RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

What happened was, O'Keefe said the underwritting of the tripartate agreement by RTE happened after her time.

Collins then says he had no clue what the payment to NK was. I'm not absolving Collins by the way, I think he was more foolish than deliberately hiding the barter account, which seems to have been what happened before.

Forbes must have bypassed Collins to use the barter account without informing him, keeping him out of the loop.

Actually I think giving this job to Lynch will be a clear barometer of RTE into the future.

Bakhurst has cleverly IMO put Lynch in a position to deal with this. He has 3 courses of action available that i can see.

1. Do nothing- public perception is that RTE hasn't changed - new board loses cred, KB in trouble, register of interest idea completely discredited.
2. He sanctions Marty - board seen to be doing something - not enough for the howling mob, but a sign of DOING SOMETHING - MIGHT be enough
3. Marty gets the boot - not going to happen, but IF it did, it would scare the fk out of every presenter and producer in RTE who took freebies

My money is on 2.

Again you largely absolve O'Keefe. Given you are friendly with people in RTE and have contacts there by your own admission, why is this?

What did O'Keefe do wrong, as a matter of interest? A bit of balance from you would be nice.

And again you ignore what O'Keefe was up to. Collins came across a potentially suspicious situation, put the barter account on the books and let the auditors get to work. He foolishly accepted a lie from liar in chief Forbes, but there is no evidence that he was up to his neck in it.

As for a medal, yes he probably does. You were telling people for years about your suspicions about Tubridy, and people were probably thinking you were a looney.

Collins could have done an O'Keefe, done his time and walked off into the sunset. And no-one would have been any the wiser. Tubs/NK wouldn't be facing an oireachtas committee tomorrow if he did. And we'd all be thinking what great people Tubs and Marty Morrissey was.

GJ “Will you continue to deal with agents like Noel Kelly when contracts come up for review”

KB “That is something that I am looking at and will talk about it very soon”

GJ “Doesn’t sound like a 'yes' or a 'no'”

KB “It’s not a 'yes' or a 'no', but it’s a 'likely no’

A rich man vouching for another rich man shocker

Two things can both be wrong and both examples of management are piss poor.

RTÉ don't have billions to spaff up the wall, but if they did, they would.

Kenny is engaging in nothing but meaningless whataboutery and he ought to know better, this is about permissive culture and a total lack of management competence and accountability, neither of which has been evident in the now departing management cohort.

Considering Kenny himself was one of the most overpaid and underworked articles in RTÉ in his day, he'd be as well off just shutting the **** up.

I couldn't agree more with this. People are judging Collins based upon the answer he provided to his salary being private/not knowing it etc..I read people state how impressive Breda O'Keeffe was last week. I thought she was extremely poor and defensive. He is probably the only one to come out of this with a shred (Albeit a small shred) of integrity left.

Bakhursts position is completely untenable. His appointment was shrouded in controversy after David McRedmond pulled out.

The fact McRedmond didn't even make the shortlist of candidates shows the appointment process was not fit for purpose

The longer this has gone on, strangely I've gotten more sympathy for Collins and his role in this - particularly after the was stabbed in the front by the former CFO at the committee last week.

If it weren't for Collins, none of this would be known and he is due some credit for bringing the barter account into the auditable accounts. O'Keefe certainly didn't explain satisfactorily why this wasn't the case and why controls were so relaxed on this account while it was under her watch. As for his acceptance of Forbes explanation, at that point he had no choice but to essentially act as messenger boy between DG and the auditors, because at that point the transaction had occurred. Even if he didn't believe the DGs explanation as credible, what else could he have done then?

My problem with Collins being hung out to dry is down to the example it sets. If he maintained the don't ask don't tell policy that seemed to exist around this account then we wouldn't be here.

This doesn't mean however that I think his position remained tenable either.

A scheme cooked up by Kelly and Forbes, with Jennings role still unknown, paid for by O'Learys hidden account but the CFO who's actions led it to be uncovered is to be the fall guy?

Ah right, because someone leaves a company, they are no longer responsible for the mistakes and f*ckups that happened on their watch or they did nothing to prevent or played a part in creating?

And its on the next guy up? Some accountability that!

O'Keefe did a great job of keeping things off the books, shoving things under the carpet and leaving an almighty mess behind her, as did Forbes.

Everything RT has done - Kenny has done. RT more or less did his apprenticeship under Pat. Pat got away with it.

Buck for what? A hidden off the books barter account which acted as a slush fund? That buck stops squarely with O'Keefe, Forbes and GOL.