Former RTÉ chairwoman Moya Doherty said she never knew of Ryan Tubridy’s hidden payments, despite holding the top role on the board’s remuneration committee for years.
Although top presenters such as Tubridy receive the highest pay in the organisation, the remuneration committee had no oversight of such pay.
Ms Doherty, whose term as chairwoman ended last November, led the board’s remuneration and management development committee from January 2015. Tubridy’s disputed payments were made from 2017 before questions were raised in last March’s audit of RTÉ's 2022 accounts.
“At no time during my tenure as chair of the RTÉ board did I, or other members of the board, have knowledge of any issue relating to certain payments and the profoundly serious lack of transparency involved,” Ms Doherty said in a statement.
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“The matters which have come to light go to the heart of a failure of good corporate governance.”
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Ms Doherty started her career as a television producer before making a fortune as co-founder of the Riverdance Irish dancing troupe.
As chair of RTÉ's remuneration committee, she attended all three meetings of the panel in 2017 but did not attend another meeting of the panel until 2021.
RTÉ annual reports show she was not at the committee’s single meeting in 2018, nor was she at the committee’s single meeting in 2019. The committee did not meet at all in 2020. Ms Doherty attended the committee’s single meeting in 2021.
Asked about the remuneration committee’s work in the years of the hidden payments to Tubridy, Ms Doherty’s spokesman said: “The remuneration committee dealt with executive pay. It did not deal with talent pay.”
Asked about the remuneration committee, RTÉ's board indicated that the panel will, in the future, have oversight of pay to presenters at the broadcaster.
In her statement, Ms Doherty said she was “not made aware” of the issue relating to Tubridy’s payments when she was chairwoman of the board.
“I, and my colleagues on the board, should have been comprehensively briefed on all aspects of the payments and the manner in which they were dealt with in the accounts. The issue did not emerge until after an audit of the 2022 accounts,” she said.
“The reputation of RTÉ has sadly been damaged and this most serious situation is deeply upsetting and unsettling for the many staff, in all aspects of the work of RTÉ who give their best to the national broadcaster with their talent and their commitment.”
