The RTÃÂ secret payment scandal relates to events from late June 2023 onwards when Ireland's main public service broadcaster RTÃÂ first disclosed previously unknown arrangements concerning a leading presenter's pay, and in subsequent discussions, revelations about corporate entertainment for advertising clients, management numbers and high pay, and executive exit packages.
On 22 June 2023, RTàannounced that between 2017 and 2022 it had paid â¬345,000 more than had been previously disclosed to the TV and radio presenter Ryan Tubridy, whose pay was already known to be more than that of anyone else at RTÃÂ. The celebrity talent agent Noel Kelly of NK Management negotiated the pay supplements and played a central role in funnelling them to Tubridy. The extra payments brought Tubridy's annual earnings over the â¬500,000 threshold each year during that time period, while allowing RTàto declare publicly that Tubridy was earning less than this. For the years 2020 to 2022, the extra payments were performed using a UK-based "barter account" mechanism, operated with a barter agency, Astus.
The Director General of RTàDee Forbes was asked to resign by RTàBoard chairperson Siún NàRaghallaigh. Forbes initially declined to do so, but was later suspended, and eventually resigned on 26 June 2023. Members of the RTàExecutive Board and RTàBoard were summoned to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media and the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on numerous occasions to explain what had happened. In late June 2023, more information on the culture within RTàentered the public domain, specifically what else it used the barter account for, including â¬111,000 on trips to Japan and â¬260,000 on a UEFA Champions League trip. On 4 July 2023, two additional barter account operators were disclosed â along with Astus (the first disclosed), these were Active and Miroma. The controversy turned to exit payments for senior executives in early 2024 which led to the resignation of NàRaghallaigh.
According to The Irish Times<nowiki/>'s political editor Pat Leahy, "The story of RTÃÂ's agonies is an important one for politics, society and media". Ironically, the scandal led large numbers of the Irish public to tune in to RTàNews updates to follow the story as it developed. RTàis using the public relations firm Q4, co-founded by former Fianna Fáil general secretary Martin Mackin, who was briefly appointed to Seanad ÃÂireann in 2002.
An independent legal review in 2018 found that a number of workers at RTÃÂ were misclassified in false self-employment contracts, in breach of guidelines on employment status, meaning that these workers were unable to access benefits of regular employment such as maternity leave, pensions, pay for illness and permission to apply for promotional posts.
In late 2019, the Government of Ireland and RTàheld talks over the broadcaster's series of annual budgetary deficits. In December 2019, the government agreed to increase RTÃÂ's funding by a further â¬9 million per year. Budgetary deficits remained, leading RTàto make more cuts to its services. RTàfroze pay rises for its ordinary workers in March 2020, which an industrial relations tribunal later that year found to be wrong. In October 2020, RTàDirector General Dee Forbes told employees that the broadcaster would be looking for more redundancies in January 2021, as it "must now begin planning a series of initiatives" to deal with a "persistent gap" between its income and expenses. RTàand the government agreed this plan to cut â¬60 million at RTàbetween 2020 and 2023.
In December 2019, Communications Minister Richard Bruton announced that RTàwould be funded to the tune of â¬50 million in the following five years.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) suggested in July 2022 that RTÃÂ was relying too much on state funding, as its commercial revenue declined. There were also delays to deciding how to change the TV licence system, with licence evasion having risen to 15.8% in 2020.
RTÃÂ Director of Strategy Rory Coveney (a brother of Fine Gael minister Simon Coveney) told the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media on 18 January 2023 that there was no sustainable future for RTÃÂ without changing the ways in which RTÃÂ was provided with public funding, and hinted at "implications for cost and human resources". Coveney also suggested that the recent stage show Toy Show The Musical may return "in some form" and be better suited to staging before The Late Late Toy Show.
On 15 February 2023, RTàreleased the figures for its top ten earners of 2021, placing on record the figure of â¬440,000 it wrongly claims Tubridy earned in 2021 and allowing other reports to erroneously claim Tubridy's salary decreased by â¬26,250 to â¬466,250 from 2020.
RTàadmitted on 22 June that "Tubridy received two payments of â¬75,000 (totalling â¬150,000), each in 2022 (being a payment for 2021 and a payment for 2022). It was these payments that prompted the review by Grant Thornton. These payments were recorded in an RTà"Barter Account" in 2022 at a value of â¬115,380 each". RTàBoard chairperson Siún NàRaghallaigh confirmed in an interview on ' that Tubridy would not be on air the following morning (a Friday, his last show of the week).
The RTÃÂ Board released a statement the next day announcing that Director General Dee Forbes was suspended on Wednesday 21 June 2023. However, NÃÂ Raghallaigh failed to mention this the previous evening during her interview on RTÃÂ News: Six One.
On 25 June, The Sunday Times reported on how RTÃÂ arranged for Tubridy's salary top-ups to be paid, with RTÃÂ alleged to have told Tubridy's agent Noel Kelly to send invoices to a British barter agency called Astus. RTÃÂ, reports The Sunday Times, arranged for invoices, which were labelled as "consultancy services". Astus then settled them on RTÃÂ's behalf.
In an early morning statement the next day, RTÃÂ Director General Dee Forbes announced her resignation with immediate effect. It was also confirmed that Forbes had resigned her position on the board of GAAGO, the subscription-based sports channel for Gaelic games which she was heavily involved in establishing. She later announced she would not be attending Oireachtas committee meetings later in the week for health reasons.
On 27 June, RTÃÂ Acting Director General Adrian Lynch released a nine-page statement, alongside the Grant Thornton report, stating that no member of the Executive Board other than director general Forbes could have known figures publicly declared for Tubridy could have been wrong and that external legal advice found there was "no illegality" and "payments were made pursuant to an agreed contract", adding that while RTÃÂ Director of Content Jim Jennings signed off on the payments deal, he was "not aware" the broadcaster was "underwriting" any payments that were now under scrutiny and that there was "no finding of wrongdoing" against Tubridy or the commercial partner involved in what happened.
Members of the RTàExecutive Board and RTàBoard appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media on 28 June. RTàBoard chair Siún NàRaghallaigh stated that she asked Director General Dee Forbes to resign but that this request was not accepted at the time. NàRaghallaigh also did not tell Minister Catherine Martin of this during their meeting two days before. It was also revealed that Tubridy was due a â¬120,000 "loyalty bonus" which for some "unexplained reason" was credited against his earnings between 2017 and 2019. It was also reported that Tubridy insisted RTÃÂ's claim that he was out of contract was inaccurate.
RTàexecutives appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) the next day. RTàChief Financial Officer Richard Collins refused to say what he was earning, then admitted to a base salary of â¬200,000 with an additional â¬25,000 car allowance. Collins also admitted that "maybe the taxpayer was defrauded", while details of the RTàbarter account's use were volunteered: â¬111,000 spent on trips to Japan, â¬138,000 worth of tickets to rugby matches; â¬26,000 for one football match in 2019. RTàBoard chair Siún NàRaghallaigh stated the â¬340,000 top-ups to Tubridy salary was an "act designed to deceive". The term "slush fund" was used by former board chair Moya Doherty to describe the RTàbarter account. On the same day, Center Parcs said it would not be renewing its sponsorship deal with The Ryan Tubridy Show (worth â¬295,000 since November 2022) and also said it might pull out before that time, to prevent its name being tainted by association with RTÃÂ's secret payments to Tubridy.
On 4 July, Grant Thornton found two more barter accounts at RTÃÂ, of the type at the centre of secret payments to Tubridy. The two additional barter accounts were with agencies named Active and Miroma (in addition to Astus, the first announced). Past and present members of the RTàExecutive Board met the Oireachtas Committee on Media the following afternoon for a second consecutive Wednesday. New documents given to the committee showed that RTàhad used its barter accounts to spend â¬1.6 million on client entertainment and corporate hospitality over the previous 10 years, paying out hundreds of thousands of euro for alcohol, Ireland jerseys, golf outings, cinema screenings, balloons, lavish hotel stays, client dinners in top restaurants and dozens of match and concert tickets, as well as nearly â¬5,000 on 200 pairs of flip flops for a summer party. Documentation also confirmed losses at Toy Show The Musical reached â¬2.2 million, with just 11,044 tickets being sold for the shows, meanwhile Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly offered to meet with the two committees.
The next day, RTÃÂ's Gaelic Games Correspondent Marty Morrissey apologised for an "error of judgement" after he revealed himself as the RTÃÂ staff member who had a loan of a car from Renault for five years.
On the eve of Kevin Bakhurst becoming Director General, Rory Coveney resigned from RTÃÂ and his role as RTÃÂ Director of Strategy with immediate effect believing that "the tough job ahead of him would be made somewhat easier if he had a fresh lead team". In an email to staff the following morning, Bakhurst stood down the Executive Board and replaced it with an interim leadership team, meanwhile RTÃÂ Director of Commercial Geraldine O'Leary announced her early retirement with immediate effect.
On 11 July, Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly appeared before two Oireachtas committee meetings, which heard that Tubridy had endured a "tortuous", "chaotic" and "destructive" three weeks during which his name and reputation were "sullied", that he had become "the face of a national scandal; accused of being complicit, deceitful and dishonest" and blamed RTÃÂ with creating a "fog of confusion over what I was paid and when I was paid, what I knew, and when I knew".
On 17 August, it was confirmed that Tubridy would not return to his presenting role in RTÃÂ after negotiations with Bakhurst collapsed.
On 14 February 2024, a hearing of the Oireachtas Media Committee heard that Toy Show The Musical had not gone to the audit and risk committee and that former Director General Dee Forbes and former Director of Strategy Rory Coveney "deliberately circumvented" established oversights in relation to the musical.
On 23 June, the day after RTÃÂ's admission, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) held an emergency meeting at RTÃÂ headquarters, which it had called for the day before.
Soon after the news broke, presenters Claire Byrne, Joe Duffy and Miriam O'Callaghan all confirmed that their most recently published salaries were correct.
On 27 June, around 200 journalists, reporters and correspondents working for RTàrepresented by SIPTU and the NUJ held a protest outside RTàheadquarters in Donnybrook to speak of their hurt, disappointment and anger at the way a small number of managers had betrayed and badly damaged the organisation and those who worked for it. Those who protested included RTàNews's Crime Correspondent Paul Reynolds, Legal Affairs Correspondent Orla O'Donnell, Political Correspondent Paul Cunningham and Midlands Correspondent Sinéad Hussey, while other members of staff protested at RTÃÂ's regional offices, with Northern Editor Vincent Kearney in Belfast and Regional Reporter Teresa Mannion in Galway.
On 29 June, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar interrupted an EU leaders summit in Brussels to draw attention to the "unusual, payments in RTÃÂ", stating: "I don't think we can rule out the fact that it's not just a case of irregular payments â and that some of these payments may have been on the wrong side of the law".
On 11 July, RTàpresenter Dave Fanning, another client of Tubridy's agent Noel Kelly, invoked Nazi Germany as a comparison with the investigations into what RTàhad been doing with public money. Two days later, this was raised at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where Fanning's reference to a "nonsensical Oireachtas Nuremberg trial" was put to newly appointed RTàDirector General Kevin Bakhurst, who was asked "how this is appropriate... A person who is paid by the taxpayer â through his agent [Noel Kelly] â on RTàsaying, effectively, what the Public Accounts Committee are doing..." Bakhurst responded by stating that Fanning's remarks were "not appropriate".
Around 100 RTÃÂ staff members and union representatives staged another protest at RTÃÂ headquarters on 12 July to call on the Government to properly fund public service broadcasting. Demonstrations were also held at RTÃÂ regional offices, including in Cork, where staff members marched with placards.
The secret payments to Tubridy were effectively routed through Renault Ireland, a major advertiser on RTÃÂ, and a frequent sponsor of the Late Late Show. Following the three-way deal, in late July 2020 Renault Ireland paid â¬75,000 to NK Management for TubridyâÂÂs benefit, on foot of an invoice for âÂÂBespoke Partnership between Renault and Ryan TubridyâÂÂ. Within days, RTàissued a credit note for â¬75,000 to Renault Ireland, and there is no evidence that the âÂÂpersonal appearancesâ by Tubridy for Renault mentioned on the invoice ever happened, making the deal revenue-neutral for Renault.
In 2021 and 2022 the payments for Tubridy were made directly from RTàto NK Management, as per their âÂÂunderwritingâ of the deal, where RTàwere liable to make the payment if Renault Ireland did not. During his appearance before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, Tubridy said he believed that Renault Ireland were the ultimate source of the funds.
Tubridy and Kelly were challenged in this statement by committee members who pointed out that they had complied with RTàrequests to omit details from invoices, in an apparent effort to disguise the true reason for the payments. The payments were falsely described in RTàaccounts as âÂÂconsultancy feesâÂÂ. Commentators have drawn attention to how Renault Ireland facilitated this transaction for no apparent benefit to itself, and on other occasions supplied RTàstaff members with the free use of cars for years on end, and said that it puts RTàin a position to of obligation to the giant motor manufacturer, and linked it to RTÃÂâÂÂs coverage of climate change and road deaths, which they viewed as overly sympathetic to the motor industry.
In the Grant Thornton report, which the RTàBoard released on 26 June 2023, Ryan Tubridy is referred to as "The Talent". Tubridy often spoke in public about cuts to his pay, including in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2019, he stated: "I've taken a pay cut before, I took over 30pc the last time and they've asked for more, which would bring it up to about 45pc or thereabouts since I took the Late Late Show [in 2009]... And when it comes to this sort of issue that's not something I've been found wanting in, and that continues to be the case". However, in early 2009, Tubridy refused to take a pay-cut (even when colleagues such as Pat Kenny and Marian Finucane agreed to salary cuts), and he attracted criticism for this decision. RTàBoard chair Siún NàRaghallaigh, near the conclusion of her opening statement to the Public Accounts Committee on 26 June 2023, commented on the term "talent" as used within RTÃÂ: "Finally, can I say something about the use of the word 'talent'. Words matter and the term, as it is currently used, reinforces a 'them and us' culture in RTÃÂ. It implies some have greater worth than others. The first step in cultural change is to consign this term to the dustbin". NàRaghallaigh did not, however, suggest she would "consign this term to the dustbin".
In the Grant Thornton report, Noel Kelly is referred to as "The Talent's Agent". Kelly, who maintains a low profile, runs NK Management, and has been a controversial figure since at least 2011, when he claimed that some of his clients might not be able to afford a second car if RTÃÂ reduced their wages. In 2009, he was an agent to both Gerry Ryan and Tubridy as they competed to succeed Pat Kenny as presenter of The Late Late Show. Tubridy would offer Noel Kelly's name to his guests: the actress and food writer Holly White said Tubridy gave her Noel Kelly's name after an appearance on his radio show. Ryan Tubridy has referred to Kelly as his Consigliere. One senior broadcasting executive expressed reservations to The Irish Times about Kelly's ability to attract other presenters following the secret payments scandal: "Because [Noel Kelly] has really destroyed Ryan Tubridy's career, by being too smart. Ryan Tubridy had an option to say no, he is not a child. But Ryan Tubridy's career has been destroyed and Noel Kelly is right in the middle of it and there is no other way to twist and turn that".
According to The Irish Times, Kelly is seen by some as more powerful than the RTàDirector General and is "widely believed" to offer the media negative stories about RTàpresenters who are not his clients and whom he perceives as competitors who might get a job ahead of his client. He is known for using "strong language and pointed, personalised criticisms". At that time, Noel Kelly had 46 clients in his "celebrity portfolio", including RTÃÂ's Tubridy, Joe Duffy, Gráinne Seoige, Claire Byrne, Dave Fanning, Virgin Media's Sinéad Desmond, Martin King and Karen Koster, as well as Bernard Dunne and Patrick Bergin. Kelly and NK Management are also involved in activities in the UK, with clients including Craig Doyle, Diarmuid Gavin and Erin O'Connor.
A 24-page interim report published by forensic accountants Mazars on 25 August 2023 found that RTàdid not appear to have a "formally approved policy and procedure in place" for purchases made through the barter account. Mazars were unable to identify any benefit to RTàin exercising the option to make purchases through barter media agencies "rather than cashing out on the available trade credit balance". It was revealed that of the â¬7.4 million in advertising revenue generated through the barter account, â¬1.2 million was spent on goods and services which were "outside of RTÃÂ's standard purchasing and procurement processes", and so internal controls and approvals processes were not followed.
In documents supplied to the Oireachtas committees studying the Tubridy matter, RTàlisted the earnings of its 100 highest-paid employees and contractors. All were on base salaries in excess of â¬116,000, and 84 were employees. Including the members of the RTàExecutive Board, 69 were management, only 31 being presenters and other technical or non-managerial staff. The Director General was paid â¬225,000 in 2021, along with a car allowance of â¬25,000 and pension contributions of â¬56,000, for a total package of â¬306,000, while the Chief Financial Officer said he earned around â¬200,000 plus car allowance of around â¬25,000 (any pension element was not disclosed).
The total staff of the broadcaster is over 1,800, plus contractors. Of these, in 2022, 119 employees had basic pay of over 100,000, 22 of those having salaries of â¬150,000âÂÂâ¬250,000. 179 staff had salaries of â¬80,000âÂÂâ¬100,000, 550 between â¬60,000 and â¬80,000, and 740 between â¬40,000 and â¬60,000.
In discussing past and recent executive exits from the company, it further emerged that aside from the high level of management posts, and their salary levels, there were voluntary exit schemes offered by RTÃÂ's Human Resources function, under which over â¬2.3 million was paid out to a number of departing figures, with at least one payment rumoured to be on the order of â¬400,000. The new Director General announced a review of these packages.
On 14 February 2024, Director General Kevin Bakhurst confirmed at an Oireachtas Media Committee hearing that former RTàChief Financial Officer Breda O'Keeffe was paid â¬450,000 when she left the organisation.
Speaking on RTÃÂ's Prime Time on 22 February, Minister for Media Catherine Martin said she was "deeply disappointed" to learn that the RTàBoard had approved an exit package for former chief financial officer Richard Collins despite assurances that the board had no role in signing off on exit packages for senior executives. She refused to express confidence in Siún NàRaghallaigh, chair of the RTàBoard. Early the next morning, NàRaghallaigh resigned as chair of the RTàBoard, saying it was "abundantly clear" she no longer had the confidence of Minister Martin. NàRaghallaigh later broke her silence and hit back at Minister Martin around what she described as her "enforced dismissal" designed to "traduce" her reputation.