Richard Hogan: Parody is the real winner in the RTÉ debacle

A sign for the RTE Television Studios in Donnybrook.

If ever we needed evidence why social media platforms exist, the videos on Twitter parodying the questions by members of the Oireachtas explains it perfectly. Put simply, the Irish are funny feckers. 

Nothing has quite gripped the nation’s attention in recent times like the several heated Oireachtas hearings on financial irregularities in RTÉ. But what have we really learned from the many hours of questions and answers? Very little. 

We already knew the Irish were funny. The indie song that went viral on the Enoch Burke board meeting, ‘Where is John Rogers?’ confirmed that for us. 

Could we say we are any clearer on who knew what, and who did what in relation to the Renault deal at the core of this controversy? Again, no. 

I would think those who supported Ryan Tubridy from the start of this chaos, probably believe more in his innocence now, while those who were vocally opposed to him are more polarised against him than ever before. How can that be? 

Well, the structure of the hearings left little to be desired. Not only that, but the constant falling over similar questions by each member illuminated just how little they knew of each other’s questions before the sessions commenced. 

Surely, when there is a time limit on each set of questions, you’d expect members to divide up questions so they don’t trip over each other and waste valuable time. Not so. And then there was the level of questions asked.

Ryan Tubridy arrives at Leinster House, Dublin.

A BIZARRE OPENING GAMBIT

The independent TD from Louth, Peter Fitzpatrick’s questioning of Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly raised the most eyebrows and sent Twitter into some sort of frenzy. 

Fitzpatrick commenced his questioning of Tubridy by stating, ‘I don’t know all these people who are rubbing your shoulders and rubbing your hand, but I tell you one thing: if you came to County Louth it would be the opposite’. 

It was a bizarre opening gambit. It seemed so wildly inappropriate for a hearing at that level. 

Tubridy struggled to hold his composure. You could tell Ryan was flustered and surprised by what he had just heard. 

So, Mr Fitzpatrick was setting out his stall early, perhaps cognisant of all the back-slapping he’d get walking down main street in Louth, for taking on those bloody posh ‘D4 heads’. 

Things didn’t really improve from there, though. He clearly hadn’t read The Art of War. 

You don’t expose your bias early in a conversation and you certainly don’t make the interlocuter defensive if you want to get the truth from them. That’s, like, the first rule or two in negotiating. 

And so things went rapidly downhill from that point. He asked a couple of hypothetical questions: ‘if you had been made aware would you have stayed in your position?’ 

What the hell was he hoping to learn from that question? He teed up Ryan to knock it back down his throat, which Ryan dutifully did, his rebuttal exposing how idiotic the question was: "It is a hypothetical that is unbecoming this committee."

Fitzpatrick also seemed to fundamentally lack insight into what the issue at hand was. 

He asked, ‘if RTÉ were overstating the money they were paying you, where is the balance of the money? Any recipient is obliged to return that overpayment, this is taxpayer money.’ 

He seemed to think the controversy was in relation to RTÉ overstating their payment to Ryan Tubridy. 

The issue, as anyone paying half attention to knows, is about the understatement of payments to Mr Tubridy. 

He also informed Ryan that he had a ‘cushy number’, and finished by asking, ‘Do you honestly think that people don’t think that one and one is two?’ 

Again, it was a surreal moment and the perfect punctuation to a bizarre series of questions. 

You should never attempt to intellectualise a stupid question. But poor Ryan was raised better than me and tried his best to make sense of the whole fiasco.

Richard Hogan. Photograph: Moya Nolan

JOYCEAN STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Then we had Mattie McGrath who opened his robust round of questioning by stating he, ‘was delighted to meet (Ryan) upstairs and a cuppa… your late grandad was with Liam Lynch…and look if you are out of a job Friday…you’d be welcome down to retrace the first steps’. 

A Joycean stream of consciousness that prompted the Chair to tell him to use his time wisely. 

The question I was left with was, who the hell decides who gets to ask questions at hearings, and why isn’t there more coherence between speakers? 

It made a mockery of the process, and left the taxpayer none the wiser of what happened with their money. 

Dave Fanning, picking up on the fact that it was a bit of a Father Ted exhibition, called the performance on Twitter a ‘nonsensical Oireachtas Nuremberg Trial’. 

He quickly took down his post when he sensed the public's disapproval of the sentiment. 

But the whole thing was bizarre, and it was a bit of a show trial. It was a shambles and did little to inform the public about the nuances and intricacies of what happened at the core of this controversy. 

Joe Brolly probably summed it all up best when he stated on Twitter, ‘I have been getting very large cheques from a U.K. company I’ve never heard of. And in return for that, I was supposed to do six gigs for a different company. And get this. They have never contacted me about doing them. How cool is that.’ 

How cool, indeed! And how unbelievable. 

Yet, no one at that committee managed to frame it like Brolly did. 

So, it is all coming to a natural conclusion. 

The media frenzy has abated. Like every other committee and tribunal the public has tried to put their confidence in, we are left with very few answers to important questions like, ‘Where the hell was John Rogers on the morning of the meeting, and does Ryan Tubridy not think one and one is two?’