RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Trying to work out in his head what’s official and what’s under the table:

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJXMDWto/

Alan, ask them all for five years of their bank accounts.

Ask them if they have UK bank accounts?

Ask them if they have overseas bank accounts?

Ask them if there is housing provided for clients overseas - apartments or homes?

Ask them do they ever provide funds/expenses for Tubridy to go to Galway?

Biggest revelation is that senior figures at RTE were operating a 'slush fund' where somewhat dodgy transactions were taking place, including the extra payments to Tubridy and also to wine and dine advertisers. The whole purpose of the slush fund appears to have been to deceive and to disguise where certain payments were going.

If Coveney is the head of strategy - surely, he is heavily involved in the direction towards and pursuit of sponsor through junkets and whatever else. Why is he not pushed on this?

Coveney said he hoped to be close with Forbes again one day? Are they going working for Renault?

2011 isn't being discussed in this whole mess.

It's 2017 onwards.

That says it all. More will come out. Tubridy is gone, money grabbing so and so.

He was the director of finance (so just a level below CFO) in Dunnes but that is still a senior manager and he has a huge amount of experience in finance as per his LinkedIn.

But he didn't seem to know his own salary.

Kelly asked for twenty years of transactions on the Barter account.

When I think of a slush fund in work it's a bit of petty cash for tea, sugar etc.

The RTE slush fund is probably millions.

I know what you mean his LinkedIn would indicate someone competent but I remember one head of finance from my past in the CS/PS, he was a megalomaniac who managed to subsume ICT into his remit despite being absolutely clueless in the area. He eventually moved on....last I heard he was let's say moved aside from another org for financial issues.

The direction towards pursuing sponsorship to play clients and build relationships with the private sector is certainly a strategy. It's a wider strategic approach. This was a new direction. His relationship with Forbes at this time remember, was hand in glove and he agreed with that.

RTE execs and board are a disaster. But this Noel Kelly guy has been riding this countries tax payers for years it seems. 150K for Covid consultancy? FFS. We need to force RTE to stop all future contracts via this NK company- it's clearly not in our countries interest to continue that relationship.

It's clear from today Noel Kelly is just one of many many issues.

The book ultimately stops with the board. They could say no to his demands if they were competent.

About 60-70% of the questions were directed at the CFO who deadbatted a proportion of those with "I dunno", "...in hindsight" and "that was agreed before I started at RTE" and "I wasn't involved". There was general incredulity at how many questions he failed to ask about financial matters that appeared, as a layman, to be within his duty to ask. He didn't do a lot to defend himself - it appears that there was a general culture to not question things that came from the top and that once things were signed off - and not even signed off, even a verbal agreement could be could be good enough it seems - that was enough to take "comfort from", as the man himself said.

All throughout it was remarkable how little note-taking or minutes had occurred in meetings throughout the years. There was absolute comedy gold at one point when the CFO appeared to not know, under direct questioning, how much his own salary was - before he finally 'fessed up and admitted it was 200k, with a 25k car allowance. He fairly worked for it today.

There was general murkiness about a lot things specific to RT and NKM. Perhaps he knew in advance of him leaving the LL of "irregularities" said the acting DG. And while they were at pains to insist that nothing illegal had taken place, they didn't sound entirely confident either: perhaps "the tax-payer may have been defrauded" said the CFO in relation to how payments were made and invoiced, and the head of legal affairs at RTE conceded that 150,000 marked as "consultancy fees" was highly "inappropriate". The chair of the board also referred to payments "being designed to deceive". It also finally came out that RT has no contract at the moment, since May31st, - the acting DG made a face when that was put to him like he'd never thought of it that way before. So, even though they have stated he's getting paid the "radio portion" of some contract they don't actually appear to know anything about the terms of this contract, but don't worry, there could be some "verbal agreement" in place. They still have no idea about the additional 120k relating to 2017-19, even if it was actually paid out. NKM clearly had massive outsized influence in how deals were thrashed out in RTE.

What exactly was going on with this curious barter account took the majority of the attention in the second half of the meeting. Most expressed total shock and - not entirely credible - surprise at the existence of this account, which seems to be some sort of black-hole where you could just spunk money on whatever, if you knew of its existence: 26k on Champions League tickets, 100k+ on rugby tickets and who knows what else. It was under the care of the commercial department - not something for the plebs in finance to concern themselves about - and the big-cheeses there seem to have been allowed to do whatever with it, without having to worry about much in the way of oversight. The head of commercial, Geraldine O' Leary, got grilled a bit on what perks she might have procured from it over the years - trips to Japan for the rugby World Cup, tickets to U2 with transportation, days out and dinner at the K-Club - and she might have had to sweat a bit, but she seemed cool enough under pressure. Being due for retirement in just over a month will do that for you.

The committee requested lots and lots of additional documents out of those notoriously fastidious note-takers in RTE. Generally though the committee members were more prepared and precise in their questions than on Wednesday

This is going to run and run. The rock is just beginning to be pulled up on whatever was going on. There's no doubt piles and piles of money unaccounted for and once things start to be examined there'll be more people hauled in. Wouldn't be surprised to see the CFO resign - he was pretty disastrous at times today - but I think he's also carrying the can for others and a widespread, deep-rooted culture of bad governance at the very top.

There was 100 percent fraud and theft taking place. You cant decide to use company funds and tax payer funds for entertainment. To buy tickets for matches and foreign travel. That in my book is theft.