Cork PAC member: Ryan Tubridy should 'pay back' RTÉ additional payments

A Cork member of the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said he believes Ryan Tubridy has “a moral duty” to refund to RTÉ and taxpayers additional payments made to him on top of his stated salary.

RTÉ has been engulfed in crisis since revelations last month that it had underreported the salary paid to the former Late Late Show host and had failed to disclose €345,000 of additional payments to Mr Tubridy between 2017 to 2022, some of which were processed through a commercial “barter” account.

Mr Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly have agreed to appear before both the PAC and the Oireachtas Media Committee today to discuss their part in the ongoing controversy.

Fianna Fáil Cork East TD James O’Connor, who is a member of the PAC, told The Echo he believed the crux of the matter revolved around RTÉ agreeing to effectively underwrite Renault’s commercial arrangement to “top up” Mr Tubridy’s salary.

“I think the biggest question that all of us have is going to be around the secretive organisation of the deal where Ryan Tubridy received the income that he was due to receive through his Renault commercial arrangement, upon the outbreak of Covid-19, and RTÉ stepped in confidentially and did not correctly and accurately report back to the State within their own accounts about this arrangement,” Mr O’Connor said.

“Inevitably Mr Tubridy is going to have to answer questions on that, and also there’s going to be some degree of concern around whether he’s going to have to pay back that money to the State.” 

When it was put to Mr O’Connor that it seemed unlikely that Mr Tubridy would be under any legal obligation to repay any monies, the Cork East TD said he believed the broadcaster was under a moral obligation to do so.

“It is going to be a question of morality, that’s where it goes, and I have to say that I have noticed a shift in the past few days where the public don’t want this to descend into a witch hunt of individuals,” he said.

“I think he needs to pay back the money that he got from RTÉ and the taxpayer having to step in and supplement that commercial deal when it was defunct, and that was wrong that it was not properly reported upon, and what he said about his own pay was, ultimately, inaccurate.” 

Mr O’Connor said he was looking forward to getting an opportunity to question Mr Tubridy at today’s PAC session.

'MAXIMUM TRANSPARENCY'

RTÉ’s highest-paid presenter Ryan Tubridy has said he aims to bring “maximum transparency” ahead of his appearance before two committees today, in what may decide his return to the airwaves.

He also said that he aims to address “much of the misinformation” that he says has been circulating in recent weeks.

Among the documents that will be submitted to the committees are Mr Tubridy’s 2015 contract with RTÉ, his 2020 contract with RTÉ, extracts from the financial accounts of Mr Tubridy’s company Tuttle Productions Ltd, and copies of emails to and from senior RTÉ executives.

In a statement on Monday, Mr Tubridy said: “We will be presenting key documents and new information to the two committees which we believe will bring maximum transparency to the situation and address much of the misinformation which has circulated over the past three weeks.

“This is the first opportunity we have had to set out the full facts of what occurred, and we have spent weeks reviewing all the information about these issues.” The hotly anticipated committee appearance of both Mr Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly comes after weeks of bruising revelations at Ireland’s public service broadcaster.

Scrutiny of governance and financial affairs at RTÉ began after it admitted that fees paid to its star presenter Tubridy had been underdeclared by 345,000 euro over the period 2017 to 2022.

RTÉ executives subsequently explained that the sponsor of RTÉ’s flagship Late Late Show programme, Renault, paid Mr Tubridy 75,000 euro in 2020 under a tripartite deal, but then pulled out of the arrangement.

Two 75,000 euro payments made to Tubridy for the years 2021 and 2022 were made by RTÉ as it had underwritten the amounts due to Tubridy – in what TDs were told was a verbal agreement made on a Microsoft Teams meeting in May 2020.

Grant Thornton is probing the amounts that RTÉ said led to Tubridy’s fees from 2017-2019 being underdeclared; this report is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

On his first day as RTÉ director general, Kevin Bakhurst told reporters that whether Tubridy would return to the airwaves remained undecided.

Mr Bakhurst also suggested his fate could be determined by what emerges at the Public Accounts Committee and Media Committee hearings – calling for “maximum transparency” from both Tubridy and his agent.

Tubridy has not presented his weekday morning radio programme since the issues at RTÉ came to light on June 22.

He has apologised “unreservedly” for not asking questions when RTÉ published incorrect figures for his earnings, and said he was looking forward to returning to his radio show.

He also denied that the undeclared payments issue formed part of his decision to step down as Late Late Show host.

Noel Kelly – who represents several high-profile RTÉ presenters, as well as former Late Late Show host and Newstalk presenter Pat Kenny – will also be answering TDs’ and senators’ questions on Tuesday.