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The Irish Independent today revealed that the RTÉ board knew the €120,000 falsification of his pay was the station’s own fault – and not the fault of the presenter.
A newly-released key document reveals the former Late Late Show host’s unpaid bonus was “erroneously” subtracted from his published earnings.
Ryan Tubridy’s payments and the unpublished memo
“There is no logic for this,” the unreleased internal report said on June 18.
More than four months ago at an Oireachtas committee, Deputy Dillon asked RTÉ Chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh “why has the internal review identifying the €120,000 worth of undeclared payments (from 2017 – ’19) not been provided to the committee?”.
Earlier today Deputy Dillon said revelations are “stunning”.
“RTÉ have basically admitted they didn’t hand over the internal review which formed the basis of half their case against Ryan Tubridy.
“We now learn that last June, when all eyes were on this farce, RTÉ Chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh knew from her former Chief Financial Officer that the understatement of the best paid RTÉ presenter was unorthodox and not logical…..
“I asked the Chair why this information was not published or provided to the Media Committee on June 28 last. This dealt with half the period of Mr Tubridy’s pay where RTÉ falsely understated his earnings and since then, nobody in the RTÉ executive board thought this material should be published or provided despite being asked for it?
“Ms Ní Raghallaigh said nothing, despite appearing before various Oireachtas committees on the issue,” Deputy Dillon said.
“Public confidence in the management of our national broadcaster is on the floor and keeps falling with every new revelation. Where is the bottom of this? Why haven’t RTÉ’s board come clean and provided everything that occurred at the broadcaster.
“We also learn today the cost of reviews of RTÉ of the financial mismanagement to the taxpayer is running into millions of euros. And we still don’t have the full account.
“What else is being hidden from the public? We’re here on behalf of the people – elected by the people – to interrogate how public funds are used and recorded. The least we can expect here is an apology from RTÉ. Not to me, but to the public who put us in positions to establish the truth and also to all of the 1,800 RTÉ staff who have been left to bear the brunt of the fallout from this brutally handled crisis by their senior management.
“This warrants a full explanation, whether you’re talking about Friday night television or giving the facts of their pay deals to an Oireachtas Committee, RTÉ truly is home of the Late Late Show,” Deputy Dillon said.
In a statement released this afternoon on the matter, RTÉ said prior knowledge of the details relating to payments to Ryan Tubridy were “not new revelations”.
RTÉ said the document revealed by the Irish Independent today (an email from RTÉ’s former Chief Financial Officer to the Chair of the Board of RTÉ) was a “preliminary internal review”.
“This was then forwarded to Grant Thornton to conduct a formal fact-based review (Grant Thornton II). It was on the basis of this email that the facts relating to RTÉ payments to Ryan Tubridy were established in the second Grant Thornton Review. It was not concealed, it was central to this review by Grant Thornton to establish the facts,” RTÉ claimed in their statement.
The broadcaster then alleged that the correspondence “had not been formally requested by the Public Accounts Committee” at the time the question was raised by Deputy Alan Dillon as to why it hadn’t been provided.
“Furthermore, the second Grant Thornton Review had already commenced at that stage. RTÉ has provided hundreds of documents and emails to both the Public Accounts Committee and the Joint Oireachtas Committee to date and remains in contact with both Committees,” RTÉ said.
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