Government and opposition politicians expressed the absolute need for RTÉ’s leadership to be transparent about hidden payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy and not resort to the drip method to reveal vital information, reports RTE.
TV license fees “undoubtedly” will be “serious hit” and commercial revenue will also be hit by the RTÉ payments controversy, state minister Patrick O’Donovan has said.
On Thursday, it emerged that RTÉ paid its top presenter Ryan Tubridy an additional €345,000 on top of his published salary between 2017 and 2022.
Speaking on RTÉ this week, Mr O’Donovan said the public service broadcaster had a “fundamental problem” and the sooner full disclosure of the undisclosed payments was made “the better”.
“There is an awful lot of questions that need to be looked at here first,” reports RTE.
The minister said that even if the company is not flawless, it does not mean that it is not being rehabilitated.
Reflecting on the salaries of top earners, he said he asked about the presenter’s salary in 2015, when he was a member of the communications committee, and was told there was no such information.
“At the time I was lampooned by many … for having the audacity to question the fact, that we might ask the question, for fear they might go somewhere else. To be honest about it, if we are going to rebuild trust in the organisation then everything has to be put on the table,” reports RTE.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil TD and Minister of State Jack Chambers said it was important information flowed in “very quickly” from RTÉ’s upper echelons after the disclosure of undisclosed payments to Mr Tubrida.
Speaking on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics programme, Mr Chambers said there was a need to know who was involved in the arrangement, how it happened and “full disclosure of any other repeated arrangement with anyone else within the organisation”, reports RTE.
TD Catherine Murphy of the Social Democrats said there was an absolute necessity to restore RTÉ’s reputation by being completely open and avoiding “drip feed” information.
“Did they know about this when they met us? Did they mislead us? – is something I think we will want answers on. Is this the tip of the iceberg? That issue of culture is something that certainly I would like to address in the context of that meeting at the Public Accounts Committee,” she said, reports RTE.
Niamh Smyth, chairman of the Oireachtas media committee, warned that it would be a “big mistake” if RTÉ board members did not provide clear answers to questions put to them.
“This is about a corporate governance issue within RTÉ and at the very highest level and when I say that I mean the Executive,” reports RTE.
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