RTÉ HAVE U-TURNED on their request to bring a note, detailing a meeting between the former Director General and Ryan Tubridy’s Agent, to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in private.
Yesterday, PAC refused the broadcaster’s request to bring the note in private after an hour-long private session between the stakeholders of the inquiry.
RTÉ today provided a handwritten note and a printed summary of it – drafted by a solicitor – to the committee, which have been discussed in another private discussion.
These documents relate to a meeting, between ex-RTÉ boss Dee Forbes and Tubridy’s agent Noel Kelly in 2020, where it was ultimately agreed that the broadcaster would underwrite the agreement for Ryan Tubridy’s contract.
RTÉ’s Director General Kevin Bakhurst wrote to the committee on Wednesday offering a these documents under the condition that it would not be published or made available to the public.
After a over-hour-long private session yesterday the PAC refused RTÉ’s request to bring the document to the committee in private.
Sinn Féin TD and chair of the Oireachtas Committee Brian Stanley said that if RTÉ were to do this, it could hamper the PAC’s ability to carry our its functions to report to the Oireachtas.
He detailed that RTÉ were welcome to bring the note to the committee along with a solicitor’s summary, which can be used in public.
But the Chair of the PAC was quick to make clear that the choice to share the information in the note was for the committee to make, and not RTÉ management to decide.
“We don’t set a precedent as well in terms of public bodies, or otherwise, deciding what we can use and what we can’t use, where we discussed it and how we discuss it,” Stanley told The Journal yesterday evening.
Bakhurst said, in his letter, that if the note was brought into the public sphere, it could jeopardize or breach the solicitor-client confidentiality clause between Forbes and the corporate solicitor.
However, Stanley claims there is “absolutely no credibility” to these claims.
Stanley said: “If there is a legal advice party [involved], that’s already diluted by virtue of the fact that the receiver to free to use it, but the other key piece here is that – there’s a third party present at the meetings. So there’s no confidentiality.”
The confidentiality thing, there’s just absolutely no credibility in claiming that.”
Tonight, Stanley doubled-down on his remarks and said that the claims made by RTÉ were “ludicrous” if a third party was present.
Stanley told The Journal this evening: “This (the documents) is a record of the actual meeting. It’s rough notes taken during the meeting and it’s an account of that discussion, back and forward, between Noel Kelly management and the two RTÉ representatives.
“I wouldn’t describe it as legal advice. There’s nothing that indicates that it’s a solicitor giving a client legal advice.
“Obviously, it would be ludicrous situation, as I’ve pointed out many times, because there was a third party present [at the meeting],” he added.
The Journal has contacted RTÉ for comment.
Additional reporting by Christina Finn.
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