LAST UPDATE | 10 Jul 2023
RTÉ’S NEW DIRECTOR General Kevin Bakhurst has said he will have to “see how this week plays out” before deciding if Ryan Tubridy has a future at the public broadcaster and that he doesn’t know how much Tubridy is currently being paid.
RTÉ has been reeling since it emerged last month that it under-reported the salary paid to Tubridy and failed to disclose €345,000 of additional payments to him between 2017 and 2022.
The furore has since widened amid further disclosures about RTÉ’s internal financial, accounting and governance practices and its expenditure on corporate hospitality for advertising clients.
Speaking to reporters today, Bakhurst said that Tubridy was still being paid by the broadcaster but his exact salary was still being agreed and is currently a verbal agreement.
“I don’t know how much he’s getting paid because it’s still being agreed and I haven’t been speaking to the agent,” he said.
“It’s between the lawyers and the finance department of RTÉ. I genuinely don’t know the detail.”
There is an ongoing discussion with his agent about the exact amount.
Earlier tody Bakhurst was asked on RTÉ’s News at One whether Tubridy had a future at RTÉ, replying: “I think we’d have to take a decision in the next few weeks about that.”
Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly are to appear before two committees tomorrow in relation to the payments controversy.
Kelly also represents other RTÉ stars including Claire Byrne, Joe Duffy and Cormac Ó hEadhra.
When asked if he thought it was healthy that one agent had so much influence over RTÉ, Bakhurst said he wouldn’t comment on Kelly specifically.
“I don’t think it’s personally healthy that any single agent has such power in any particular country. We’ll be looking at our relationship with agents in the future,” he said.
When asked if he expected further controversies to come to light from RTÉ, Bakhurst said: “I suspect there’s more to come”.
“I don’t honestly know. I suspect there is more to come because we are trying to crawl over everything. When we discover stuff, we will make it transparent.”
“We’ve got a forensic accountant coming in from the government and I suspect there may be more stuff to come out.
“I don’t want to say there’s nothing more because I genuinely don’t think that’s right.”
The new director general also said today that unlike his predecessor Dee Forbes, he would not have a position on the board of GAAGO, the subscription service run by RTÉ and the GAA.
“I’ve been talking to various people, including Declan but I don’t think it’s right for the director general to sit on that board,” Bakhurst said, referring to RTÉ’s head of sport Declan McBennett who is the director of GAAGO.
“I think there needs to be Declan, plus potentially another member of the leadership team on that board and the Director General stands aside from that, so that there is some oversight from the DG.”
In a nine-page document released late last month by RTÉ, the broadcaster said “no member” of its then-executive board other than former Director General Dee Forbes would have been aware that the “publicly declared figures for Ryan Tubridy could have been wrong”.
When asked if it was “credible” that only Forbes was aware of this, Bakhurst said he was “surprised” by this but found it “credible”.
“I think that’s credible,” said Bakhurst.
“I’m surprised that that was the reality, but it is credible.”
Bakhurst added that he spoke to Forbes “several weeks ago when I arrived, before all this recent information came out”.
He added that he met Forbes “a couple of times and she was generous in what she told me about the organisation”.
However, Bakhurst told RTÉ that he has not asked Forbes about the payments scandal “because it’s not my role to be asking Dee about this and Dee is also off sick”.
He stated that Forbes “absolutely should” go before the Oireachtas “when she’s ready to do it”.
Bakhurst added that he was made aware that “an issue had arisen and the auditors were looking at it” when he was offered the job.
“There were scant details available at that stage but she [Siún Ní Raghallaigh] said ‘I want you to be fully aware, there may be something coming along the line,’ and then she kept me informed as more details came along.”
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