'It's all I've got': Ryan Tubridy wants to return to airwaves as soon as possible
Ryan Tubridy during a PAC meeting on Television in the Camden Delux in Dublin's City Centre
RTÉ’s star presenter Ryan Tubridy has said he was finding it hard to leave the house as he gave evidence to a committee over claims the broadcaster misreported fees paid to him.
In an extraordinary committee appearance, Tubridy appeared emotional at times, and slammed his hand on the table during his opening statement.
He said he wishes to return as soon as possible to his weekday morning radio show “because it’s all I’ve got”.
“My name has been desperately sullied, I think my reputation has been sullied,” Mr Tubridy said, stating that he had been subjected to a “frenzy” and suggesting that he had been “cancelled”.
“People here have families. People need to think about – you’re public representatives – you know what it means when you’re in the middle of something,” Tubridy told TDs at the Public Accounts Committee.
“This is my first rodeo being in the public eye (like this). I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know if any of you’ve been cancelled before but let me tell you, you don’t want to be there.” Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) from 11am on Tuesday, finishing for an hour’s lunch before an appearance before the media committee at 3pm.
Mr Kelly told PAC they had been “under siege”, that Tubridy had been made a “poster boy” for the controversy and there had been “horrendous reporting” on the issue.
“Suddenly the most trusted man in Ireland, Ryan Tubridy, it was like ‘throw him under a bus’. Why?” Mr Kelly said.
Tubridy addressed what he called “seven material untruths” about the controversy in his opening statement to TDs, and claimed that RTÉ’s figures and statements had created a “fog of confusion”.
He also denied assertions he had not taken a pay cut, stating that he had taken a 20% pay cut between 2020-2025; that the “fiasco” had anything to do with his decision to step down as host of the Late Late Show; and that he had been secretly overpaid – insisting instead that RTÉ had underdeclared his fee amounts.
The appearance has also prompted a row between Mr Kelly and the broadcaster, over what level of knowledge there was at RTÉ to underwrite commercial payments to Tubridy – with Mr Kelly accusing RTÉ of trying to “distance themselves” from the decision.
The hotly anticipated committee appearance of both Tubridy and Mr Kelly – who represents several high-profile presenters and entertainers – comes after weeks of bruising revelations at Ireland’s public service broadcaster.
People were seen commenting and reacting to the proceedings, which were screened in some bars across Dublin.
Scrutiny of governance and financial affairs at RTÉ began after it claimed that fees paid to its star presenter Tubridy had been underdeclared by €345,000 over the period 2017 to 2022.
Evidence presented by Tubridy and his agent at the committee on Tuesday disputed that amounts due to him during the 2017-2019 period were paid.
Grant Thornton is currently 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.
RTÉ executives have previously explained that the sponsor of RTÉ’s flagship Late Late Show programme, Renault, paid Tubridy €75,000 in 2020 under a tripartite deal, but then pulled out of the arrangement.
Two €75,000 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-only agreement made on a Microsoft Teams meeting in May 2020.
Tubridy told TDs on Tuesday that although he was entitled to a €120,000 loyalty or exit payment during that period, he had effectively “foregone” it.
In his opening statement to committee, Mr Kelly told TDs that RTÉ has attempted to “distance itself” from its decision to underwrite a tripartite deal, and that this was “a mess of RTÉ’s making”.
He referred to a letter from former RTÉ chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe, dated February 2020, which said: “We can provide you with a side letter to underwrite this fee for the duration of the contract (with Renault).” He said the decision to underwrite the contract “was known widely within the executive board of RTÉ”.
Mr Kelly told the Public Accounts Committee: “To our surprise, Ms O’Keeffe told the committee last week that when she left RTÉ in March (2020) there was no support to provide that type of guarantee and no such guarantee was on offer.
“But she had written to us making exactly that offer a month earlier.
He also added: “Ryan and I have attracted a horrendous amount of criticism and abuse in the past few weeks because he is such a high-profile and successful figure in Ireland, and he has been made a poster boy for this scandal. That is undeserved.” In response, RTÉ has rejected the claim that it gave an “incorrect version of events” over an agreement to underwrite payments to Tubridy.
It said in a statement: “For clarity, the claim relates specifically to an email that was sent by the former CFO of RTÉ to NK Management on February 20 2020, which is being characterised as a contractual commitment on the part of RTÉ to underwrite the payments in question.
“RTÉ does not accept this characterisation.
“RTÉ’s position is as per previous statements: That, until the verbal commitment given by the former director-general during the call on May 7 2020, it had not agreed to underwrite the €75,000 payment per contract year.” Among the documents that have been submitted to the committees are Tubridy’s 2015 and 2020 contracts with RTÉ, extracts from the financial accounts of Tubridy’s company Tuttle Productions Ltd, and copies of emails to and from senior RTÉ executives.
On his first day as RTÉ director-general, Kevin Bakhurst suggested that whether Tubridy returned to the airwaves depended on what emerged during the committee hearings, and he called 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.
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