NUJ wants Tubridy and Forbes to be probed by PAC over RTÉ payments scandal

NUJ secretary Seamus Dooley stressed that the voices of ordinary RTÉ workers need to be heard in the coming external review of RTÉ’s corporate governance. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has called for Ryan Tubridy and former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in connection with the ongoing payments scandal which has brought the broadcaster to its knees.

Speaking following a meeting of the NUJ’s broadcasting branch, called to discuss the fallout from the scandal on Friday, NUJ secretary Seamus Dooley stressed that the voices of ordinary RTÉ workers need to be heard in the coming external review of RTÉ’s corporate governance.

He said that the union needs to ensure that the terms of reference of that review, which are currently being fast-tracked by the Department of Media, should “encompass the workplace culture and that the voice of workers is heard and represented on the oversight panel”, adding that incoming director general Kevin Bakhurst “needs to make the holding of union and staff meetings his top priority”.

He said that Mr Tubridy, Ms Forbes, and director of content Jim Jennings should be called before PAC, and that Mr Tubridy’s agent Noel Kelly, who negotiated the contract by which Mr Tubridy received €75,000 per year in undisclosed payments, should also appear.

“I don’t suppose he would be influenced by an NUJ motion,” Mr Dooley said of Mr Kelly, however.

 The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has called for Ryan Tubridy and former RTÉ director general Dee Forbes to appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in connection with the ongoing payments scandal which has brought the broadcaster to its knees.

At the meeting, chair of the NUJ’s Dublin broadcasting branch and RTÉ’s education correspondent Emma O’Kelly referred to alarm among staff regarding the influence of commercial concerns on the future of RTÉ, and security of employment at the broadcaster.

Mr Dooley said that employment and services at RTÉ “must be protected”, and warned the Government that RTÉ’s financial plight was not “triggered by corporate governance failure but by inaction on funding and on the licence collection system”.

'Profoundly dissapointing' 

The Government this week paused all discussions of licence fee reform, a recurring bugbear of Ms Forbes during her tenure as she sought to balance RTÉ’s books, until next year at the earliest on foot of the current scandal.

Mr Dooley said it is “profoundly depressing” that the current situation at RTÉ which sees massive financial disparity between presenters and rank and file workers is the same as that seen more than 50 years previously, when TDs had likewise complained that the first director general “was earning more than ministers”.

“It is clear to me that the imperative of keeping the boys sweet was the driving force of those in RTÉ who view commercial success as the benchmark by which Ireland’s public service broadcaster can be judged,” he said. “Keeping a small number of boys sweet.” He added that the cost of the matters raised over the past week is “is far greater than the figures quoted at PAC or provided by financial analysis”.

“You cannot put a cost on the loss of public trust,” he said.