It emerged that the board of RTE was made aware of a payment issue involving top earner Ryan Tubridy the same week the Dublin resident announced his departure from the Late Late Show, reports The Mirror.
According to the Irish Independent, the pay controversy surrounding the national broadcaster came to light in March this year as accountants poured into RTE’s financial situation and in the same week Tubridy announced he was quitting Late Late.
This week it emerged that a hidden payment of €345,000 had been made to Tubrida over a five-year period. In a statement on Thursday, RTE’s management said that between 2017 and 2022, Mr Tubridy received a total of €345,000 in payments on top of his annual published salary, which has not been announced to the public or the Oireachtas.
The statement said the review found that, under a separate agreement, Mr Tubridy was guaranteed an additional annual income of €75,000 from RTÉ, which was supposed to come from a commercial partner.
Ryan Tubridy himself has apologized for not questioning his declared salary in the matter in recent days.
He said: “Further to my statement yesterday, I wish to respond to issues in the last 24 hours arising from RTÉ’s accounting treatment and publication of payments made to me between 2017 and 2022. RTÉ’s accounting treatment and publication of payments made to me between 2017 and 2022 contained serious errors. While I have no responsibility for the corporate governance in RTÉ or how or what they publish in their accounts, when my earnings were published I should have asked questions at the time and sought answers as to the circumstances which resulted in incorrect figures being published. I didn’t, and I bear responsibility for my failure to do so. For this, I apologise unreservedly,” reports The Mirror.
“For the avoidance of doubt, all my earnings from RTÉ have at all times been included in my company’s accounts that were prepared by my accountant and filed with the Companies Registration Office and all my taxes are up to date. My filed accounts with details of these earnings have previously been reported on in the media,” he added, reports The Mirror.
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