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British comedian Eddie Izzard memorably remarked that “celebrity opens doors and lowers drawers”. The RTÉ story shows how fame has a magical way of rousing politicians from their torpor too. Revelations about fancy flip-flops and borrowed cars at Montrose have the country agog, but the linchpin in the entire saga is Ryan Tubridy, the network’s highest-paid presenter and one of the most famous individuals in Ireland. His involvement has imbued the epic with star billing from day one.
If, as has been rather cruelly said, politics is show business for ugly people, backbenchers are the walk-on extras, allocated scarce speaking time in the Dáil chamber. Occasionally, they might be glimpsed sitting mutely behind a minister or front bench spokesperson. Oireachtas committees give backbenchers their moment in the spotlight. Their nous would be questionable were they to waste such an opportunity to impress the voters in their constituencies who are glued to live broadcasts of their inquisitions. Throw a national celebrity receiving €345,000 worth of secret top-up payments into their ambit and the scope for holier-than-thou politicians’ indignation is infinite.
There is no doubt that the fury is justified and those politicians’ castigations of RTÉ’s top level are, mostly, deserved. The pity is that TDs and senators who are so furious about lavish spending on Phil Collins concerts and swanky club memberships were not bothered to stir themselves before this. As RTÉ is not within the remit of the Comptroller & Auditor General, which is akin to the Public Accounts Committee’s right arm, members of the media committee should have been extra vigilant in their own oversight of the public service broadcaster.
There had been reports about troubling goings-on within RTÉ in recent years. Issues emerged in public that indicated a lack of accountability in the upper echelons at Montrose. Yet these issues elicited no response from Leinster House other than a bored yawn. Probably, they were too prosaic to captivate the public and, as every politician knows, there are no votes in that. When, suddenly, RTÉ’s highest-paid presenter was at the centre of a sneaky-payments scandal, TDs and senators rushed to the cameras and microphones with the fervour of the gold rush vanguard.
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In an almost feudal twist in this torrid tale, while Tubridy was accepting these payments, he turned the Late Late Show into a veritable charity fundraising platform for various causes which should, by right, be adequately funded by the State
One of the most nauseating aspects of the current affair is the discovery that Tubridy was getting additional payments concealed as “consultancy fees” during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many people were losing their jobs and others were losing their lives. In an almost feudal twist in this torrid tale, while Tubridy was accepting these payments, he turned the Late Late Show into a veritable charity fundraising platform for various causes which should, by right, be adequately funded by the State. That is the same State that was surreptitiously padding the presenter’s coffers.
Stomach-churning, too, for people working in RTÉ is the disclosure that management paid €4,200 for membership of the Soho House club in London while the station’s resident correspondent was so under-resourced she had to use cafe toilets to record her reports. But we already knew there was a them-and-us culture at the top in RTÉ.
In November 2021, RTÉ’s HR department commissioned a report on the current affairs unit from a consultancy firm called Resolve Ireland. RTÉ described it as “a temperature check” and said further reports dealing with other departments would follow. When the report was submitted, management refused to circulate it to staff. Two years later, there is still no news of a “temperature check” being conducted in any other department.
New position
The station announced that David Nally, the managing director of current affairs who had been the subject of a prior complaint, was being appointed to a newly created position as editorial adviser to the director of content. Dee Forbes, the then-director general, issued a statement commending Nally on his “acumen and knowledge”. It was confirmed that his salary of about €150,000 would remain unchanged.
RTÉ’s group of trade unions voted unanimously for management to explain the rationale for creating the new position. The National Union of Journalists’ branch at the broadcaster complained that the role had not been advertised and that there had been no competition in filling it, contrary to the organisation’s policy. RTÉ responded that it is common practice for people to “transfer” to other jobs in the organisation. There were plenty of reasons in all of these details for the Oireachtas media committee to start asking questions. But there was no celebrity featured and the lights stayed off in that star chamber.
Staff said they felt “defeated” and that they were afraid to speak out about problems in the workplace. They said promotions of personnel were “opaque” and women got fewer opportunities than men
Management’s refusal to circulate the Resolve Ireland report, for the stated reason that individuals would be identifiable, conveyed a similar disregard for accountability to that underlying the current imbroglio. It also mirrors the cavalier attitude to the work needs of the majority on the station’s payroll. Yet none of this seems to have perturbed the Oireachtas committee charged with overseeing the State-owned broadcaster.
[ John McManus: Here’s some advice for Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly as they prepare to go before PAC ]
Last week, following an appeal by an RTÉ journalist to the Information Commissioner and amid the welter of new revelations about RTÉ, the Resolve Ireland report was published. Despite extensive redactions, it portrays an unhealthy atmosphere in the station’s current affairs department. Staff said they felt “defeated” and that they were afraid to speak out about problems in the workplace. They said promotions of personnel were “opaque” and women got fewer opportunities than men, often quitting because they did not feel respected. The report said there was a “very strongly expressed belief that corporate support would not truly be available to address these issues, or that nothing would change regardless of what is reported from this review”. The report reeks with a sense of despair.
The next time committee members feel the urge to make snide remarks about RTÉ managers taking the “hubby” on foreign trips, they might stop and think that, if they had done their job in the first place, matters might not have reached this sorry pass. We can only hope now that, as well as opening doors and lowering drawers, celebrity can raise standards, both in RTÉ and Kildare Street.
