RTÉ pay scandal: Who’s who at the national broadcaster?

Ryan Tubridy

Born in Blackrock, south Dublin, Ryan Tubridy (50) went to school in Blackrock College and then studied history and Greek and Roman civilisation in University College Dublin.

After university he joined RTÉ, working as a reporter under high profile presenters such as Gerry Ryan and Pat Kenny.

Over the years Mr Tubridy worked his way up the ranks of the broadcaster, presenting a number of popular radio shows on RTÉ Radio One and 2FM, and had a turn hosting the Rose of Tralee festival.

He was chosen as the new host of the Late Late Show in 2009, taking over from Pat Kenny.

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For more than a decade at the helm of RTÉ's flagship television programme, while also presenting the Ryan Tubridy Show on RTÉ Radio One during the weekdays, he was the broadcaster’s highest paid presenter.

In March Mr Tubridy announced he would be finishing up as host of the Late Late Show this May, stating part of the reason was he wanted to get away from the “glare of the limelight” after 14 years in the job.

This week it emerged the presenter had received €345,000 in hidden payments from RTÉ between 2017 and the start of this year, resulting in the broadcaster under-declaring how much it was paying Mr Tubridy to the public over the period.

Mr Tubridy, who did not present his radio show on Friday, said on Thursday the issue around the extra payments was a “matter for RTÉ” and he had no role in the broadcaster’s internal accounting or public declarations of presenters’ pay.

[ Tubridy pay: Presenter apologises ‘unreservedly’ and says he is ‘disappointed’ he won’t present radio show next week ]

In a follow-up statement on Friday, Mr Tubridy said: “While I have no responsibility for the corporate governance in RTÉ or how or what they publish in their accounts, when my earnings were published I should have asked questions at the time and sought answers as to the circumstances which resulted in incorrect figures being published. I didn’t, and I bear responsibility for my failure to do so. For this, I apologise unreservedly.”

He added he was disappointed RTÉ has “decided that for editorial reasons I should not broadcast my radio show next week”.

Dee Forbes

Dee Forbes (56) was appointed director general of RTÉ in the spring of 2016, in what was something of a surprise at the time as an external candidate from outside the ranks of the national broadcaster.

From Drimoleague, Co Cork, she studied history and politics at University College Dublin and moved to the UK after graduating.

Prior to taking up the top job at RTÉ she was head of the Discovery Channel in Europe, and before that had worked at Turner Broadcasting, which is part of US media company Time Warner. She was also formerly a non-executive director of the board of The Irish Times, stepping down in 2016.

Her period as director general of RTÉ was characterised in part by lobbying efforts to reform the TV licence fee, to address a funding crisis facing the broadcaster.

Amid the unfolding controversy over revelations of €345,000 in hidden payments made by RTÉ to former Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy, the broadcaster confirmed it had suspended Ms Forbes on Wednesday.

The RTÉ board has said it was not made aware of the payments, and that there were “processes ongoing” in relation to Ms Forbes.

Her seven-year term as director general had been due to come to an end next month, with Kevin Bakhurst taking over the role in the second week of July.

Moya Doherty

The former chairwoman of RTÉ, Moya Doherty (65) was born in Pettigo, Co Donegal but grew up in Dublin and now lives in Howth.

She worked for RTÉ in her early 20s but later moved to London and married John McColgan, with the couple later co-creating Riverdance, the Irish dancing show which has toured the world and made the pair millions of euro in the years since.

Her other commercial ventures include setting up a television production company, Tyrone Productions. Ms Doherty previously sat on the board of the Abbey Theatre between 2010 and 2013, and was a director of the Dublin Theatre festival for close to a decade until 2008.

Ms Doherty was appointed as chairwoman of the RTÉ board in 2014, stepping down last November. During the later half of her tenure she had to publicly deny there was any split between her and Ms Forbes, following reports of tensions between the two at the top of RTÉ.

On Friday Ms Doherty released a statement staying that, during her time as chair, the RTÉ board had no knowledge of issues around the extra payments of €345,000 to Mr Tubridy over a period of years, which RTÉ had not declared to the public.

[ RTÉ's shocking breach of trust over Tubridy’s unusual pay deal weakens broadcaster’s financial pleas ]

Adrian Lynch

Adrian Lynch (55), from Dalkey, south Dublin, has been appointed deputy director general and acting editor-in-chief of RTÉ, after the suspension of director general Dee Forbes this week.

Mr Lynch had held a senior role in the broadcaster as RTÉ's director of audience, channels and marketing, and this week staff were informed he would be taking over the responsibilities at the top of the broadcaster.

At RTÉ since 2014, he was previously the managing director of TV production company Animo, which was involved in producing shows such as Celebrity Bainisteoir and Ireland’s Fittest Family.

He left the production company to join RTÉ as channel controller for RTÉ One and RTÉ2, where he was involved in overseeing significant projects such as the broadcaster’s coverage of the 1916 centenary.

He was promoted to director of audience, channels and marketing in 2017, as part of a management restructuring by Ms Forbes.

Siún Ní Raghallaigh

Siún Ní Raghallaigh was last November appointed by the Government to chair the RTÉ board following the retirement of Moya Doherty.

Ms Ní Raghallaigh is best known as one of the founding members of Teilifís na Gaeilge (TnaG). She remained as chairwoman of the station, which became TG4, until April of last year.

She also served as chief executive of Ardmore Studios in Co Wicklow – in which she held a stake – before it was sold to an American joint venture last year. Ms Ní Raghallaigh was also involved in the establishment of Troy, in the former Dell Studios in Limerick, in 2016.

From Dunfanaghy in Co Donegal, she began her career as a finance manager for Elan, a subsidiary of delivery company DHL, and studied certified accountancy at night, qualifying after six years and describing it as “fantastic grounding” for her business career.

She entered the media industry by becoming the group financial controller of Sunday Tribune at a time when the newspaper was a stand-alone entity, then in the 1990s, she moved to Galway to set up TnaG.

Ms Ní Raghallaigh served as chief executive of Tyrone Productions, the production company co-owned by Moya Doherty, who she succeeded as RTÉ chair.

Speaking on Thursday, Ms Ní Raghallaigh said no member of the board was aware of the unusual arrangements with regard to Mr Tubridy’s remuneration. She described the revelations as “very damaging” and said the board would have to “build up trust” again.

Kevin Bakhurst

Kevin Bakhurst was in April announced as the next director general of RTÉ to replace Dee Forbes, who had been due to leave the broadcaster next month.

Mr Bakhurst, who was previously deputy director general at RTÉ from 2014 to 2016, and acting director general for his last six months, was appointed to the top job following a reportedly fraught recruitment process with suggestions of division on the board over the appointment. However, in a statement at the time, RTÉ chairwoman Siún Ní Raghailligh said the appointment followed a competitive recruitment process, with Mr Bakhurst as the unanimous choice of the RTÉ board.

Born in the UK, Mr Bakhurst began his media career with the BBC, where his roles included editing the BBC Ten O’Clock news.

He was on the BBC’s London Olympics 2012 committee, which was responsible for co-ordinating the BBC’s coverage of the London Olympics. He also worked as controller of the BBC News Channel and was deputy head of the BBC Newsroom from 2010-2012.

In 2012 he moved to Ireland where he was appointed managing director of News and Current affairs at RTÉ. No stranger to handling controversies at the broadcaster, he was tasked with restoring trust in the division following the 2011 edition of Prime Time Investigates that libelled Fr Kevin Reynolds and the “Tweetgate” incident on Frontline during that year’s presidential campaign, when a tweet put to forerunner Seán Gallagher turned out to have been sent from a fake account.

Mr Bakhurst oversaw the development of a new unit that produced investigations into the charity sector, mistreatment in crèches and abuse in care homes, while also expanding RTÉ's digital news output at a time when smartphone ownership rates were exploding.

After leaving RTÉ in 2016, he returned to the UK where he was appointed group director of broadcasting and online content at the communications regulator Ofcom.

Catherine Martin

Green Party deputy leader Catherine Martin was appointed Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media three years ago this month, succeeding Fine Gael’s Josepha Madigan.

In an RTÉ interview shortly after her appointment, she claimed her vast portfolio was manageable. “They are all very connected. Our culture and sporting life and our rich national language are all what defines us,” while acknowledging the challenges in all these areas were at “crisis level”.

One such crisis surrounded funding of the national broadcaster which had been under severe financial strain for years.

In the October following her appointment the Future of Media Commission was established, with the funding of public service broadcasting central to its remit.

The commission completed its work in mid-2021 but it was more than another year before its report was published following criticism from the commission’s chair, Prof Brian MacCraith, of the delay.

The report, eventually published in the autumn of 2022, recommended the TV licence fee should be abolished and replaced by some form of exchequer funding for RTÉ.

While Ms Martin was understood to have been supportive of the recommendation, her senior Government partners were not, with the Coalition instead agreeing in principle to overhaul how the licence fee is collected.

Ms Martin said the Government recognised the need to reform the funding model to “ensure it provides for the new realities which the sector faces and importantly is sustainable”. She also said the Government wanted to “minimise the perception of executive interference” that might come if it adopted a model reliant wholly on exchequer funding.

On Thursday she said she was “deeply concerned” at the revelations from RTÉ and she and officials from her department would meet chair of the RTÉ board Ms Ní Raghallaigh on Monday.

On Friday she said she had been made aware on Thursday of the decision to suspend outgoing director general Dee Forbes but knew that it could not be announced until legal advice was taken.