RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

Glad sumner is over so we can get back to these committees hearings.

Are the sick MIAs still “sick”?

Ian Kehoe making sure he's in good standing with the new director!

Well it's not cost neutral, there is a benefit to the employer and they can reduce their staff remuneration costs this way. As observed above, there is a logic for such allowances where they are applied carefully e.g. to compensate someone on the same pay scale as another, but where the former has some additional role or costs. Like the barter accounts have some logic too when used appropriately. But it appears in RTE anyway and likely elsewhere that these sort of practices are open to misuse & abuse. The logic of practices like bartering and payments of allowances rather than salary is that all employers could reduce their labour costs using these and similar mechanisms which would have several knock on affects on how the state and society manages finances. Like bogus self employment where staff are made contractors, Revenue needs to be keeping a closer eye on cost reduction strategies.

Mr Bakhurst said there has been legal correspondence regarding the ending of Ryan Tubridy's contract but that he does not want to go into any further detail about that.

He said that - as far as RTÉ is concerned - there is no outstanding money due to the former presenter.

He said that RTÉ does not have a legal mechanism to get €150,000 back from Mr Tubridy.

But assessed that there is a moral case to pay it back.

The Head of HR should be for the chop.

Marie Sherlock eating her!

Round the table wringing of hands now...

Nobody has yet mentioned what happened to the unsold Toy Show The Musical merch 🤣

This is a big issue. The committee members should have asked for costs on this. Not just on Scope's back taxes, penalties and interest, but on pension costs for RTE.

Stand by your (Wo)Man from the board members as regards Moya. All were in the dark.

Direct exchequer funding (ie access to the bottomless pit of paye taxpayers cash) is regarded as a much more progressive method of funding by them.

Like a child getting both hands into the sweetie jar.

The senator asking questions that have already been asked.

whats the gist of this today...? is it more "aye we know we've made a bollix of it but give us a metric shite ton more money and we promise we'll only make a small bollix of it this time"

He said he would pay it back, if asked to.

Kevin, did not ask for it back after negotiations broke down.

RTE is paying a photographer €80k a year to take 16 still photos a week from the set of Fair City