Accountants Grant Thornton have submitted a new report on Ryan Tubridy’s pay to the RTÉ board, the national broadcaster said on Monday.
There were no immediate indications on when the board was likely to meet to discuss the report or publish it. The latest moves come with Tubridy still off the air, falling licence fee income and a Government review of RTÉ governance that is likely to prompt a fundamental overhaul of the organisation.
The new report, commissioned almost eight weeks ago, examines how RTÉ underdeclared Tubridy’s income by €120,000 in 2017-2019 in public statements on top presenter pay.
It followed an earlier Grant Thornton report which dealt with €225,000 in hidden payments to the former presenter of The Late Late Show in between 2020 and 2022.
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The new report, dubbed “Grant Thornton 2″, is likely to open a new phase of political scrutiny into the RTÉ affairs.
Amid Government disquiet at the turmoil in RTÉ and a succession of long hearings before two Oireachtas committees, the affair came to dominate the political agenda before the summer recess.
“The second Grant Thornton Report has been furnished and will now be the subject of detailed consideration by both the audit and risk committee of the RTÉ board and the broader board itself,” RTÉ said. “This process is ongoing.”
The deputy chair of the Public Accounts Committee Catherine Murphy has called on RTÉ to publish the second Grant Thornton report as soon as the RTÉ executive board have received it.
“There would be no justification for not publishing it. It’s understandable that the executive board need to see the report first but after this, it should be published,” she said.
Both the PAC and the Committee on Media have sought access to the report and are awaiting a copy of it once it has been fully considered by senior executives in the broadcaster. Further meetings with RTÉ bosses are expected with both committees aiming to hold public hearings when the Dáil returns in mid-September.
After limited and at times confusing details from RTÉ about the undeclared 2017-2019 payments, the lack of a clear explanation has long been one the big outstanding questions.
When such matters came to light Grant Thornton reviewed Tubridy’s “previously stated remunerations” after examining the hidden €225,000 in 2020 and 2022, RTÉ has said.
Tubridy received €511,667 in 2017 but RTÉ did not declare €20,000. So his stated pay was €491,667, less than €500,000. He received €545,000 in 2018 and 2019 but RTÉ did not declare €50,000 in either year, again wrongly suggesting he was on less than €500,000 in each of those years.
At one point in the controversy RTÉ financial controller Richard Collins linked the underdeclared €120,000 to a “loyalty bonus” which was due to Tubridy at the end of his last contract in 2020 but not actually paid.
“That was never paid and never accrued for in the accounts. However, for an unexplained reason, that €120,000 was credited against his earnings between 2017 and 2019,” Mr Collins told the Oireachtas arts and media committee.
However, Mr Collins told a later meeting of the Dáil public accounts committee that the two questions were separate.
“[Mr Tubridy] was due a €120,000 bonus at the end of his contract. It was never paid and never accrued. That is one matter,” Mr Collins told the PAC.
“A separate matter is that €120,000 was deducted from his actual earnings when the published earnings were being calculated from 2017 to 2019.”
