Miriam Lord: Flashbacks to Celtic Tiger excess in RTÉ’s On-the-Batter account

With no stinting on the gargle and the grub and lots of fancy props and decorations to get guests in the party mood, RTÉ’s 2016 summer bashes for clients and agencies sounded like great fun altogether.

Over €2,000 was lavished on balloons and the organisers splashed out €5,000 for 200 pairs of high-end flip-flops. This hula-hula money was sourced from the broadcaster’s off-balance sheet Batter Account.

The Batter Account did what it said on the tin (pint glass and champagne flute). It was used to fund the chummy corporate entertainment events which are very much a part of the advertising and marketing world.

But throughout Wednesday’s meeting of the Oireachtas media committee, politicians maintained a strong suspicion that they were not hearing the full story on everything.

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In this instance, they were right.

Unfortunately, the Talent normally used to blow up the balloons – because they are good at that – but were all either subcontracted by their agents to other duties or collecting their diplomatic credentials at car dealerships.

Management had to fill the breach.

And, true to form, they blew up the flip-flops and stood on the balloons. Public Accounts Committee please note.

On-the-Batter Account

A disappointing feature of this latest appearance from the members (past and present) of RTÉ’s two boards – the executive board and the genteel board – was that the TDs did not dive deeply enough into the nitty-gritty of this On-the-Batter Account.

We wanted to hear more about the trips to Japan and Chicago and the Champions League football; the concert parties, the meals and the golf outings, along with a fully understandable and comprehensive explanation of how presenter Ryan Tubridy’s lucrative payment structure was constructed.

However, with the “bombshell” news earlier in the day that star performer Ryan and “super-agent” Noel Kelly have requested to meet both committees probing this scandal next week, perhaps it was best to leave their part in this massive controversy until they can account for themselves in person.

The members weren’t leaving themselves short of issues to explore in what is being called an RTÉ omnishambles.

By Wednesday morning, following a late-night dump of documents from management in Montrose, the media was breathlessly reporting one Batter Account bombshell after another as journalists combed through the spreadsheets.

It was now officially a Bombnishambles.

Former chair of the board Moya Doherty did what she did on her last appearance and beamed beatifically at all around her in a most disconcerting fashion

Deputies were pronouncing all morning on radio about what it all meant. Less than half an hour before their lunchtime start, Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Public Expenditure, was asked his view on the latest release of information.

“I’m staggered,” he spluttered, on the day when he should have been getting it in the neck after the release of the Summer Economic Statement but everyone was too obsessed with RTÉ to bother.

The RTÉ witnesses – familiar faces now, shiny Adrian, sad Richard and quietly fuming Geraldine – trooped in. Anne O’Leary, a member of the board, was not there in person but framed high on the wall as a remote contributor.

Barely asked for a comment during the entire meeting, which dragged on for nearly six hours, she sat motionless and looked inscrutably into the room; long black hair, arms across her chest, one elbow resting on the side of a chair. Like the Mona Lisa.

The chair of the board, Siún Ní Raghallaigh, read out yet another damning opening statement expressing her deep unhappiness at the prevailing culture at the broadcaster in the run-up to this astonishing situation which sees the organisation facing a battery of separate investigations into its finance and governance.

[ RTÉ pay crisis: Loss making musical, barter accounts, club membership, wages and loaned car under the spotlight at hearing ]

The executive board members looked glum. Former chair of the board Moya Doherty did what she did on her last appearance and beamed beatifically at all around her in a most disconcerting fashion.

When she spoke, she smiled her words softly and slowly, like a stage clairvoyant telling a weepy audience member that her cherished nana is at peace now with the angels after all the unpleasantness.

Moya didn’t know much about the financial ins and outs when she was chair, remuneration and things like that, but she was surprised that somebody didn’t stop her in the corridor and fill her in if something bad was going down.

She was, in her opening statement, bewildered, devastated and horrified at being left in the dark.

Kerry TD Brendan Griffin started the ball rolling by explaining how he had difficulty getting the presses rolling, such was the volume of the information released on the On the Batter Account.

He had extra-large sheets of printed paper on his desk with various rows of figures and explanatory notes highlighted in different colours.

The Fine Gael TD revealed he had great difficulty finding a printer big enough in Leinster House to handle the pages.

He mustn’t have tried very hard, or maybe he just forgot about that other scandal a number of years back when hugely expensive structural works had to be carried out, including the removal of a wall, so that an enormous new state-of-the-art printer costing thousands could be accommodated in its office in Leinster House.

Toy Show: the Musical

Brendan was livid over the flip-flops and other fripperies and that was before he got angry over RTÉ’s multimillion theatrical (flip) flop Toy Story – the Musical.

For the shrinking witnesses at the committee, it was more a case of Coy Story – the Debacle.

How much money did it lose?

Brendan put it in a way that his constituents, sorry, the public, could understand: “That’s a TV licence for every household in Tralee and every household in Killarney.”

“We tried to create something that’s unique to every Irish family at Christmas,” said director of strategy Rory Coveney.

“It’s unique, alright,” replied Griffin.

In the most compelling moment of a session which far too often ploughed over old ground, the executive seemed on the verge of snapping under some very personalised pressure

Danny Healy-Rae padded in soon afterwards, perhaps irresistibly attracted by the mention of two towns in Kerry by his constituency rival. He sat at the side wall because all the seats were taken and fell fast asleep within minutes.

He opened his eyes briefly a few times during a pugnacious performance from Sinn Féin’s Imelda Munster and wisely beetled out in the middle of it.

Deputy Munster veered from forensically urgent to downright rude as she tore into RTÉ’s commercial officer over the Batter Account and Tubridy’s emoluments.

Geraldine O’Leary appeared increasingly fragile in the face of her onslaught, with the TD for Louth cutting her off as she repeatedly tried to explain how a batter/barter account works.

She had no defence to the decision (not hers) taken to cover secret payments to Ryan Tubridy when the rest of the RTÉ staff were taking pay cuts, essentially falling back on the “I did what I was told to do” line.

In the most compelling moment of a session which far too often ploughed over old ground, the executive seemed on the verge of snapping under some very personalised pressure.

Deputy Munster told her a “sneaky and underhand deal” was conducted under her “watch and supervision” with a lack of good governance and proper oversight.

The witness said: “I was not part of the intention to deceive, the intention was…”

Imelda jumped in.

“Yeah, right, give it a rest, will you. For goodness sake!”

Is her job tenable?

Geraldine murmured this isn’t for her to decide.

She said she is due to retire in eight weeks’ time.

“From my side, I am not sure that my position is tenable because the invasion into my privacy, the effect on my mental health and, most importantly, the erroneous reports on both Twitter and in newspapers about me and my husband has crossed a line that I do not find acceptable.”

The atmosphere changed.

And the witness held it together until the meeting ended.

Diatribe

Mattie McGrath, stung by the reaction last week when people couldn’t make out whether her was saying “lying” or “loyal”, opened with self-congratulatory comments on those remarks.

He gave a version of the joke usually applied to a comedian, telling the witnesses that they all laughed at his accent last week but they’re not laughing now.

Then he launched into a diatribe at Moya Doherty about fiduciary duty before throwing his musings open to everyone for an answer.

“Can we go around the table? Round the house and mind the dresser – do you understand that … the plain people of Ireland…”

The chief financial officer, Richard Collins, tried to explain the bombshell news of there being three Batter Accounts as opposed to the one he spoke of last week in terms of the holy trinity – three accounts in the one account.

Everyone was fascinated by the free cars given on loan to the Talent in various sponsorship arrangements.

Acting director general Adrian Lynch revealed that one staff member had a car on “loan” for five years. He wouldn’t identify the lucky driver. There was also an inference that somebody had a car along with a car allowance.

This is why Fianna Fáil’s Timmy Dooley ended the first half of the meeting with an absolute zinger of a question.

The latest bombshell in this omnishambles.

“This car was on loan for five years. Do you know when it was returned?”

And Adrian Lynch, like a team captain on University Challenge pressing the button on the starter-for-10 question, leaned forward quickly.

“Yesterday!” he cried, before sitting back with a satisfied smile.

There was more after the break and breaks for Dáil votes and Louth’s Peter Fitzpatrick prefacing his questions with “I’m not being smart” before doing his best to disprove himself.

Moya Doherty returned after the break, wearing different glasses (tortoiseshell).

Still smiling smugly, but then, she is not the former director general Dee Forbes, who is unfortunately hors de combat.

But the recently returned car is what will be remembered.