The Oireachtas media commission heard that presenter Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly had not refused a pay cut, but disagreed on the level of the cut.
The committee heard from Breda O’Keeffe, RTÉ’s former chief financial officer who left the organisation in March 2020.
She is one of the RTÉ representatives appearing before the Oireachtas Commission on the ongoing RTÉ payments controversy, reports RTE.
Ahead of today’s committee meeting, MPs and Senators were sent a letter that former CEO Dee Forbes wrote to Mr Tubridy in July 2020.
Deputy RTÉ Director General, Adrian Lynch told the committee he was aware of Ms Forbes’ letter guaranteeing that Mr Tubridy would not take a pay cut in his contract.
Richard Collins, RTÉ’s current chief financial officer, told the committee he was aware that “RTÉ was trying to conclude an arrangement to boost Ryan Tubridy’s earnings” but he was not “aware of the details of the contract”, reports RTE.
“We were heading towards running out of cash. I was totally focused on preserving jobs and negotiating with the government. That was my clear focus. This commercial agreement was being handled by the DG – I concluded the straight forward part of the deal. I had bigger issues to deal with. On 30 April it was confirmed there would be no indemnity given to the deal. That was the last I heard of it. It was news to me that the guarantee was given,” he said, reports RTE.
Separately, RTÉ’s The Musical toy show made a loss of €2.2 million, documents sent to the media committee revealed.
The musical ran for 27 shows, but only used 41% of the available capacity at the National Convention Centre venue.
Approximately 20,262 tickets were distributed, of which 11,044 were sold, the rest were distributed free of charge or as part of a competition.
RTÉ executives and board members are facing a media committee for questions after a review of the organisation’s finances revealed a number of other stock accounts, reports RTE.
Ms O’Keefe told the media committee that a commercial deal involving Mr Tubridy and Renault had not been considered by the broadcaster before her departure in early 2020.
“My recollection is that Mr Tubridy’s agent requested that the commercial agreement be underwritten by RTÉ and this was refused. This continued to be my position and, as far as I was aware, that of the director-general, the head of content and RTÉ solicitor up to the date of my departure from RTÉ in March 2020. I was not aware any guarantee had issued until I heard about it last week in the media reports,” she said, reports RTE.
A spokesperson for Minister for Media Catherine Martin said this morning that the Chair of the RTÉ Board, Siún Nà Raghallaigh, “spoke to the minister last night to inform her that the Board had met yesterday evening because further issues had come to light. She advised that legal advice was being sought and told the minister that she would speak to her again today, once that that advice has been received, and ahead of today’s Joint Oireachtas Committee hearing,” reports RTE.
Tell us your thoughts in the Facebook post and share this with your friends.