Catherine Murphy: There must be a reckoning for RTÉ's monstrous deception

Who signed off on Ryan Tubridy's deal, and kept it secret? Not just for one year, but over five separate years.

RTÉ director general Dee Forbes with presenter Ryan Tubridy last year. Picture: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin

When RTÉ director general Dee Forbes was last before the Public Accounts Committee, in January 2022, she made a prescient statement: “First, with regard to RTÉ’s financial statements, 2020 was a transformational year.”

At the time, the members of the PAC did not understand just how transformational.

We now know that in 2020 a secret deal was struck with one of its biggest stars, Ryan Tubridy, that cloaked a large chunk of his salary from public view. While RTÉ agreed to pay Mr Tubridy €466,250 and €440,000, in 2020 and 2021 respectively, it underwrote a deal in which a commercial partner would top this up by €75,000 per annum.

This deal was struck on a “cost-neutral” basis to the commercial partner, meaning RTÉ issued a credit note reducing the cost of its advertising on the station by a commensurate amount.

However, the commercial partner opted not to continue the deal in 2021, leaving RTÉ contractually obliged to meet the payments. The way it did this, by dipping into an undisclosed “barter account”, has all the appearances of a deliberate subterfuge designed to mask the real income of its top earner.

'Serious questions to answer'

There is no suggestion Mr Tubridy was involved in this deception, but let’s be clear about this. Members of the senior management team in RTÉ have serious questions to answer — not least, whether they provided false information to an Oireachtas committee with the intention of misleading it.

During her appearance at the PAC in 2022, Ms Forbes repeatedly stated the top talent at RTÉ — its top 10 earners, whose salaries are published each year — had taken a 15% pay cut in 2020 and 2021. We now know these assurances were not correct.

A key question, the PAC must ask, is whether Ms Forbes was aware of Mr Tubridy’s special treatment when she gave those assurances to the committee. Given her role as director general, it would be extraordinary if Ms Forbes had been kept in the dark.

As it stands, it is unclear if we will get any clarity from Ms Forbes, who was suspended by RTÉ on Wednesday and had been due to step down from her role in two weeks.

Regardless, we must get clarity. And soon. The public, as well as politicians, have been taken for fools by some in senior management in RTÉ who have been using clever accounting to mispresent their financial position. Ordinary RTÉ staff, most of whom are on modest incomes, are also rightly enraged.

RTÉ employees betrayed

Mr Tubridy’s publicly declared salary has been topped up, not since 2020, but since 2017. In total, he received an additional €345,000. Throughout this time, ordinary workers in RTÉ endured pay cuts, pay freezes, and redundancies. They went along with this because they thought the pain was being shared by those at the top. 

They now know this was not the case, and feel horribly betrayed.

RTÉ is not an ordinary media organisation. It is a semi-state company with a very clear public service broadcasting remit. Unlike other media companies, it benefits from the largesse of the licence fee money. It also has increased obligations because of this State support.

Under the Broadcasting Act, RTÉ must send its annual report, which includes its financial statements, to the Communications Minister, who brings it to Cabinet. It is then laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and scrutinised by the PAC and the communications committee.

It is unprecedented for representatives of RTÉ to have repeatedly misled members of the Oireachtas about its pay arrangements. This is especially serious for the organisation as it has had a begging bowl out, pleading for increased State funding, at every single appearance before an Oireachtas committee for many years.

Breach of trust

Now, we don’t know whether we can trust any figures coming from RTÉ. This enormous breach of trust will be extremely difficult to repair. Clearly, an independent audit of the pay deals of other big earners will have to be completed, and is under way. Other matters also require swift clarification.

For instance, what was the arrangement that saw Mr Tubridy’s pay topped up by €120,000 between 2017 and 2019? Why was the mysterious “barter account”, through which large sums of money were clearly sloshing, not under the control of the financial function of RTÉ? Was licence fee money being paid to Mr Tubridy’s agent, Noel Kelly, as part of this or any other agreement? Are other commercial partners picking up portions of anyone else’s salary — and getting reduced cost advertising rates in return?

Crucially, who signed off on this deal, and kept it secret? Not just for one year, but over five separate years.

RTÉ, as a public services broadcaster, has an important job to do. Namely, holding people in power, and

politicians like me, to account. It does this on behalf of you, the public — the people it is supposed to serve. This monstrous deception has now seriously damaged its ability to do this important work. There must be a reckoning for this treachery — and soon.

Catherine Murphy is a Social Democrats TD and Vice-Chair of the Public Accounts Committee.