Senior RTÉ executives have attempted to defend the broadcaster against claims made by Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly around the payments controversy that has engulfed the station.
At the start of the week, the former Late Late Show host appeared before two Oireachtas committees and said there had been seven “untruths” including that the underwriting of his commercial deal with Renault was not “well-known” in RTÉ, with Mr Tubridy saying it was “far from secret”.
His agent, Mr Kelly, presented an email from February 2020 that he said would contain “the most shocking revelation”. That email was from former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe, who wrote that “we can provide you with a side letter to underwrite this fee for the duration of the contract”.
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, interim deputy director general Adrian Lynch attempted to rebut many of these claims.
Speaking about the February 2020 email, Mr Lynch said he did not accept that this represented a contractual commitment.
“Firstly, regarding the email that was sent by the former CFO of RTÉ to NK Management on February 20th, 2020, RTÉ does not accept that a contractual commitment was given to underwrite the commercial agreement in this email.”
He also said the commitment to underwrite the Renault deal was not widely known. Mr Tubridy had said that “everyone who needed to know, knew”.
“Regarding the proposal to underwrite Mr Tubridy’s payments, RTÉ again states that the request was known within RTÉ, however, the commitment to do so was not widely known,” Mr Lynch said. “RTÉ's position is that, until the verbal commitment given by the former director general during the call on May 7th, 2020, it had not agreed to underwrite the €75,000 payment per contract year.”
During Tuesday’s highly anticipated hearing, agent Noel Kelly was asked whether it was the case that Mr Tubridy would have “walked” from RTÉ if the €75k commercial deal was not on the table. Mr Kelly said: “Not at all.” He said the only reason they wanted the deal to be underwritten by RTÉ was in case the sponsor changed.
But in his evidence to the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, Mr Lynch said “RTÉ must clarify that the proposal to underwrite these payments was central to the contractual negotiations between RTÉ and Mr Tubridy. We believe that the substantive contract would not have been signed without the additional commercial agreement, or the underwriting.
“Moreover, we contend that the payments of €75,000 for year two and three of the commercial contract were pursued by NK Management, despite it knowing that the Renault contract was no longer in place.”
To this effect, Mr Lynch read new emails into the record of the committee which have not been previously divulged. Mr Lynch referred to a comment made by Mr Kelly that he never met Dee Forbes alone. Mr Lynch then referred to a meeting on Monday, April 5th, 2022, between Ms Forbes and Mr Kelly. He added this was at a time when Mr Kelly came looking for the money for Mr Tubridy regarding the Renault deal.
“The email, copied to nobody, from Mr Kelly to Ms Forbes, says ‘Hi Dee, I hope you are well. It was good to catch up today. If you could please get Ger to send me on the invoicing details.’”
“At that point in time in April, who did Mr Kelly think he was sending the invoices to, given the fact that Geraldine O’Leary has clearly said the Renault deal was for one year? There were no other events.” Mr Lynch said the invoices could not have been to Renault, because the deal was over.
[ RTÉ to ask Ryan Tubridy to pay back €150,000 over outstanding Renault appearancesOpens in new window ]
It also emerged during the PAC hearing that RTÉ executives are now examining the terms of Breda O’Keeffe’s exit package.
She told the Media Committee last week that she had received a voluntary exit package from her employer.
Ms O’Keeffe left RTÉ in March 2020 after 17 years with the organisation and was replaced by the current chief financial officer, Richard Collins.
“I also left under a voluntary restructuring programme at the time. I just wanted to make that clear. At the time, there was an offer in place, a restructuring programme, with terms and conditions for staff. I applied under that scheme,” she told the Media Committee.
Adrian Lynch told the PAC on Thursday: “We are going to look into this and report back.” He said he “never saw paperwork in relation to Breda O’Keeffe”.
It is understood that committee members want to hear directly from Ms O’Keeffe, who was unavailable to attend on Thursday.
Committee members are also keen to examine Prime Time revelations about an April 30th, 2020 meeting during which Ms Forbes said RTÉ would not indemnify the Renault deal. While committee members were given a document showing an apparent U-turn just weeks later in May 2020, where the underwriting was agreed, they are awaiting the April minutes which involved a wider selection of RTÉ personnel.
New director general Kevin Bakhurst told the PAC the payments controversy has “created one of the most shameful and damaging episodes in the organisation’s history”. He later described it as “appalling, disgusting”.
On Mr Tubridy’s future, Mr Bakhurst said he has been asked about the issue a lot by the media. “I need to deal with that properly. There will be a fair process. I will have discussions with some of my colleagues and staff and then potentially with Mr Tubridy. There will be a fair process around that.”
On Tuesday, Mr Tubridy said he would return the money paid for personal appearances for Renault if he does not end up making those public appearances. Mr Bakhurst told the committee: “I think if we do have any discussions with Mr Tubridy going forward, I welcome his offer the other day, and we will see what he does about it.”
He also said RTÉ is not quite sure what it should be paying Mr Tubridy at the moment, as he now only has radio duties, and this is being worked out after the finance team received an invoice for payment for Mr Tubridy earlier this week.
Mr Bakhurst was asked on Thursday whether he has sought legal advice about seeking affidavits from people who have knowledge of this controversy but have not yet spoken. “I haven’t as of yet, but it is something we could consider.”
