Gareth O'Callaghan: RTÉ puppetry lives on — but who is pulling the strings?

Little has changed over 40 years in how RTÉ spends money, so why should the public now expect anything new, asks Gareth O'Callaghan

Presenter Ryan Tubridy, right, leaving at the Dáil with his agent Noel Kelly after giving evidence at a Public Accounts Committee meeting in July 2023 in relation to his pay issues. Picture: Leon Farrell/RollingNews.ie

Back in the 90s, when Zig and Zag seemed as popular as Gay Byrne, I felt both honoured and nervous to be invited onto Dempsey’s Den one afternoon to be interviewed by the wiley pair. A researcher on the show advised me to leave any sensitivities outside the door.

They quizzed me for 20 minutes, cajoling and embarrassing me in an endearing way. As I left, one of them patted me on the back and thanked me.

As I strolled along the corridor from their studio, people walking past me turned and smiled. Then, one by one, they formed an orderly queue and each put their arms around me, while reassuring me that everything was fine.

I had no idea what was going on, until I reached my car. My producer at that time who had just passed me turned and laughed. He walked back to me and told me to turn around. He pulled a yellow sticker off my back, which read: “I need a hug right now.”

I had been stitched up by a pair of puppets. They did it to lots of their guests

Hard to believe a year has passed since Ryan Tubridy dominated the front pages of every newspaper and social media outlet. He had barely pulled the Late Late studio door closed behind him.

RTÉ’s dirty laundry was finally being washed in public, at the expense of the licence payer who had been stitched up big time.

A year is a long time in politics. It’s even longer in the world of media, where changes suddenly erupt, transforming in a matter of days what was once a familiar landscape.

Barely a month ago, 2FM appeared to be on the verge of collapse when four of its main daytime presenters quit, almost in unison. There was barely any time for hugs.

Tubridy’s lucrative career came to an end this weekend last year. Secret deals and barter accounts, which none of the lowly-paid workers in RTÉ knew existed, shocked the country for weeks — wall-to-wall coverage like never before. It was the ultimate fall from grace.

Ahead of my interview with the playful pair, a researcher told me to leave any sensitivities outside the door.

Tubridy is gracious, generous with his hugs, and endearing. However, hugs for Tubs became rare after last June, most likely at a time when he could have done with lots of them.

And then, just ahead of his reinstatement last September, when a virtual welcome-back hug from his steadfast listeners looked like a reality, he drove the nail home. Hugs turned to hauteur.

His fans took to social media to say it was a shocking price to pay for what, they claimed, was a relatively small sum of money. Anger grew, as did withering disbelief as weekly revelations showed that RTÉ had been blowing taxpayers’ money as though it were their own private slush fund.

In hindsight, Tubridy had become a symptom, perhaps even an unknowing victim of RTÉ’s flash-the-cash culture — an internal hush-hush system of reckless spending — a culture that was already prospering as far back as 1971.

Dana’s ‘All Kinds of Everything’ had just won the 1970 Eurovision, and the onus fell on RTÉ to stage the contest the following year in Dublin’s Gaiety Theatre. In true RTÉ style, it was decided that nothing was too lavish ahead of the international televised event.

There was only one problem: RTÉ had very little money. 

Its budget, compared to any of the previous years’ winning countries, was puny. 

At the expense of the station’s budget that year, £250k (€12m today) was spent hosting the contest, mostly to show off to the rest of Europe that a tiny broadcaster in a country as small as Ireland could flash the cash.

And they did, even though it wasn’t theirs to spend.

Months ahead of the broadcast, RTÉ’s home-produced content dropped to 6% — with cheap imports making up the rest of the output for years afterwards — all in the name of showing off.

Nothing has changed, if RTÉ’s bloodline is anything to go by.

Roll it there, Colette, to May 6, 1985, when then minister for communications Jim Mitchell directed that a team of consultants from Stokes Kennedy Crowley be dispatched to carry out a “fundamental review” of the broadcaster.

RTÉ had never had an independent internal assessment in its 25-year history, and management was beside themselves.

Mr Mitchell wanted an end to the belief among semi-State bodies that they could get away with anything.

RTÉ would prove him wrong.

Even then, the station was operating a massive expenses account — called the Contingency Fund — which by 1985 was flashing money to the tune of €300k (€1.1m in today’s currency).

RTÉ explained that it was used to pay for unforeseen expenses such as the previous year’s coverage of the Reagans’ visit.

Welcoming the minister’s investigation, RTÉ’s financial controller at the time, Gerard O’Brien, said the broadcaster had “nothing to hide”.

“We are treated with neither predictability nor logic by Government. We don’t know if we are going up or down or sideways.”

In 1985, RTÉ employed 2,200 people — including 200 managers with various responsibilities across a myriad of departments. A leap forward of 37 years to December 31, 2022, shows there were 1,868 employees working in a multitude of departments where staff work discreetly and avoid unwanted attention.

It’s an unspoken ethos among programme teams — quietly, thoroughly. It hasn’t changed much in 65 years, because very few employees trust management.

“At times, RTÉ appears like a badly built bee-hive,” Magill magazine wrote in 1985. “The station is in deep financial trouble and in dire need of a thorough reappraisal.”

Little has changed over 40 years in how RTÉ spends money, so why should we now expect anything new? Bad habits are like a comfortable bed: Easy to get into, but hard to get out of.

RTÉ, with its inherited methods of how it spends money, is unlike any other modern Irish business model.

While its commitments to sports coverage, home-produced drama, undercover investigations, and the arts are unquestionably excellent, a lot of its other output is highly questionable.

RTÉ is a seasoned player when it comes to showing off — at the expense of the licence payer.

In reality, it has very little to show for all the showing off.

Where or when it will end, no one knows — not even the Government.

No one wants to acknowledge that television viewing across the world is in rapid decline. It’s likely in 10 years that no one will buy a television set for the reason they did in the past. The future of traditional television viewing is sport.

Simple as that. RTÉ’s second channel should broadcast nothing but Irish sport, current championships, and reruns. We’re a sporting nation. It’s a winner.

Eugene O’Neill, the American playwright, once famously said: “There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over — now.”

His words reflect the current state of RTÉ, whose once-major fixture in society has shifted hugely, and the respect it lost last summer might well prove impossible to claw back.

Zig and Zag are a distant memory but, in the fractious relationship between RTÉ and successive governments, puppetry lives on. Problem is trying to figure out which one is pulling the strings.