RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

sxt

"The most honest man in Ireland " is also the only non employee/ self employed man in Ireland that is getting paid for work that isn't being done. He isn't getting paid the high fees he wants....? Self entitled and Bonkers as RT would say himself

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969597#Comment_120969597

I said months ago - yes we’re in months now on this, it started in June after all - that Renault HQ in France would be very “annoyed” at how their name was being dragged through the mud in Ireland. You’d have to wonder is this a consequence of that? I wonder if there’s been some casualties internally in Renault Ireland HQ?

ForestFire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969672#Comment_120969672

As the man himself said...

Tubridy told the committee earlier this week that he was willing to repay these sums if he did not fulfil the appearances.

He is a sly two-faced.....!!

Thinks he can plamas us with words and about his pure soul.....and rob us at the same time.....

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969717#Comment_120969717

He will I suspect likely have taken home more last month for doing NOTHING than a number of front line nurses combined will have been paid for working full hours throughout the month.

ForestFire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969730#Comment_120969730

Exactly then this is what is making Tubridy rising my anger...

RTE should be finished with him....

He already has millions from the Irish taxpayers....if he wants to still make money let him off down to the local factory and work on an assembly line and do some real work for his pay!!

Or work as a Hospital porter and he'll then be able to claim sainthood in a few years time.🙄

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969128#Comment_120969128

Remember he let us know how ‘humbled’ he was when he was originally offered the Late Late. Compare that to the haughty, imperial tone in private of ‘don’t even ask me to take a pay cut’.

hamburgham

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969672#Comment_120969672

How can he have it both ways? Either he is an employee in which case he could argue his case for a pay off or he’s a contractor and no pay off is due.

tobefrank321

So is Tubridy out of contract and can be let go without a payoff?

Surely Bakhurst hasn't secretly given Tubridy a new contract?

Bakhurst needs to prove he's not an insider more interested in the welfare of people like Tubridy and Marty Morrissey than the overall interest of RTE.

He's made a very poor start to the job, all talk, zero action.

ButtersSuki

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969774#Comment_120969774

Joe Duffy did a similar thing when he broke his leg. Though a contractor and off air for a while he complained he wasn’t getting sick pay! You couldn’t make it up.

They want it both ways.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120965558#Comment_120965558

Personally I don’t want to hear anyone give advice or steer conversation on the radio that can’t look after himself

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969563#Comment_120969563

Yet this thread was full of tip-the-cap folks telling us how RT and RTE had done very little wrong and that it was a witch hunt. After all the waste and corruption we have seen, it's amazing that such a mentality can still exist amongst Irish people. Some will never wake up.

coolbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120967972#Comment_120967972

Ah now, everyone knows that RTÉ is an equal opportunities employer!

Hyperbollix

It really is an Irish solution to an Irish problem!

Out of contract, independent freelance operator, continues to be paid by organisation he is no longer contracted to work for, while he's enjoying 2 months off for the summer. Organisation delighted they aren't paying him any more than they actually are.............. while he's doing nothing!

Let us be under no illusion now. Bakhurst is a company man to the core. The accent and the British passport don't make him any different to any other RTE lifer who is there to ensure the gravy train stays on the tracks. Instead of showing real leadership and making a statement by declining to offer Tubridy a new contract and take the legal hit on the chin, he is no doubt going to move heaven and earth to reinstate him to the lifestyle he has become accustomed. As I said before, this shambles is run like a cross between a family business and a home for the old and bewildered.

I hope people keep binning those licence fee letters. Nothing else we can do.

coolbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970013#Comment_120970013

If only for the apologists for low standards we see in this thread, and in Ireland generally, we'd be like a fun version of Switzerland. These people enable the corruption we see daily. Ironically, a lot of them are holier than thou hard left types who can't see that these low standards affect the groups they claim to care about most ie the marginalised and the genuinely poor.

JP Liz V1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969811#Comment_120969811

I don't understand how Tubs is getting paid if out of contract, the new guy Kevin still on holidays? It is a disgrace and a farce

coolbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970502#Comment_120970502

It's very odd altogether. One of the defining features of being a contractor is you only get paid when you work. At least that's the way it worked when I was freelance. Or maybe I'm just thick and all contractors get paid when not working...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970545#Comment_120970545

Maybe that’s why rte is in court over their definition of “contractor”

sxt

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970621#Comment_120970621

By the law of physics, you should be either in a legal contract or not . If there is some quantom physics contract happening, then this saga has no end in sight!

Brendan Bendar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120968776#Comment_120968776

Hmmm… Mr Pee, I would take a different view

1. RTE not inexplicable…. They never ever respond to any crisis big or small.That’s their default M.O.
2. Remember ‘ Birthdaygate’ during covid ? Nobody came forward to respond from RTE , they did what they always do, circle the wagons, do nothing, curl into a ball and let the storm blow through.
3. Nobody could justify the wedge paid to the so-called ‘talent’ but RTE again tried muddy the waters as much as possible.
4. RTE is a nepotistic outfit where a cartel have tried to promote the culture of what we have we hold and nothing escapes into public view about how we run things.

The only reason that they are in the position they are in is pure bad luck and good accounting.

Otherwise we would still being ridden ragged by a bunch of chancers and grifters who seem to be more interested in self aggrandisement and ‘keeping it in the family’ paying for very little, rather than giving value for money.

In my opinion nothing is inexplicable with RTE, as currents events have exposed, and I’m sure we are not finished.

Orange-Coca-Cola

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969812#Comment_120969812

He felt aggrieved enough by it to put it into his autobiography. https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/rte-star-joe-duffy-bumper-7265195

Funnily, the whole article is about his company that contracts him out to rte.

His 2011 autobiography revealed his “insecurity and worry” at being told by the State broadcaster he was not entitled to sick pay as he is a contractor.

Duffy was informed of the development before having a second operation on a severely broken leg.

He wrote: "In my 23 years in RTE I only took one single day off sick prior to being knocked down, so I thought the decision to refuse me sick pay was unfair, to say the least."

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/herald/rte-wouldnt-pay-for-joes-sick-leave-and-how-gerry-got-treated-the-same-way/27991203.html

Speaking about his broken leg, Joe tells his readers: "Eight months later (after the first operation), when I informed my boss that I would have to undergo another operation requiring hospitalisation and two weeks off, I was immediately handed a formal letter from RTE stating baldly that I was not now entitled to sick pay."

He remembers Gerry Ryan's "anger and concern" at this "new interpretation of the sick-pay clause" in their contracts.

"As he put it, it was 'deeply demoralising and unfair' for workers who had been in RTE, man and boy, for up to 30 years, to be told in their 50s to get sick at their peril," Joe has written.

Nevertheless, he believes if one of the presenters suffered a serious illness the organisation would be compassionate.

"However, the insecurity and worry is still huge," he states.

"In my 23 years in RTE, I only took one single day off sick prior to being knocked down, so I thought the decision to refuse me sick pay was unfair, to say the least."

The papers seem to publish almost yearly profits or losses at Joe's company Claddaghgreen Ltd.

2015 https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/arid-20314950.html

2017 https://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/irish-showbiz/rte-star-joe-duffy-sees-10003575

2018 https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30831771.html

2021 https://www.breakingnews.ie/entertainment/joe-duffy-media-firm-sitting-on-accumulated-profits-of-e483470-1126791.html

Orange-Coca-Cola

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120969717#Comment_120969717

With Nissan taking over operations for Renault in Ireland, it is a safe bet that those appearances will no longer be required. So he should now repay the money to rte.

coolbeans

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970785#Comment_120970785

That's a relevant point, in the real world...not RTÉ.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970758#Comment_120970758

Another person that thinks he’s an employee 😂😂

mistersifter

The arrogance, insincerity, and blatant disregard for the public is so consistent with Ryan Tubridy it's astonishing.

Imagine having the gall to come out with the "kind soul" spiel while continuing to take heaps of money from the people during a payments scandal, while doing zero work. It's such an insult.

Wouldn't a decent, well-meaning person who has already been made a multi millionaire at the expense of the public just stop taking money until this scandal is over? Even from a selfish point of view it would've been a better long-term strategy not to keep accepting payments while doing nothing as this might have gone some way to changing attitudes towards him. But he's completely incapable of not being a greedy snob. It's completely ingrained in him.

Between this and thinking it was appropriate to use Sinead O'Connor's death to re-launch brand ToyMan. For anyone who ever thought anything good of him, it should be very clear now what type of individual he is.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120970877#Comment_120970877

It’s called an Unwork ethic. You invoice for what stands as theoretical work you might have done.

tobefrank321

Tubridy and Bakhurst are completely divorced from what the Irish public want and think.

The notion that Tubridy can ever work in RTE again has long passed.

If Bakhurst tries to shoehorn Tubridy back it will be career ending for Bakhurst.

Tubridy had plenty of opportunity early in this scandal to do the right thing. He failed and continues to fail. No chance now of ever working in RTE again, despite the best efforts of Bakhurst to get him back on the gravy train.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971188#Comment_120971188

I don't know. The long time to "make a decision" feels like they are trying to wait out public anger so they can bring him back. I would have thought that back in early July that Tubs was done in RTE but I'm far less confident of that now.

To war-game a potential reintroduction, presumably they will stick him back in his old slot, but rejig his content. No monologue, no it says in the papers and no audience participation, at least for a while. They might slowly morph the show back on the basis of public anger towards him completely subsiding.

I suspect though that of he does come back, it will harden a significant portion of the population against RTE permanently - although I feel that irreversible solidification has already started. I personally think that you could see TV license evasion tripling to beyond 30%. We will probably see a continuous bailout of RTE until after the next election as license reform was always toxic, but now it will be radioactive.

For those that have paused their payment, what would it take to restore your confidence in RTE? I personally think salary caps and salary alignment with civil service grades is absolutely necessary. No "stars". The Donnybrook campus needs to go and the organisation trimmed. 2fm should be closed.

machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971027#Comment_120971027

I'll just send RTE an invoice now for the theoretical work I did for them. I'm surely due a large percentage of that invoice even though I've done the square root of sod all for them. I suggest you should get yours in too before everyone else gets in on it!

dubrov

I understand Bakhurst is not at fault if there is big black holes due to poor clarity on Tubridy's previous contract.

However, he needs to make sure it doesn't happen again. He also must understand how unpopular it would be to keep Tubridy.

Even if it costs €1m to pay him off, so be it. Bakhurst can also make sure the settlement is made public so the higher Tubridy pushes for a payoff the greater chance he will never work on Irish television again.

ForestFire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120971376#Comment_120971376

What about just telling Tubridy, his agent and his company, that his services are no longer required, and since his last contract is void (Tubs is not fulfilling it), they are not offering a new one....🧐

If Tubs feels he has a case for unpaid services🤨, then let him bring a case through the public courts and tell some Judge about how honest he is and how great his soul is......He can also throw in.... how the poor kids are keeping him up at night and how a few pounds could ease his stress.....🤑😒😠

It is time for someone in RTE/GOV to grow a pair and make these decisions.

And we don't need an RTE bailout....we need drastic reform...

Let TG4 run the show, shut everything else down and TG4 can introduce TG1 News/Current affairs, TG2, ENT Sport in ENG and Irish, with TG4

That's not forgetting the rest of the scammers in there (Board members at least), retiring early, taking all sorts of benefits and leaving on redundancy payments.....get it all back or investigate every last detail for any illegal practices...