy’s pay cut was a third of what RTÉ promised

Ryan Tubridy has long had the best pay in RTÉ, apparently receiving an annual salary close to €500,000 for many years. Such money was the envy of many.

But it turns out the former Late Late Show host was paid considerably more than was declared by the national broadcaster in the last six years – €345,000 more to be precise.

Tubridy now finds himself at the centre of a storm. Government and Opposition politicians are pouring scorn on RTÉ after Siún Ní Raghallaigh, chairwoman of the board, acknowledged a “serious breach of trust”.

The repeated publication of misleading figures has dealt a drastic blow to its credibility as a public service tasked with setting the agenda for informed debate and holding power to account. Thanks to its own actions, the broadcaster has severely undermined its long campaign for more public funding.

TV licence sales continue to plunge, leaving €6.7m shortfall in RTÉ funding

---

RTÉ funding options a source of conflict with no clear resolution in sight

---

TV licence Q&A: Efforts so far at reform, and Coalition divisions on future funding

---

No news is bad news: Morning Ireland proves daunting but necessary

---

At the time of Tubridy’s contract talks in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, financial pressures had already led RTÉ to promise a 15 per cent reduction in the fees paid to its top-10 presenters

By any standard, Tubridy is particularly well paid. His declared €440,000 remuneration in 2022 was almost twice the Taoiseach’s €225,855 salary. But €440,000 was not the real figure at all.

In a statement on Thursday that revealed huge hidden payments to its star presenter, RTÉ disclosed he actually received €515,000 in 2022 and more than €500,000 in each of the previous five years.

There are two parts to the story: what happened after Tubridy’s presenter contract was renewed in 2020 and what happened before then. At the root of it all, however, are transparency issues that emerged in March in a routine audit Deloitte of RTÉ's 2022 accounts. Further issues surfaced when accountants Grant Thornton were tasked with carrying out a fact-finding review.

At the time of Tubridy’s contract talks in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, financial pressures had already led RTÉ to promise a 15 per cent reduction in the fees paid to its top-10 presenters. As the best-paid of them all, the cuts would have implications for the man at the helm of The Late Late Show.

RTÉ declarations suggested Tubridy was paid €466,250 in 2020 and €440,000 in 2021. The implied cut was 11 per cent, less than the 15 per cent signalled in November 2019. Yet that was not the full story.

It now seems RTÉ entered into a separate undeclared arrangement at that time with Tubridy in which it guaranteed him an additional €75,000 each year. His actual earnings dropped 5.5 per cent between 2019 and 2021, just above one-third of the cut RTÉ committed to.

Following the Tubridy pay furore, RTÉ plans to bring the barter account under the control of its finance function and to bring in ‘specific controls’ for its operation

The plan was that the additional €75,000 would come from a commercial partner, understood to be Renault Ireland, the long-time sponsor of The Late Late Show. This extra Tubridy pay was to be “in exchange for a number of personal appearances” and was “cost neutral” to Renault because its payments to the broadcaster would reduce by the same amount. RTÉ's guarantee to Tubridy meant it would have to pay if Renault didn’t.

Renault has declined to comment on the deal. “I can’t discuss any of our commercial agreements,” said Paddy Magee, Renault Ireland country manager.

Still, the broadcaster’s statement said Tubridy received €75,000 under the arrangement in July 2020. But something changed in 2021, leaving RTÉ on the hook for the guarantee.

“The commercial partner did not renew this agreement for a second year, and since the agreement was guaranteed and underwritten by RTÉ, the payments were instead made directly by RTÉ to Mr Tubridy’s agent (on his behalf),” the broadcaster said.

The 2021 money was not paid until 2022, meaning RTÉ paid out an additional €150,000 to Tubridy last year on top of his regular salary.

However, the overall cost to the broadcaster from these payments was €230,760 when including the cost of “barter account” fees. RTÉ said a barter account is common in advertising and marketing when “goods and services are traded through an intermediary company which charges a fee for its services.”

Following the Tubridy pay furore, RTÉ plans to bring the barter account under the control of its finance function and to bring in “specific controls” for its operation.

That not the end of the matter. On foot of Grant Thornton’s findings, RTÉ reviewed previous Tubridy’s pay declarations and found they were “understated” by €120,000 between 2017 and 2019. “The circumstances that led to this understatement by RTÉ are currently under examination,” the broadcaster said.

Although there was no immediate clarity on what happened then, the broadcaster said the money will be scrutinised as part of a new Grant Thornton review of the contracts all top-10 presenters at the station.

The board commissioned that work to “independently validate” the findings of an internal review this week which found the full cost to RTÉ of other top-ten presenters “has been correctly reported.”

Tubridy has blamed RTÉ for “errors” and claimed he could not answer for “mistakes” in its declarations. But he was still the beneficiary of the additional payments.