RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Ryan Tubridy was getting paid more than the President of the United States. That demonstrates how ridiculous Ireland has become with taxpayers money.

Do you think it makes a blind bit of difference whether you care or not? Tubridy's career is still ruined, Noel Kelly's other clients are facing massive pay cuts when their contracts are next up for renewal. All of this is down to Tubridy's greed. If he had just taken the cuts like everyone else he would have been on the RTE gravy train until retirement.

No.

It's down to RTE not been strong enough to tell NK where to go IMHO.

Not RT IMHO

US President is a remarkably badly paid gig.

TV licence revenue is going to get hit.

They will need to lower the average wages. Similar to what they pay on Tallaght TV. The presenters on Xpose were all on 40k.

President's of the USA get a lot more than just the 400k -

Also - $50,000 annual expense account, $100,000 nontaxable travel account, and $19,000 for entertainment.

Gets to live in the White House and gets 100k for redecorating the White House

A paid Chef - Access to White House Vegetables

Country Home in Maryland

Airplanes - Airforce one - Marine one

Constant security protection

Fleet of Armoured cars

Use of a 60,000 square foot guest house

Former Presidents get holiday spending money of 200k per year (only recently capped)

Top Pension and Health Insurance

--

Tubridy and RTE has not reached those levels yet........

This is white-collar crime. Cooking the books in order to deceive = fraud. A criminal investigation should be commenced immediately.

In this instance it was Tubridy's greed which opened this particular can of worms, but it shows up a culture of secrecy and corruption, from talentless talent and their agents who can never be satisfied with enough, to the inside insiders of the golden circle with their heads in the trough, at the tax payers expense.

100K a year is more than enough for anyone.

On Irish radio a few years ago Edwina Currie, Tory MP, said the sign of a corrupt state was when a disc jockey was paid more that the president of the united states. She was referring to Pat Kennys salary, which exceeded the current US president's salary.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Massive salaries, to media people and politicians, not only attracts the wrong sort of people (ie those who are greedy and lack integrity) but it also bankrupts the state.

Taxpayers money is used like in a monopoly game. Accountability has to start somewhere - and it begins with calling in the Gardai to do a forensic examination of the books, with prosecutions to follow. Tubs did us all a favour, his avarice exposed the rot.

Thank you Ryan.

They didn't stop paying him because they were bulking up his wages and he agreed to them doing it this way. This way the rest of the staff who genuinely took a pay cut wouldn't know about it and he'd have the same pay he had.. He's a charlatan and a fraud imo.

I was struggling with O'Leary's explanation for the €81,000 mark-up from yesterday: https://www.kildarestreet.com/committees/?id=2023-06-29a.13#g266

Maybe this is what happened.

Looking at the transaction to the barter company (Astus UK), the transfer from the RTE barter account to Astus was circa €231,000 to pay €150,000 to Kelly's company CMS Marketing and then onwards to Tubridy's company, Tuttle.

Geraldine O'Leary contacted Noel Kelly and instructed him to raise invoices as "consultancy services".

According to the Times, "Kelly sent the invoices to RTE which forwarded them to Astus to process the payments at an overall cost to RTE’s barter account of €230,760, according to sources with knowledge of the affair... Kelly was told by RTE not to mention any names on the invoices, which were generated on behalf of CMS Marketing, a company he controls."

Regarding the transaction, Geraldine O'Leary said at the last hearing "It has cost us €150,000 in cash".

She also said, "The way the barter account works is that when the campaigns come through, 50% is cash and 50% is credits. Those credits are accumulated and reconciled monthly. We can use those credits for travel. Anything we have used them for has been client related up to now. At the end of the year, if there is money in the account we cash it out and the cash-out rate is 0.65. If there is €100,000 left in the account at the end of the year, it is cashed out at €65,000 and that is put into our revenue. The cash-out rate for the barter companies is 0.65."

Using the cash-out rate, except running it backwards because RTE is putting money in rather than taking it out: €150,000/65*100 = €230,769.23 which looks close enough to the €230,760 the Times quotes.

So it seems RTE transferred €150,000 cash, and this was then subject to the Astus margin so the remaining ~€81,000 must have been a deduction from its balance of airtime credits with Astus. (Credits that could have been used for travel, as she said.) So maybe that's what O'Leary meant when it cost "€150,000 in cash" - the rest was donations of airtime.

I dunno! 😖

Hello RT.

Will be mad If this is the end of ryan on RTE. What a mess he implicated himself in and now was the rest of them being grilled.

I would never have called it

Leo was trying to look like he's doing something and at the same time doing nothing at all. It's just a soundbite, means nothing.

He's too scared to rock the boat in case he steps on someone's toes and they have a dig at him during the next election campaign. But that's Leo Varadkar in a nutshell.

Anyway, I digress, back to the main feature...........

In fairness, nobody wants that gig for the pay. The role is above money. Biggest role in the world really. It’s so much more about power and influence and prestige.

That's why he's gone into hiding...

It is obvious that RTE staff didn't know that RTE were organising the gigs. They thought NK was running them because Renault wanted Tubs. I'd love if PAC call in Renault to find out who actually suggested the charade. I bet Tuns knows and that's why he is now saying very little.