RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

And of course the Savage eye some of the best content RTE ever showed has been taken off the player and is now unsearchable except for clips already uploaded to YouTube. For some reason RTE don't see fit to do reruns of this like they do with Killnaskully et al.

Mcsavage was born into the golden circle but he savaged all the nepotistic links that everyone else took advantage of

Or even to go from one station to other. He brought his Radio 1 show to 2fm to replace the Gerry Ryan Show. It started hermerging listeners right from the off, but he couldn't adapt. His show when he began wasn't all that different to the show when he left to return to the safety of RTE Radio 1 five years later. He lost 40% of Ryan's audience in the process though, something 2fm never recovered from.

Both were used by Forbes who is primarily to blame from the RTE side of things. The DG appears to have dictatorial power, at least Forbes did. Collins should have asked tougher questions. But he came into a rotten, corrupt organisation where lying and concealment is part of the culture, and it was difficult to get straight answers from a bunch of liars.

The primary blame is with those who drew up the fake invoices or submitted them.

An anti BBC story in the Daily Mail, Shocker ! , needless to say the actual facts paint a very different story .

Back to RTE , I thought Kevin Bathurst gave a very good interview until we got to Marty.

Disclosing that he is very good friends with Marty was important, but his explaination that Marty was a different case to Tubs on the basis that there was no loss to RTE is setting a dangerous precedent.

No loss , net zero outcome both have the same meaning.

For optics alone Marty should not have been on the air this weekend.

I am sure the words have been noted by the legal representatIves of NK and Tubs.

The 'junkets' would have been viewed as industry practice anyone with links to sponsors get free tickets for lunches/sporting events etc. None of that surprised me. That is why there is corporate boxes in big stadiums.

What did though, was the lack of oversight on it (as you said) and how those barter accounts etc were known to only a 'select few'.

Are you a CFO? Does a CFO go through every line item on the books? Or do they employ others including auditors to do it?

Regards uncovering the payments, can I ask, if the barter account had continued as previous, off the books, would the payments to Tubridy have ever been uncovered? When was the first year the barter account was audited by external auditors?

Do you agree O'Keefe has huge questions to answer re auditing the barter account? And inaccurate auditing of RTE books for years?

Its not Collins job as CFO to go through line items. There was a payment to NKM for consultancy services. Collins has said he should have queried it, but then again, was he party to all the deals, talks and negotiations with NKM?

Like I said, I blame O'Keefe, Forbes and GOL for years of concealment of the barter account. I credit Collins for bringing the barter account onto the books to be properly audited as without that, the payment to Tubridy would probably never have been uncovered. And yes he didn't properly question what the payment was, the auditor did that, but bringing the barter account into audits was important. So he gets a 50% grade for that. Unlike O'Keefe who gets a 0% grade.

And nothing personal but I'd imagine RTE is a far bigger organisation than yours.

So who do you need to know to get on the new Board ? 😉

The last of the famous international toymen.

Did he not say that this is an interim arrangement?

Not a great start to cleaning up the organisation. There are still lots of questions to be answered over Marty's ad hoc arrangements. Marty himself has still not clarified the tax situation on the benefits he received or if he handed invoices to Renault for payment and tax purposes. Marty is probably hoping it will all blow over.

Off course they will..........all in the name of their idea of public broadcasting! 😉

Its been uncovered under the current CFO though. His main job is to oversee the incomings and outgoings.

It's gross incompetence, no other way to look at it.

Marty's hope is not misplaced. His part in this debacle will be forgotten about in a week, unless the media keep after him, and I can't see that happening with all his connections.

Unless he has assurances from Marty that he did not use the free car for his RTE work. How can he hold this position? Is it really credible that Marty dug into his own pocket for the running of the car and used it only for the Renault gigs? You are right about the optics of all this, he(Bakhurst) is brought into clean house and restore the publics trust in RTE yet adopts this stance over Marty. It has the whiff of meet the new boss, meet the old boss about it.

you get the feeling he didn't know what was going on, and that was probably by intent from the other execs .

He prob didn't have the force or support to push back on the elite ( D&G prob ran rings around him ) in there but he should have been aware he was getting hoodwinked and realised as a CFO he's ultimately responsible and accountable so letting it slide, will eventually bite him, which it has.

He's prob also done damage to future career prospects too as he's very public in all of this and a bit away from retiring age.