RTÉ crisis: Tubridy and Kelly shed light on money trail and disputed €120,000 payment

The appearance of Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly before two Oireachtas committees has clarified questions that have been the focus of huge public controversy since a bombshell statement was issued by the RTÉ board on June 22nd.

The RTÉ board statement said that public declarations about Tubridy’s remuneration from the station had understated his income over a number of years by hundreds of thousands of euro. But significant questions now hang over the accuracy of that statement.

The total amount at issue, according to the board statement, was €345,000. “It is necessary for the board of RTÉ to correct the public record in relation to Mr Tubridy’s earnings from RTÉ during the period 2017-2022,” it said, and produced a table.

The statement broke the understatement of Tubridy’s income into two parts: €120,000 from the period 2017 to 2019, and three payments of €75,000 each in the period since.

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However, it now appears clear that Tubridy was not paid an extra, undisclosed €120,000 in the period to 2019, as the statement issued by the board caused the public, the media and the Government to believe.

It furthermore appears, arising from Tubridy’s and Kelly’s testimony, that, up to recently, they believed the three €75,000 payments Tubridy received more recently came from Renault, the sponsors of the Late Late Show, and not RTÉ.

The €120,000

The reason for the RTÉ board indicating that Tubridy had been paid €120,000 more than had been publicly declared was rooted in accountancy decisions that, bizarrely, are linked to Tubridy deciding in early 2020 not to seek a payment of €120,000 that he was entitled to.

He had an entitlement to an end-of-contract payment of €120,000 but he decided not to seek the money in the context of negotiating a new contract and pressure at the station to reduce payments to top earners.

The decision not to seek the money appears to have been processed by RTÉ in such a way that it ended up deducting the money from the station’s statement of Tubridy’s actual earnings over the years 2017 to 2019, when the station was preparing to make a public statement in January 2020 about the earnings of its top-paid presenters during those years.

[ What we learned about the €120,000 understatement of Ryan Tubridy’s earning from committee ]

RTÉ’s accountants broke down the uncollected €120,000 into amounts of €20,000, €50,000, and €50,000, and attributed them to the years 2017, 2018, and 2019. They then reduced Tubridy’s actual remuneration by those amounts for each of the three years. RTÉ then issued a public statement that understated the amount the presenter had actually been paid for those years by those amounts.

The figures for the three years were released despite Tubridy and Kelly privately arguing with RTÉ that the accountants were making a mistake in treating the matter in this way.

The reversal of this accountancy decision is, apparently, what led to the board’s statement in June which in turn left the public believing Tubridy had received €120,000 that, for unexplained reasons, had not been publicly declared.

“I actually waived my entitlement to this payment [the €120,000], and I didn’t receive one cent of it,” Tubridy told the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday. “It’s entirely a mess of RTÉ’s own making,” said Kelly.

Three payments of €75,000 each

The details, briefly, are as follows: Kelly, on behalf of Tubridy, negotiated a deal in 2020 whereby his client would be paid €75,000 annually for public appearances associated with the sponsor of The Late Late Show, Renault. It appears Kelly negotiated with RTÉ who in turn negotiated with Renault.

The first €75,000 payment was for 2020 but was not paid until 2021. It was paid by Renault. However, crucially, RTÉ gave the company a credit equal to the amount. Arguably the money, therefore, really came from RTÉ.

[ Tubridy at Oireachtas: It started as Tubsgate but became a Bizarre Tubs Triangle ]

Two subsequent payments of €75,000 each, in respect of 2021 and 2022, were made to Kelly, for Tubridy’s benefit, in May and July 2022. These two payments were made even though Tubridy had not made any associated appearances for Renault.

Kelly was asked by RTÉ to address the invoices for these two payments to a company in London but to send the invoices to RTÉ. He told the Oireachtas committees he presumed the London company, which he said he had never dealt with before, was associated with Renault. It is in fact a company associated with RTÉ’s so-called barter account.

The February statement

In February of this year RTÉ released details of the income of its top 10 presenters, including Tubridy, for the years 2020 and 2021. Then, in June, as already noted, it released revised figures for Tubridy for those years, as well as the figure for Tubridy for 2022.

Kelly and Tubridy argued before the Oireachtas committees that the figures released by RTÉ are mostly wrong. It is easiest to go through them year by year.

2020: Tubridy didn’t get an extra €75,000 this year, the two men said. The money wasn’t paid until the following year, as Covid had delayed the planned Tubridy appearances. The original figure for Tubridy’s earnings in 2020, released by RTÉ in February, was in fact correct.

2021: Again the February top earners figure was correct and the June board statement incorrect – according to Tubridy and Kelly. The first €75,000 payment was made in 2021, but it came from Renault, not RTÉ, they say. The alternative could be argued, because Renault was given credit for the amount as part of its dealings with RTÉ. But Tubridy and Kelly say they didn’t know this.

2022: Tubridy and Kelly argued that the June board statement understated Tubridy’s earnings for this year, as the second and third €75,000 payments (for 2021 and 2022) were both paid in 2022, and not just one payment, as stated by the board.

The two men said they only found out recently that the company in London that paid the two amounts did so on behalf of RTÉ, and not Renault.