Miriam Lord: Tubsgate has Mattie McGrath reaching new heights of incoherence

On doctor’s orders, the former director general of RTÉ will not be attending the much-anticipated meeting of the Oireachtas media committee.

But that invitation remains open in the unlikely case of a recovery.

Mattie McGrath, who is a member of the committee, made a last-ditch attempt on Tuesday to sweet-talk its most wanted witness into changing her mind.

One imagines Dee Forbes will not have felt too conflicted about her non-appearance upon hearing the Tipperary politician’s less-than-scrupulously impartial intervention in the Dáil.

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He made his persuasive plea to the woman at the centre of the RTÉ payments storm just after Leaders’ Questions, following on from where the Taoiseach and a succession of party leaders had left off.

This is the controversy everyone is talking about, so TDs are not holding back. The fact it concerns possible governance issues at the national broadcaster makes it doubly irresistible.

Last week’s revelations about undeclared extra payments to RTÉ’s already handsomely remunerated star performer transported Mattie to hitherto unexplored heights of incoherence as he demanded “a full and fulsome” Dáil debate into the matter.

“There are many thousands of decent workers in RTÉ and this scandal that is going on here – and we saw where the board and the executive board or someone on the board suspended Dee Forbes. Then she was dismissed [sic] and she’s blatantly refused to come before any committee,” fulminated the leader of the Roaring Independents.

“I want, like what happens to people who fail or are unable or who [don’t] wish to pay their licence because of the poor service in RTÉ, I want Miss Forbes to be arrested and charged and brought before, or get the gardaí to question her if she won’t come before this House.”

[ Responsibility for Ryan Tubridy extra payments lay with Dee Forbes, RTÉ says in statement ]

Then he trained his sights on the Taoiseach.

“The people are aghast at what’s going on at the top level in some organisations, of course willy-willy [sic] with you the Government and, and... Sorry?”

He was knocked briefly off his stride by Leas-Cheann Comhairle Catherine Connolly tapping the bell.

“It’s the Order of Business,” she murmured – gentle reminder that he was supposed to be addressing Dáil arrangements.

Mattie wholeheartedly agreed. “Yes, it is. I want full and fulsome debate here about the debacle at RTÉ and failure of your Government and Miss Forbes to ride into the sunset so I want a Garda investigation to ensure that Miss Forbes is held to account and other senior people in RTÉ.”

Catherine intervened again. “We have to be very careful about making allegations.”

“I’m not making any,” he shot back.

But it was the Leas-Cheann Comhairle’s understanding that the former DG had resigned. “So let’s just be careful about it.”

“She was dismissed,” sniffed the unrepentant Independent.

But while Dee Forbes may not be at Wednesday’s crunch high-noon-at-half-one meeting in Leinster House, a string of sacrificial suits will be offered up to Kildare Street for a ritual kicking by committee members who most definitely will not be grandstanding under the intense glare of the national spotlight.

[ Fintan O’Toole: Ryan Tubridy chose silence instead of speaking out. An extended silence should follow ]

Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty was first to mention the battle of Montrose when the Dáil opened for business, rising to speak as furious, overworked and underpaid RTÉ staffers were protesting back at base.

Pearse will be standing in for his party leader for the next while as Mary Lou McDonald recovers at home from recent surgery in the Rotunda hospital.

There were best wishes from all sides of the House for her speedy recovery.

“The hidden payments scandal at RTÉ is shocking,” began the Donegal deputy, demanding a comprehensive statement from the top brass on a “shady deal” which is indicative of the “cosy consensus insider culture that has existed in this State for far too long”.

The whole affair is “deeply unsettling”, concurred the deeply unsettled Taoiseach, looking for some redeeming aspect to the affair and settling on the line that these undeclared extra payments seemed only to concern one individual – Ryan Tubridy.

Leo Varadkar wanted to hear the full story too and was happy to inform the House repeatedly that RTÉ would be issuing another statement, which would be “comprehensive”, within the hour at 3pm.

Naturally, in keeping with that organisation’s drip-drip information striptease over the past week, it failed to materialise at the appointed time, dropping suspiciously in time for the start of the Six One News.

Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns also majored on the “bombshell news of RTÉ’s secret payments to Ryan Tubridy”, wondering why politicians were still trying to find out the most basic information about the arrangement when there were rumblings about it in Montrose since March.

Later on, Richard Boyd Barrett of People Before Profit treated the chamber to a reprise of his performance on the plinth that morning when describing the revelations as “a kick in the teeth to public confidence in the State broadcaster and a kick in the teeth to the ordinary journalists and workers in RTÉ who have done nothing wrong and who, while these payments were being made, had to endure pay cuts, pay freezes, bogus self-employment, zero-hours contracts and many other sacrifices”.

[ RTÉ pay crisis: Inquiries into hidden payments to Ryan Tubridy face pushback from Forbes ]

Labour’s Ivana Bacik was feeling “immense solidarity” with the RTÉ workers.

She couldn’t get over the fact that nobody in a senior position let Leo Varadkar know that this shocker was coming down the line and nobody filled him in on the details when the news broke.

It seemed extraordinary to her that the Taoiseach had been left in the dark, like everyone else.

“Do you feel that you have been left in the dark by them?” she asked.

He didn’t say.

Mattie, meanwhile, worked himself up to his later lather of indignation over the ex-director general by instructing the Taoiseach to come good on his general election promise and abolish the despised Universal Social Charge (USC).

Eh, no. He won’t be doing that but promised tax cuts in the forthcoming budget.

“Your reply is very lethargic and squeamish,” pronounced Mattie.

People can now see “in other media” what is really happening. “The truth of what’s going on is that you want to literally screw the ordinary people and get into bed with the big shots, the big business,” he told Leo, castigating his “blatant, naked promises to the people to win votes”.

Other issues were raised in the chamber, but all were eclipsed by RTÉ’s panic stations.

But over in the Seanad, a few minutes before the Dáil commenced its weekly business at 2pm, Sharon Keogan was thoroughly fed up by the wall-to-wall discussion of Tubsgate.

She made an impassioned request for the Oireachtas children’s committee to meet the authors of last week’s disturbing report on teenage girls in the care of the State being targeted and sexually exploited by co-ordinated “gangs” of predatory men.

“Nobody is talking about this. They are all talking about Ryan Tubridy,” she cried, waving the report in the air.

“I couldn’t give a rat’s…” – she paused long enough for the word “arse” to hang, unspoken, in the air – “... about Ryan Tubridy. I do care about this report.”