RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Does anybody actually think that Ryan Tubridy is a decent presenter, or are people just defending him because they think that he is not a large part to blame for this?

Chief banana straightener in old money.

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Forensic accountants hired by RTE are investigating whether Ryan Tubridy received a €100,000 “loyalty” payment in 2012 as part of a deal he signed to present his morning radio programme and The Late Late Show.

The payment was allegedly made on the expiration of a contract around September 2012 — when Ireland was enduring an economic crisis — according to sources familiar with the fiscal inquiry who spoke to The Sunday Times.

RTE refused to say whether Tubridy had received the money as part of his publicly stated salary of €752,950 for that year. The broadcaster said yesterday that it could not comment on the issue as contracts for the relevant year were being reviewed by consultants from Grant Thornton.

The issue of loyalty and clandestine payments made to Tubridy is at the centre of fiscal investigations by RTE and the consultants, who are trying to establish how the national broadcaster understated the presenter’s annual salary over successive years from 2017 to 2022.

Today’s revelations will place more pressure on RTE to provide the public with clear and transparent information on payments made to its presenters. Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach, yesterday said reform of the TV licence, which funds the station, was overdue, adding: “We need to see change in RTE. Without change, I don’t think that trust can be restored.”

Tubridy is known to have sought and secured a commitment from RTE for a loyalty payment of €120,000 in 2020 on conclusion of a separate contract. This was not paid but appears to have been written off against €120,000 in payments that the presenter received between 2017 and 2019, on top of his publicly stated salary.

Tubridy also received an extra €225,000 between 2020 and 2022 in secret payments. Of these, €150,000 was disguised as consultancy services and routed by RTE through a UK company to Noel Kelly, Tubridy’s manager, last year, as revealed by The Sunday Times.

The identities and motivations of those who reduced Tubridy’s publicly disclosed RTE salary between 2017 and 2019 remain unknown. “It may have been an accounting error,” a source familiar with the issue said. There is no suggestion that anything illegal occurred.

RTE’s auditors were provided with the correct salary information on the payments, while Deloitte was later informed of issues surrounding overpayments that had occurred between 2017 and 2019 during talks between Tubridy’s agent and RTE in February 2020.

RTE acknowledged that its much-publicised claim to have enforced 15 per cent salary cuts on its top ten earners was not purely down to pay reductions; the departure of Sean O’Rourke, following a scandal over attending a golf society dinner despite pandemic restrictions, and the death of Marian Finucane in 2020 led to huge reductions in the payroll. Combined, they made up 20 per cent of the broadcaster’s top ten earners’ pay in 2019. The ten presenters were paid a combined €3.2 million that year, with Tubridy at the top, earning roughly €500,000 a year.

RTE published earnings data this year, saying it had cut the pay of its highest earning presenters by more than 15 per cent in 2020 and 2021 to €2.7 million. Tubridy’s published pay suggested he had taken an 11 per cent cut, from €495,000 to €440,000 when in fact his total pay, including recently revealed top-ups, really fell only 6 per cent from €545,000 to €515,000.

Joe Duffy, who hosts Liveline, took an 11 per cent pay cut between 2019 and 2021, from €392,494 to €351,000. While Finucane had pledged to take a 15 per cent pay cut from her earnings of €358,013 in 2019, following her death only two of her fellow RTE stars went on to take a similar, or bigger, pay cut.

Miriam O’Callaghan, the Prime Time host, took an 18 per cent cut, from €320,000 to €263,500, and Ray D’Arcy took the biggest drop, 32 per cent, from €450,000 to €305,000. Bryan Dobson and Mary Wilson’s pay was unchanged.

Two presenters earned more. Claire Byrne’s pay rose 40 per cent from €250,000 in 2019 to €350,000 in 2021 as she took over O’Rourke’s radio slot. Brendan O’Connor, who replaced Finucane, was paid 11 per cent more, from €220,000 in 2019 to €245,004 in 2021. RTE stars’ pay is among the highest in the country. The four best-paid presenters, Tubridy, Duffy, Byrne and D’Arcy, are in the top 0.6 per cent of Irish earners with more than €275,000 a year. Tubridy’s pay in 2019 was twice that of the taoiseach.

The broadcaster said this year it had “reduced total fees paid to its highest-paid presenters by more than 15 per cent”.

It said yesterday: “RTE committed in 2019 to reduce the total earnings of its ten highest-paid presenters. While Sean O’Rourke and the late Marian Finucane did not feature in 2020’s figures, which formed part of the contribution to the reduction in total earnings, this reduction was also made possible by reductions in the fees paid to Ray D’Arcy, Joe Duffy and Miriam O’Callaghan.”

It went on: “In addition, the earnings of the ninth and tenth highest-paid presenters in 2020, Darragh Maloney and Aine Lawlor, were lower than earnings of the ninth and tenth highest paid presenters in 2019 [Bryan Dobson and Mary Wilson]. These were also significant factors in the reduction of total earnings of RTE’s highest-paid presenters.”

RTE’s largesse towards its staff is expected to lead to reform of the broadcaster. It is preparing to release data on expenses paid to staff.

Predictions for Tubs appearance this week?

I can see him in career recovery mode, so I'm going to go with:

- showing emotion, Inc possible teary moments.

- offering to pay back money. Perhaps not the full 345k, but perhaps 100k tk charity or something?

I'm hearing there's a lot of suspicion around the phone-in competitions of The Late Late Show - the premium rates - and where the money went.

A lot of the answers given here in their refusal to release figures in the past sounds VERY familiar...

RTE won't reveal how much it earns from phone-ins and texts | Independent.ie

so they said in 2019 the Japan trip only cost 2k and was cost neutral more or less but barter acc saying 120k..?

how many clients went to Japan..they should get that disclosed.

Shows too, this article was from 2019..Government just let them do what they wanted and rte had no qualms giving them both fingers and asking for more money..

'Time for action' at RTÉ as incoming DG to contact staff

https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2023/0709/1393611-rte/

Yep it's all complete Bullshit. O'Leary has the answers and that's why she is running for the hills. I know a liar when I see one.

Yes. I think Tubs will go for the teary contrition angle, claiming little to no knowledge of NK's deals with RTE, as he is after all, just a simple Toyman.

While I think going on a tv or radio interview with a soft touch RTE buddy would have been a far easier route for him, he's chosen this to be his bit of redemption drama. From the very beginning I was certain he would not appear for questioning as I see him a bit like Trump, who studiously avoids these kinds of settings unless he is lawyered up to the hilt because he doesn't have the smarts to talk his way out of trouble.

Tubs will surely take the airy fairy questions and his solicitor will take everything that could land him in hot water. Much of the lines of questioning will be shut down and since many of the people doing the questioning are hardly the sharpest knives in the drawer from the standpoint of legal interrogation, it will probably work.

I have a feeling the whole country is going to expect fireworks on Tuesday but at the end of it, we will be thinking.........."Eh, so what actually happened there?"

It will be a Houdini act of mega proportions if he comes out of it smelling better than when he went in though. They may be able to claim "Nothing illegal, guv" but he's been proven to be greedy, deceitful, arrogant hypocrite who creamed off the public purse while his colleagues were getting hammered financially. His future career requires goodwill from staff and the public and I can't see how it gets it.

Indeed. As was said earlier, the solicitors are there to remind the PAC about Angela Kerins.

Tubridy's best defence is to attack out of the gate. Opening statement full of self pity about being locked in house for 2 weeks getting vegan takeaways delivered for fear of verbal and physical abuse. He's had years of misery slots and pity party's to be more than comfortable in this arena.

Then he'll move onto distancing himself from the nuts and bolts of NK's grubby little deals. NK will take it from there as far as this being a case of business is business and RTE's mismanagement is not his problem.

If him and Kelly play their cards right and the legal team play a blinder, I can see them really shutting the PAC down.