RTÉ bosses to challenge Tubridy and Kelly’s account of payments at PAC hearing

Senior RTÉ executives are expected to challenge accounts given by Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly about payments to Tubridy when they appear at the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Thursday.

It is expected RTÉ will challenge a number of assertions made and will address the accounts of Tubridy and Mr Kelly around the arrangement with Renault – which saw the presenter paid an extra €75,000 a year, ultimately sourced from RTÉ.

RTÉ chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh will also tell the committee that “fair procedures applied to everyone” in the production of the Grant Thornton report – days after Mr Kelly complained that he and Tubridy had received a statement released about the report half an hour before it went out.

She will say there was a “pressing need” and a “duty” to correct the record.

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RTÉ’s representatives, including new director general Kevin Bakhurst, will be in Leinster House again on Thursday morning for the latest episode in the controversy that has engulfed the national broadcaster.

In his opening statement circulated to members of the PAC last night, Adrian Lynch, acting deputy director general prior to Mr Bakhurst beginning his tenure, said RTÉ “should have operated with greater transparency and should have applied much higher standards of honesty and integrity in terms of its public statements”.

“The public were misled, as were you as public representatives,” he will say.

Interim findings of a Grant Thornton review into the pay of top on-air earners at the broadcaster were also given to the PAC last night – finding that all remuneration figures for the period from 2010 to 2022 had been “publicly and properly accounted for by RTÉ”. With respect to the period 2008 to 2016, the firm found “no errors in the published remuneration figures by RTÉ for Mr Tubridy”.

Some in the broadcaster have private concerns that having the former Late Late Show host on air could risk what one senior figure said was “huge reputational damage” – but the decision will ultimately lie with Mr Bakhurst, who said on Wednesday he would take a more “systematic” approach with RTÉ staff before deciding Tubridy’s fate.

At RTÉ's Donnybrook campus, where a protest took place on Wednesday, Mr Bakhurst said “feelings were running high” following Tubridy’s appearance at two Oireachtas committees on Tuesday.

Minister for Arts and Media Catherine Martin announced on Wednesday the appointment of Mazars as forensic accountants to assist the reviews into practices and culture at RTÉ.

Thursday’s meeting of the PAC is likely to be the final outing in front of committees for RTÉ for some weeks. Both the PAC and the media committee have no plans to schedule further hearings in the immediate future, at least until the second Grant Thornton report has been completed.

Members of both committees indicated they could reconvene during the summer if there were dramatic developments – or if Dee Forbes, the former director general, or head of content Jim Jennings were to become available. Both are unwell.

Senator Malcolm Byrne, a member of the media committee, said Ms Martin had sent in independent teams and “if something emerges or if Dee Forbes or Jim Jennings are willing to come before us then we’ll reconvene”. Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley, who chairs the PAC, said that committee could convene in similar circumstances but “bar that or significant further issues arising that should be it for now”.