RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

So RTE are still paying Tubridy despite him being off air? But it's OK because they're only paying him what they think is a fair amount rather than the invoiced values. There must be some strange clauses in that contract because most businesses don't pay for no services provided, nor do they just determine fair amounts on the fly - unless of course RT is in fact an employee and they are under different obligations?

I can't link directly due to the paywall, but the story is here:

https://archive.ph/0pj9y

I'm sure RTE would love public funding of €746m in exchange for dropping advertising and sponsorship.

That's over double their entire income from commercial fees and licence fees.

Streaming is more popular than ever and growing.

RTE2 is probably best as a kids/sports/movie channel.

Rte1 should be more news, investigation and entertainment. Not a huge difference from now, but more news oriented.

2fm definitely not required.

Rte gold and lyric do target a specific audience, so should be kept.

Orchestra slimmed down but still should stay.

My guess is something like this will probably happen with license fee collected via household charge via revenue, thus increasing income by €50m - €80m without increasing fee (1.9m occupied homes)

True, but that’s not how things “work” nowadays.

It takes years to carry out the simplest enquiry, even if the whole thing isn’t quashed by the High Court and sent back to square one. My current favourite is Michael Fingleton, who is 85 and still fighting the IBRC investigation into his reckless lending 20 years ago. Big breakthrough for the investigators last month - they can talk to three more employees.

If McCann Fitzgerald could exonerate everyone (just a big ole’ misunderstanding!), Bakhurst will meet his deadline. But my guess is a hundred drafts of their report will shuttle back and forth between lawyers for each of the named individuals, all of whom aim to exclude anything relating to their client apart from the acknowledgment of their client’s outstanding service to RTÉ and their “cooperation” with the inquiry 😉

He should be off to the job centre.

“Talks about his future nearing resolution”

To me this would suggest that negotiations have been taking place and he will be back in some form.

It may be the case that his invoices are a monthly average and don't specifically account for the days worked in the month. More akin to say an employee rather than a contractor, but this is the **** show that is RTE we are talking about.

Even for RTE it’s inexplicable.

In one sense I hope he comes back, because if he does, the organisation as it is will be forced into a change the likes of which they can’t even contemplate.

It’s a political issue now. Public sentiment is against them. They have never seen that in their history and haven’t the first clue how to deal with.

You’d think a broadcaster would be better at the ole PR but seemingly not.

Yes, but the people who benefitted from these packages are, ipso facto, gone.

The Committees won't be seeing anyone who is "former" - not Breda, nor Dee, nor Moya. And everyone is waiting to hear how many millions Angela Kerins will extract from the PAC (meaning from the rest of us, obvs.).

Worst case scenario: a SiteServ "Commission of Investigation" 😱

This was arrogant...

Mr Bakhurst said the huge drop in licence fee payments since the scandal arose did not pose a danger to the broadcaster's existence, and that RTÉ would not run out of funds this year or next.

Breathtaking.

Almost instantly, Bakhurst proves himself an insider with zero interest in reform.

Tubridy continues to recieve the nation's money for work he isn't doing.

At what point is this fraud? At what point is this criminal?

We are paying him to sit at home doing nothing, while he still owes us ~150K already for unpaid work, for some car events!!!

The longer he's in RTÉ whether working or not the more will stop paying their TV licence, already down circa €3.5 million since all this kicked off. The €150k is starting to look like chicken feed. If they pay him off despite him having no valid contract there will be even more rage.

Tubridy wins no matter what anyway. If they keep him on he keeps his big pay packet. If RTE drop him he gets a massive payout for leaving. Greed gets rewarded. I don't think RTE really care about their reputation anymore. People's opinion of them and Tubridy really couldn't be lower and the scandal still continues. This is a wrong that can't be righted because there is no punishment. Massive waste of licence fee payers money that continues to be wasted. Only thing Bakhurst is doing differently is being honest about the waste while continuing to waste it.

I wonder if that decision was made as a result of the negativity surrounding this nothing burger.