Fresh revelations about spending at RTÉ will leave senior bosses fighting for survival when they face TDs and senators again. Dee Forbes wrote to Ryan Tubridy promising no new pay cutsPatrick Kielty was promised business class flights to get to rehearsalsCroke Park rented in preparation for Toy Show The Musical flopTwo more ‘barter accounts’ revealed with system used to spend €1.6m on entertainment and hospitalityOireachas Media Committee chair says it is ‘disappointing’ that inaccurate information’ given to politicians last week, as TDs again to quiz RTÉ chiefs this afternoonFinance Minister says RTÉ now needs to ‘lance the boil’ in light of new information
Presenter Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly have now offered to meet with two committees investigating the RTÉ pay scandal.
It has emerged that there is more than the one barter account which was used to fund secret payments to presenter Ryan Tubridy, while this morning it emerged that Toy Show – The Musical lost €2.2 million.
And fresh details have been released about the pay and expenses of senior management.
Sinn Féin spokeswoman Imelda Munster TD says what has been revealed in recent times would “shame the most extravagant of Celtic Tiger excesses.”
On foot of the new revelations Finance Minister Michael McGrath last night twice refused to express confidence in RTÉ’s executive board.
He said they “deserve an opportunity” to explain themselves – but added “there is a lot at stake”.
Tubridy and Kelly offer to meet Oireachtas committees
Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly have asked to meet with the two Oireachtas committees investigating the secret payments scandal at RTÉ.
Solicitors for the former Late Late Show host and his long-time agent have issued a letter to the Oireachtas Media Committee chair Niamh Smyth offering their full cooperation and assistance with the committee’s investigation.
“They believe that they have important information that will assist the Committee in its examination of these Issues and clarify a number of matters that have arisen,” the letter from Hayes Solicitors to Ms Smyth states.
“Both Mr. Tubridy and Mr. Kelly kindly request to meet with your Committee at a suitable time next week.
“They would welcome this opportunity to set out their position on these matters and them submit themselves to appropriate questioning from the members of the Committee on what are clearly matters of public interest.”
The letter adds that a “booklet of relevant documents” will be prepared and can be shared with the Committee in advance of their attendance.
“Please note that we have written in similar terms to the Committee of Public Accounts,” the letter adds.
Media Committee member FF Senator Malcolm Byrne said: “Our Committee will meet with Mr Tubridy and Mr Kelly next week if an agreeable time can be found. We also look forward to hearing from Dee Forbes and Jim Jennings once they have recovered from illness or we are happy to receive written submissions.”
Other new revelations include:
Spending on concerts, trips to sports events and international flights
RTÉ’s barter accounts show extravagant spending by the broadcaster’s commercial department of the biggest concerts in Ireland, trips to high-profile sports event and flights across the globe.
One of the controversial accounts show RTÉ paid €1,543 for team member to stay in an AirBnB near the hollywood walk of fame in Los Angeles for seven days.
The commercial department spend thousands on tickets to concerts such as the Spice Girls in Croke Park where €7,688 was spent on the night out, while a further €13,730 was spent on tickets, food, drink and merchandise for Ed Sheeran’s concert in the same venue.
RTÉ spent €26,576 going to the Champions League Final in Madrid. The so called Astus account show €23,152 was spend on 36 European Football Final tickets. However, a noted is added to the accounts saying: “not sure though”. The files also show €3,608 was spent on 60 Ireland jerseys for European football tournament. Another €4,956 was spent on 200 pairs of flip flops for a summer party for clients.
Toy Show – The Musical lost €2.2 million
RTÉ lost €2.2m on the box office flop Toy Show the Musical.
The broadcaster only sold less than €500,000 worth of tickets and sponsorship – €2.7m below what was expected.
The total costs for the musical were €2.7m, with an “actual loss on year one” of €2.2m.
A note to the Oireachtas media committee says:
“The first run of Toy Show the Musical to be staged in the Auditorium of the Convention Centre Dublin (CCD). The Auditorium has tiered seating for a total audience of 1,995.
“RTÉ booked the facility for a period from 3 Dec 2022 to 7 January 2023 with live public performances commencing on 10 December. The plan was to host up to 54 performances during this period with 2 to 3 performances each day.
“Net box office revenue predictions based on a sell out for the entire run of 54 shows (107k audience) of the musical would deliver c. €4.1m. The average ticket price was quoted at €46.50. The break-even point of revenue vs total costs was 70% capacity across all shows.
“RTÉ’s Q2 Forecast included revenue for the event at €3.215m which was based on c. 83.75% capacity, c. 90,220 sales at a ticket price of €46.50 less c. 25% for agency fees, concessions and royalties. “
Toy Show The Musical underwhelmed at the box office during its run last Christmas
“Total show costs were budgeted at €2.9m covering the creative team, casting, venue, and show running costs. All cast and crew were contracted up to the expected final date of the run of 7 January 2023”.
Independent.ie has learned RTÉ also rented out space at Croke Park for six weeks last year for rehearsals for its box-office flop Toy Show: The Musical.
The musical was sponsored by Renault, the car maker at the centre of the Tubridy secret payments debacle.
Dee Forbes wrote to Ryan Tubridy promising no pay cuts
Former RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes gave Ryan Tubridy a personal guarantee that his pay would not be cut by the broadcaster.
In July 2020, Ms Forbes wrote to Mr Tubridy confirming he would see no reduction in his pay between April 2020 and March 2025.
“The purpose of this correspondence is to record in writing our guarantee and undertaking that the fees set out in this Agreement will be paid by
The letter from Dee Forbes to Ryan Tubridy
RTÉ without any reductions and RTÉ shall not make any request or enquiry from you in relation to a reduction in the agreed fees during the currency of the Agreement save as to those that might be imposed by changes to legislation,” Ms Forbes wrote.
The letter is addressed to Mr Tubirdy at the address of his Tuttle Productions Limited company which is based in Calmount Office Park in Ballymount, Dublin.
RTÉ’s biggest stars and some of the well-known brands they advertised on social media
RTÉ agreed to pay for food, drink and even guests at Renault events
RTÉ signed up to a contract that would see the broadcaster pay for sets, food, drink and even guests at Renault events.
A mock Late Late Show was to be held in three Renault dealerships each year with Ryan Tubridy who is also a party to the contract which is on NK Management headed party.
It previously emerged that Tubridy would get €25,000 per event – but RTÉ rather than Renault would be on the hook for the money.
A clause called “Event Set Up” in the Renault contract makes clear that the costs of each event would be covered by RTÉ as part of the agreement.
RTÉ agreed to fund:
The contract states that “NK Management and RTÉ will assist Renault to fulfil guest line up for each event on request”.
The show would start with a drinks reception at 6pm followed by the Late Late Show from around 7.30-9pm and then 30 minutes for a Q&A session.
All events were invitation-only, being an exclusive event for each dealership
RTE has already indicated to committee that total set-up costs over the terms of the contract were nearly €50,000, with Renault paying nothing at all in this regard and Montrose bearing the full burden, funded ultimately by the taxpayer and payers of the licence fee.
Patrick Kielty was promised business fights to get to rehearsals
RTÉ promised Patrick Kielty business class flights and at least four-star hotels during rehearsals in the lead up to taking over the Late Late Show.
The presenter has indicated he will forego the benefits, but they are stated in his contract.
During this rehearsal period of 10 days, he will be paid €20,000 on top of the already agreed pay.
He has already revealed his salary of €250,000 and said he has waived travel and accommodation expenses of €50,000 per year.
His contract shows Mr Kielty will be paid €8,333 per episode for hosting the first 30 episodes of The Late Late Show and €8,000 per episode afterwards.
Patrick Kielty
Previous seasons of the Friday night programme have run for around 36 or 37 episodes.
The contract specifies he will have private use of a dressing room with a private bathroom in RTÉ.
He has a right to not broadcast live for three episodes as long as he is free to do a pre-record instead – these include one to be aired on Good Friday, the Country and Western Show and one other date around Christmas.
His contract began on July 1 and is due to expire May 30 2026.
Top 100 RTÉ workers all paid more than €100,000
Among a raft of documents supplied by RTÉ to committee members was a breakdown of pay for the station’s top 100 earners. .
An analysis by the Irish Independent shows all executive board members get between €24,100 and €31,711 in allowances every year as well as salaries between €169,950 and €250,00.
There are 84 staff members and 16 contractors in the top 100 list. Of these, 10 are members of the executive board, 59 people hold management positions and 31 people are presenters or not in management.
At the top of the earnings list are presenters and not manager positions. The top three earners make €515,000, followed by €343,083 and €342,000.
RTÉ has not named the top 100, citing data protection concerns.
Sinn Féin spokeswoman Imelda Munster TD says what has been revealed in recent times would “shame the most extravagant of Celtic Tiger excesses.”
Three barter accounts used to spend €1.6m on entertainment and hospitality
RTÉ has used its controversial barter account system for €1.6m in client entertainment and corporate hospitality over the last decade – nearly €400,000 more than previously disclosed.
Between 2012 and 2022, RTÉ spent on average approximately €150,000 each year in client entertainment and hospitality paid through the barter account.
The station has confirmed that it has three barter accounts – and not one as previously started by its finance director Richard Collins in testimony to the Public Accounts Committee last week.
These include the previously disclosed Astus account used for secret payments to Ryan Tubridy, as well as Active and Miroma. The PAC was told last week of €1.25m in spending through the barter system, including on sporting events and concerts.
The accounts were until recently not under the remit of RTÉs finance department. TDs have labelled the station’s use of the barter system for client entertainment as a “slush fund”.
In the note, RTÉ defended the use of such accounts as “commonplace in the advertising industry”. Its submission includes three spreadsheets of spending through these accounts but they have not been released as of Tuesday night.
RTÉ noted that between 2012 and 2022 it generated €150m in commercial revenue and €1.65bn in total commercial income. “During this period, RTÉ used approximately €1.6 million of barter account revenue for client entertainment and corporate hospitality,” it confirmed.
It said: “They are used by RTÉ solely in the context of its commercial activity of selling advertising airtime.
“A barter account may be used for the purpose of hospitality and entertainment in relation to advertising clients/media agencies to ensure that RTÉ can continue to increase its advertising revenue and to retain it going forward.
“This is entirely legitimate. Moreover, this model is commonly used by competitors and is standard industry wide.”
RTÉ gives the example of advertising space being exchanged for hotel rooms or other hospitality and entertainment costs with transactions being priced at 65pc of the face value.
“This allows for discounts and the fees charged by the bartering company,” RTÉ said. “Its use has proved to be a necessary flexible business practice for the RTÉ commercial sales teams.
“It does not impact on licence fee revenue in any way, nor is any spending on client hospitality/entertainment derived from licence fee income in anyway. Such spend is derived from (sic) solely from commercial revenue.”
RTÉ said it earned over €8 million in revenues from barter agencies from the end of 2012 to 2022. The station goes on to claim that barter credits not used were cashed out resulting in RTÉ generating additional revenue of €5.6 million which it claims it would not have had without the barter model.
Political reaction
Media Minister Catherine Martin said she spoke to RTÉ board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh last night and that the board had met yesterday about the new information.
Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Media Niamh Smyth said it was “deeply disappointing” that the committee was given “inaccurate” information about the barter accounts last week.
She said RTÉ’s chief financial officer Richard Collins “categorically made the presentation that there was one barter account to us and to PAC the following day”.
“We asked for quite a lot of documentation around the tripartite agreement, around the top 100 earners, around Toy Show – the musical, we asked for the expenditure on that, and I suppose at this point we don’t have that,” she told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“And I’m kind of disappointed that we don’t, because I would have thought that was something RTÉ would have at their fingertips.”
“So again, it’s really deeply disappointing to see that information was inaccurate and I think there will be some very tough questions for the executive today when they face my colleagues and and rightly so,” she added.
Speaking on the same programme, Finance Minister Michael McGrath said the RTÉ officials must explain why “inaccurate information” was given last week.
He said while “we all make mistakes”, he feels the RTÉ executive team should have been “fully briefed and prepared” before attending both the Media and the Public Account committees.
“The wider problem here is just this drip, drip of information that’s going on for the last couple of weeks and the RTÉ team really need to get to grips with this now as a matter of urgency or otherwise it will just rumble on,” he said.
“They need to lance the boil, and the only way to do that is to be fully open with all of the information at their disposal and then we can begin to move through all of that, set up the independent reviews that Minister Martin has confirmed, allow he forensic account to do his or her work and move on from there.”
Minister McGrath, who previously worked as a financial controller in the independent radio sector, said barter accounts are a “part of commercial life” but “full disclosure” of the all the information is essential for good governance.
“I do not accept the case that commercial activity in and of itself, contaminates the public service broadcasting mandate of RTÉ and I don’t think that’s necessarily what happened here. If you have a proper structure, you have good reporting mechanisms, clear lines of responsibility and good governance, then I think you can do both, and it remains to be seen what will emerge from these independent reviews,” he added.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne programme, Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne said licence fee payers have a right to see Mr Turbridy and Mr Kelly giving their testimonies and they should be asked to appear “in public”.
When asked if he believes some people on the RTÉ executive board should resign, he said: “Yes, bluntly. I think the only way that we’re going to see an end to this process, is for people to take responsibility for their actions and that we have full transparency about what went on.”
Speaking on the same programme, Labour senator Marie Sherlock agreed with Senator Byrne saying, the “tenability of people’s positions” should be examined.
Ms Byrne said she was “gobsmacked” by the “absolutely outrageous” revelations – about the additional barter accounts, the written guarantee to Ryan Tubridy and Toy Show the Musical – that emerged last night.
She said the financial guarantee, given in writing, by the former Director General Dee Forbes to Ryan Tubridy came in the “middle of the pandemic” and at a time when staff at RTÉ were told that pay cuts were necessary to “put the organisation into better financial shape”.
She added that the revenues generated by Toy Show The Musical, mean the venture was an “absolute disaster”, and questioned how it “failed so badly”.