RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

How many more of the Top presenters have a deal like this? We have been ripped off long enough having to listen to RTE poor mouthing and telling us they need to pay these exorbitant salaries to keep the talent. Slash all the wages of the top earners now and lets see how many end up in pastures new on big salaries?

RTE have to find a way to justify these high salaries.

no one missed pat kenny?

not sure about that.

Sorry and reform seem to be the 2 hardest words for RTE.

Is 'doing the system', feathering your own nest, an Irish thing. You'd often hear the rationale put forward that when we were a colony we were always trying to do the system, be it poach salmon, get off with pulling a stroke. It was grand when we were conning the British administration. But the habits became ingrained and we continue to act this way.

Or is it simply human nature is human nature no matter where you go. With certain cultural exceptions e.g. the Germans generally do what they're told.

Maybe refrain from making comments about something that you haven't read would be a useful start? you admit this yourself but then move to judgement on it!

I noticed Will Goodbody trying to reduce the amount involved and the period involved during the 9 O'clock news. Have a look between 7 mins 50 seconds and 9 mins 20 seconds.

RTÉ News: Nine O'Clock - RTÉ Player (rte.ie)

WG refers to an amount 120,000 between the years 2017 to 2019....why would you start picking elements of it if not to change the narrative?

Nothing wrong with that.

Funny who we take dislikes to and a friend or family member might have a completely different take :)

If Parliament got involved with This Morning and ITV, our Government can demand a full review, ask questions of RTE, even if it is their preferred bias media

I think there's enough outcry from the Oireachtas, programme's like Prime Time and the general public that this will be fully investigated. It's not going away.

The suspension of Dee Forbes is a good sign too. Enough is enough, this is fraud really.

There's definitely an element of some people wanting to vent and been given a good chance to bash RTE and Tubridy himself - but, tbf, RTE have given them a great opportunity to do so!

The wider and fundamental issue of the whole debacle are the questions that have been raised about the corporate governance, business practices and financial practices at the most high profile organisation in the country - which is publicly funded.

The mind boggles at how such a large sum of money could be effectively unaccounted for over a period of years. No-one seems to know how this happened, why this happened, who signed off on it - if that's even the whole amount, or whether there's going to be lots more to be uncovered as time goes on. RTE is publicly funded and has self-consciously traded on an image of truthfulness and probity, while also speaking of having a funding crisis and while also bestowing pay-cuts on regular staff. But then it turns out that throughout that entire time they've been pissing away hundreds of thousands, totally at odds with published salaries - and all of the processes and decision making behind that left entirely opaque? There's some serious questions to answer there and investigations to be undertook. It's legitimately important that a public service broadcaster receiving public money be held to account in how it conducts its business. That's the real crux of the issue

I'll agree with you that the level of coverage in the story has been multiplied simply because it features Ryan Tubridy. A similar story could have emerged about an executive at RTE or the HSE receiving the same amount - or even more - and while it would still be a huge story, the coverage wouldn't be as wall to wall. The media loves to talk about the media. And, let's face it, we're all entertained by this.

And there's always a danger in that noise that the real meat of the issue - how exactly RTE is run, how public money is used - is somewhat lost and the story becomes about the individual. You can see it already. People are bashing RTE, but there's equally as many, if not more, people bashing Tubridy first and foremost. Tbh I can understand why: it's more engaging and involving to talk about the whole Tubridy side of things than the comparatively drier corporate side of things.

But, having said that, I do think Tubridy has questions to answer. Was he aware that he was getting paid far, far more than was publicly stated for years? Perhaps it was all legally sound and fully agreed and perhaps Tubridy was already so well off and had so many people looking after the financial side of things for him that he could have been oblivious to that extra 10% of his salary that wasn't in the public domain. It's not impossible, I think it's implausible, but, not impossible. His statement yesterday, no doubt prepared at pace, was pretty vanilla and basically said "nothing to see here" - I very much doubt that'll be his final word on the issue.

An (inadequate) account has already been given of the payments since 2020. We know that a sponsor was involved for the first year and that RTE were on the hook when the sponsor didn't renew. We know that a barter account was used.

No explanation whatsoever has been given for the 120k from the earlier period. There is no indication of the money coming from a sponsor or of a barter account or anything else. Absolutely nothing.

I think it's unlikely that anyone other than Tubridy had the barter arrangement. The 120k on the other hand opens a whole new can of worms.

Ultimately when the whole truth comes out, I suspect that it's the 120k payment that will pose the biggest problems for RTE. Perhaps it's WG's journalistic instinct that causes him to focus on this?