THE OIREACHTAS MEDIA committee will invite former RTÉ executives including former director general Noel Curran to answer questions next week, pending what is provided to them from RTÉ on Tuesday.
During a private committee meeting this morning, it was also decided that Ryan Tubridy and his agent, Noel Kelly, would be invited before the committee at a later date.
Moya Doherty, the former chair of the non-executive board of RTÉ and former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe will be invited to attend the committee next Wednesday, along with current members of RTÉ’s leadership team.
The decision to call former members of staff indicates the committee will be seeking answers on Tubridy’s pay arrangements before 2020.
It is understood that Tubridy and Kelly would face questions of his 2020 contract, if they were to be called next week.
An earlier contract, which included an “end of contract” payment or “loyalty bonus“, is now the subject of another Grant Thornton review.
According to a statement from RTÉ acting-director general Adrian Lynch this week, on 19 December 2019, O’Keeffe proposed that they would “offset” an “exit payment” in Tubridy’s contract to his agent.
While the new deal detailed a 15% pay-cut, O’Keeffe oversaw the deal that proposed Tubridy could avail of a “possible additional commercial agreement” to the value of €75,000 per contract year.
This later became the Renault deal.
O’Keeffe was replaced with current Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins in January 2020 before the new contract was signed between RTÉ and Tubridy’s agent.
Although it is understood that the decision to call former members of staff indicates the committee will be seeking answers on Tubridy’s pay arrangements before 2020, Noel Curran left his post as director general in April 2016. He was later appointed director general of the European Broadcasting Union in October 2017.
Yesterday, during questioning from the Public Accounts Oireachtas Committee, ex-chair Moya Doherty labeled the, now-infamous barter account, as a “slush fund”.
She later told the committee she was not aware of the existence of the barter account which was outside of the financial department and “therefore not reported to us as a board during our monthly meetings and did not exist in the monthly management account”.
She says that is “staggering and absolutely shocking”.
Doherty has already clarified that she was unaware of the €75,000 payments during her tenure as Chair of the RTÉ board, which ended in November 2022, when she was replaced with current chair of RTÉ’s board, Siún Ní Raghallaigh.
“Up until I concluded my term as chair in November, 2022, I was not made aware of the issue relating to these payments. I, and my colleagues on the Board, should have been comprehensively briefed on all aspects of the payments and the manner in which they were dealt with in the accounts. The issue did not emerge until after an audit of the 2022 accounts,” she said.
The Journal understands Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly, owner of NK Management, are set to be invited on a later date to discuss various elements of the 2020 contract that was brokered between them and the broadcaster.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say