RTÉ spends nearly €500,000 on Ryan Tubridy reports

RTÉ has spent nearly €500,000 on a series of external reviews commissioned in the aftermath of the controversy around misstated payments to Ryan Tubridy, it has emerged.

The broadcaster has sent a large tranche of correspondence to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee in which they also revealed that they do not plan to ask staff what gifts they have received since 2017 and that the latest details for the top ten earners will be published by the end of this month.

Members of the PAC posed a series of questions to RTÉ, including around the cost of various Grant Thornton reports which examined Ryan Tubridy’s earnings figures from 2017 to 2019 and then also his pay between 2020 and 2022.

In response to the committee, RTÉ said that the series of Grant Thornton reports have cost €493,000 to date with some final invoices outstanding. A separate McCann Fitzgerald investigation is still ongoing. “The costs are on a per hour basis so we will receive the full charge after the report has been completed,” the broadcaster said.

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RTÉ has appointed McCann FitzGerald to investigate two voluntary exit schemes that it ran in recent years.

During an appearance before the Oireachtas media committee in July, the former CFO Breda O’Keeffe, who left her post in early 2020, said she had availed of a voluntary exit package then in place.

[ RTÉ pay controversy: Bakhurst cites legal reason for withholding some documents from PAC ]

[ RTÉ chair was told in June station’s treatment of Tubridy payments had ‘no logic’ ]

Committee members also asked whether RTÉ would write to all employees in RTÉ asking them about gifts from 2017, but the broadcaster said this would not be possible.

“RTÉ does not believe that can carry out the request to write to all employees asking them about gifts from 2017. Firstly, it would not be possible to compel a reply to such correspondence. Secondly, there would be very little confidence in the accuracy and substantiveness of the aggregate answer provided owing to the difficulty in implementation, the inability to compel replies, the fact of staff turnover/churn in the intervening period, the natural frailty of human memory and the lack of a centralised database against which the replies could be cross-referred.”

The organisation said it is currently in the process of setting up a gift register.

Proposals have been circulated to the RTÉ Trade Union Group with final proposals due in the coming weeks. “RTÉ will engage with the compliance unit of the Data Protection Commission to obtain their views on the data protection implications before they are commenced.”

The station has also revealed how many times RTÉ presenters or staff appeared on flagship shows in the last five years.

On the Tommy Tiernan Show, the programme has featured 237 guests across seven seasons of the show. The list has 20 guests who have appeared on RTÉ shows in some capacity. On the Angela Scanlon Ask Me Anything show, the total number of guests across all series to date is 69, of which ten were RTÉ presenters.

On the Late Late Show, over the past five years, of more than 300 guests, 17 of the top earning contractors appeared, along with two other top earning staff members.

It can also separately be revealed that the producers of the Toy Show the Musical have been assigned to other producer duties within RTÉ. It emerged earlier this year that there was a loss of €2.2 million incurred by the broadcaster’s live Christmas offering, Toy Show: The Musical.

Committee members also sought an update on the station’s financial status, and were told that with the exception of licence fee income, RTÉ's performance for 2023 is “tracking in line with or better than budget.”

At the end of September 2023 RTÉ had a “negative earnings before tax and depreciation of €11m.”

On June 22nd, RTÉ announced that between 2017 and 2022 it had paid €345,000 more than had been previously disclosed to TV and radio presenter Ryan Tubridy. Mr Tubridy was already the biggest earner at the broadcaster, with these extra payments bringing his annual income to in excess of €500,000 annually for those years.

Former director general of the RTÉ Dee Forbes was then asked to resign by the RTÉ board due to the hidden payments. She initially declined to resign, was suspended, before formally resigning on June 26th.

Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly sought to put the blame back on the broadcaster, with Mr Kelly describing the situation as “entirely a mess of RTÉ's own making” and Mr Tubridy challenging “untruths”.