Flip flops, football jerseys, and membership of elite London club: What RTÉ's barter accounts bought

Details of three barter accounts used by the broadcaster show that in 2022, €300,739 was spent in total regarding the tripartite deal struck between the presenter, RTÉ, and Renault to ensure payments of €75,000 per annum to Mr Tubridy over three years. Picture: Denis Minihane.

Flip flops, football jerseys, and membership of an elite London social club are among the expenses detailed in RTÉ’s barter account in files released to the Oireachtas.

Meanwhile, RTÉ spent just over €300,000 in order to deliver undisclosed payments to Ryan Tubridy of €150,000, according to new figures released to the Oireachtas Media Committee on Wednesday.

Details of three barter accounts used by the broadcaster show that in 2022, €300,739 was spent in total regarding the tripartite deal struck between the presenter, RTÉ, and Renault to ensure payments of €75,000 per annum to Mr Tubridy over three years.

Those figures feature in a summary of the Astus barter account — named for the UK agency the account was held with — stretching back to 2012.

The accounts detail the commercial entertainments which RTÉ spent money on during that timeframe including, in the period pre-2019:

• €26,000 on Bruce Springsteen and Ed Sheeran concerts
• €23,100 on 36 tickets to the 2016 Champions League Final
• €32,200 on a ‘cinema’ expense labelled ‘RTÉ Sport no other detail’
• €53,700 on RTÉ’s new season launch in August 2018
• €21,000 on RTÉ’s client summer party in August 2016
• €33,400 on two golf outings for clients at Powerscourt Golf Club in 2016 and 2018

Between 2019 and 2022, use of the Astus account slowed significantly. However, in 2019 some €65,000 was spent on flights to the Rugby World Cup in Japan, with another €47,000 spent on hotels.

A further €138,456 was spent on 6 ten-year IRFU season tickets, at a cost of €23,000 apiece. The sheet notes that the number of such tickets had reduced from 10 to 6.

Meanwhile, also in 2019, €5,600 was spent on a trip to a Republic of Ireland European Championship qualifier in Gibraltar.

A number of  smaller expenses are likewise detailed in the Astus account, including:

• €4,957 on 200 Havaianas flip flops for an RTÉ summer party for agencies and clients in June 2016
• €3,608 on 60 Ireland jerseys purchased for Euro 2016 in which Ireland was competing
• €6,009 on three years’ worth of membership of the exclusive Soho House members club in London from 2019 to 2021
• €2,161 on balloons for RTÉ’s client summer party in August 2016

Another of the three barter accounts recorded a credit of €344,000 over the 13 months between November 2021 and December 2022.

The account, named Miroma for another UK agency handling the account, recorded 43 transactions in that time relating to advertising campaigns concerning three clients — Allianz, Universal, and Unibet.

The final account, named Active for the agency which administered it, details transactions with clients such as Airtricity and Dyson Ireland between 2015 and 2022.

Some €2m worth of deals are detailed in the Active account, with a final trade value of €1.1m.