Mick Clifford: RTÉ Oireachtas hearings were a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly

Some committee members asked pertinent questions but others used the hearings as a platform for grandstanding and some would-be inquisitors were bang out of order

Ryan Tubridy was, to the greatest extent, able to name his price. But the power relationship has pivoted and now all the power rests with RTÉ, and specifically its new director general, Kevin Bakhurst, pictured here meeting Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh and other RTÉ staff. Picture: Colin Keegan/Collins

Three weeks is a long time in the life of The Talent.

Less than a month ago, Ryan Tubridy was kicking back, facing the first summer of his post- Late Late Show career. He had plans for various projects in RTÉ that would see him explore his interests in history. His celebrity wattage was burning as bright as ever. 

Some in the media were even speculating that he might take a run at the presidency when the office becomes vacant in 2025.

Today, he remains something of a prisoner in his home, hoping fervently to hang on to his job.

Where until recently he ventured out with care to protect his privacy from over-eager fans, today he does likewise in case some members of the public show him their anger. The burning question is whether or not there is a route back to the summit for Mr Tubridy.

“I’m hopeful I will soon get back on the air to do the job I love,” he told the Oireachtas media committee on Tuesday

Shifting power balance

The first thing to acknowledge is that the balance of power between Tubridy and RTÉ has completely shifted.

Up until this controversy, and certainly prior to his retirement as presenter of The Late Late Show, Tubridy was, to the greatest extent, able to name his price.

The arrangement being investigated in recent weeks appears to have been designed to provide Tubridy with greater income than that which was publicly acknowledged. No such arrangement was done with any other presenter.

Ryan Tubridy and others must face serious questions — but some politicians used the committees as an opportunity to grandstand and garner Twitter clips to fire into cyberspace. Picture: Oireachtas TV 

Tubridy, through his agent Noel Kelly, was the recipient of special treatment, such was the esteem in which his talent was held by senior RTÉ executives.

That has been turned on its head.

All of the power in the relationship between him and RTÉ now rests with the station, and specifically its new director general, Kevin Bakhurst.

Tubridy has retired from his main gig, that of the presenter of The Late Late Show. His replacement, Patrick Kielty, is in place and has received a generally positive reception.

Unresolved issues

Should a decision be made in the best interests of RTÉ that there is no longer a place for Tubridy, the disruption will be minimal.

His return to broadcasting with the employer he has worked with for the last 30 years is a matter of huge importance to him, but no longer so for RTÉ. The loss of his job would be a harsh penalty.

His problem is that whatever happened has not been resolved. He and his agent have one version, and the RTÉ executives have another.

Neither of these appears to coincide with the facts as they have dribbled out. 

Referring to his client, Kelly told Tuesday’s hearing: 

He’s been made the poster boy for the scandal and that is not deserved. 

Kelly may be right, but the problem is that the narrative of Tubridy and Kelly has more than a few loose ends.

The tripartite agreement 

Here is what we know: RTÉ, Tubridy through his agent, and Renault, the sponsor of The Late Late Show, made an agreement in early 2020.

Tubridy would present three mobile Late Late Shows per year for three years at Renault venues.

In one corner, Renault. In another, RTÉ. And on the third corner of the tripartite agreement was Ryan Tubridy, represented by his agent Noel Kelly, left. Picture: Leon Farrell/RollingNews

He would receive €25,000 per gig, amounting to a total of €225,000. RTÉ provided the physical infrastructure for the gigs, which cost €70,000, for the three that actually took place.

The tripartite agreement, as it has come to be known, stipulated the whole arrangement would be “cost neutral” for Renault in the first year, and underwritten by RTÉ in years two and three.

“Cost neutral” means that Renault would not be paying Tubridy for his services.

In fact, the car company paid him for the first year and received a credit note to the value of €75,000 from RTÉ.

The gigs didn’t take place in the second and third years due to the pandemic and RTÉ paid Tubridy the €150,000 that he was due.

This was done through the generation of an invoice from a London-based company over which RTÉ had control, for “consultancy” services.

There was an instruction that no names be used on the invoice. Quite obviously, the routing of the money in this manner was designed to deceive, or at least conceal.

Strangely, the contract involved in the tripartite agreement was signed by Kelly, on Tubridy’s behalf, in April 2023, nearly three years after it came into effect and around the time that RTÉ’s auditors began sifting through the detail of what had gone on.

The whole operation, from the conception of the agreement through to the method of payment, suggests that it was a ruse to bump up the fees paid by RTÉ to Tubridy in a manner that could be concealed from the public, RTÉ staff, and the Oireachtas.

This would give the impression to these constituencies that Tubridy was taking a far greater pay cut than was the case.

Tubridy and Kelly deny any such intention. RTÉ executives admit to it, kind of. 

At the public accounts committee meeting on Thursday, Paul McAuliffe addressed a series of questions to the deputy director general of RTÉ, Adrian Lynch.

McAuliffe: “Would you accept that the tripartite agreement was an attempt to add to Ryan Tubridy’s overall income?”

Lynch: “Yes, an attempt to provide additional income.”

McAuliffe: “It’s not independent work, it was facilitated by RTÉ?”

Lynch: “Correct.”

McAuliffe: “Making it cost-neutral meant RTÉ was funding the tripartite agreement?”

Lynch: “Correct”.

Sounds fairly clear there. The problem is that Tubridy and Kelly continue to deny any knowledge of such a scheme.

Kelly claims he was instructed by RTÉ to send the invoice to the offshore company and he just did as he was told.

Is it possible that the presenter didn’t know it was being done, notwithstanding the presence of his agent as a buffer between him and the station on financial matters?

Can Tubridy, described by his agent as “the most trusted man in Ireland”, simply slip back into the studio chair while that situation persists?

He told the Oireachtas committees on Tuesday that his one major regret was not questioning the difference between his publicly-stated income and what he knew he was actually earning.

He knew nothing of any routing of money in a surreptitious manner to hide his real income.

Mr Tubridy places a lot of emphasis on trust and he is now asking the public and his colleagues to trust him on this one.

Those who know the details

There are a few people in this tripartite agreement that could give fairly definitive evidence on the detail of what was afoot.

Dee Forbes, director general of RTÉ at the time, is too ill to attend any Oireachtas committee. So is Jim Jennings, director of content at the station. Renault has not made any comment, which is highly interesting. There is no obligation on the private company to do so, but it would certainly shed some light.

RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst meeting National Union of Journalists Irish secretary Seamus Dooley on the RTÉ campus on Wednesday. Picture: Niall Carson/PA  

Without those key parts to the jigsaw, it is difficult to give the benefit of the doubt to any of the parties involved.

If the arrangement did exist, as suspected, it is reasonable to conclude that RTÉ bears the greater responsibility for conceiving and executing it.

As a direct result of what has tumbled out, a number of members of the executive board at the station have left, retired, or stepped back from their roles. It could thus be posited that the station has moved to effect change by seeing the back of many of those who were in situ at the time the deal was done.

On the other side, Tubridy and Kelly — like most people involved — have been through the emotional wringer as a result of the fallout, but both appear eager to just get the show back on the road.

Pertinent questions versus grandstanding

Meanwhile, a circus developed around efforts to find out what had been going on.

The series of Oireachtas committee meetings are no way to inquire into these serious matters.

In the first instance, the spectre of two such committees — public accounts and media and culture — both examining it simultaneously, feeds into the impression that it’s all about grandstanding for the cameras, and garnering Twitter clips to fire into cyberspace.

Some politicians are members of both committees, which, for these lucky bunnies, provided not one but two shots at five minutes of fame.

Imelda Munster was one of those who is a member of both committees. Here she is on Thursday, asking Adrian Lynch why he won’t come clean. 

“I don’t give your answers any credence,” she told him.

When asked to allow him to speak, she replied: “It’s only waffle, that’s all it is.”

You can just see the clip of the Sinn Féin TD for Louth zooming around the Twittersphere. Whether her comments were befitting a parliamentary inquiry, contributing to excavating facts, or equipped with any sense of fairness is another matter.

Certainly, some of the politicians asked pertinent questions, particularly Catherine Murphy, Alan Dillon, and Alan Kelly.

But as a form of inquiry, it was a mishmash of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Last Tuesday was a perfect example of how ludicrous the system operated. The media committee received a pack of documents at 8.30am, just over two hours before they were due to begin their interrogation of Tubridy and Kelly. By right, they should have demanded that the hearing be put back a day.

The questioning of the witnesses was entirely uneven. Some, as noted above, had real questions.  More had statements to make and all wanted to feel the nation’s anger or pain, depending on which they they saw the wind blowing.

A couple were just bang out of order, addressing the witnesses as if they were errant kids who had to have the truth knocked out of them.

That afternoon, the public accounts committee went through the same rigmarole.

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In a properly designed system, one committee would be appointed to examine the whole thing. It would detail a competent person to compile an outline report and that would then be divided up among the members to inquire on the subject in a coherent manner.

That, of course, will never happen because it would require the members to subsume their personal interests into that of the collective.

Tubridy may return, but at a price

So is Tubs on his way back?

The smart money says definitely, maybe, but if you want a value bet, put it on the presenter being told that he must push his agent overboard as an acknowledgement of what really went on.

Whether Ryan Tubridy would be prepared to do that, in light of his closeness to Kelly, is another matter. One way or the other, in the coming months, new director general Kevin Bakhurst, and those around him, will have bigger fish to fry.

The “cash for gigs” scandal has exposed some serious cultural flaws in the station which will take a fair bit of repairing.