A flip-flopping tragicomedy, Biden blarney and the riotous right: Miriam Lord’s review of 2023

It was a year of three parts: 2023 BT at the beginning; 2023 PT at the end.

At the core of the plot, sensational revelations about the remuneration arrangements of talkshow host Ryan Tubridy, RTÉ’s biggest name and highest earner. They led on to some jaw-dropping insights into how the State licence fee-funded organisation does its business.

Politicians rushed for new suits and emergency haircuts then rushed to investigate.

The nation was agog.

Andrew Muir: Out and proud Stormont Minister in charge of Northern Ireland’s farming

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Government to bring forward emergency law to send asylum seekers back to UK

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Family of Minister for Justice evacuated following hoax bomb threat

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Aontú calls for ‘Irish Sea border in terms of people’ to ensure stricter immigration checks in Northern Ireland

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Suddenly, the hearings of two Oireachtas committees became essential viewing. The Dáil hardly got a look in while the saga rumbled on.

Housing and Health was elbowed off the front pages.

This was celebrity catnip for the public and manna from heaven for media organisations. Print sales and online traffic spiked whenever the story was featured.

It was box-office news.

2023 – The year of RTÉ.

Everything else happened in separate dimensions: Before Tubs and Post Tubs.

January BT

A new year and a new Taoiseach. The Dáil resumed with Leo Varadkar already down one junior minister when Fine Gael’s Damien English resigned after the Ditch website reported that he filed incorrect information in a 2008 planning application for a house in rural Meath.

Then controversy erupted over Cabinet cherub Paschal Donohoe’s failure to declare more than €1,000 in costs for postering services supplied by a businessman friend during the 2016 general election. Six men, four shifts, two vans, a disputed 150 posters and an extravagance of cable ties in Dublin Central.

Sinn Féin was completely outraged.

Mary Lou McDonald, from the same constituency, was beside herself. These men were seen hanging up cardboard Paschals “in broad daylight in the middle of the day!”

The Minister for Public Expenditure was crestfallen. He had been unaware of his wealthy acquaintance’s gesture. “An unintentional corporate donation,” he explained, apologising profusely.

“Now Paschal. Please come clean on this here and don’t take the mickey,” fumed Pearse Doherty.

So the Minister further disclosed that millionaire businessman Michael Stone, who is from Dublin’s north inner city but now lives in a big house in Killiney, also bought tickets for the Fine Gael Superdraw over two consecutive years at a total cost of €1,716.

The fury fizzled out quite quickly. It may have had something to do with details of embarrassing election accounting from Sinn Féin coming to light. They included an unpaid bill following an event at the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) which may have been attended by such luminaries as former party president Gerry Adams.

Cue the jibes about him never being in the RIA.

A lively political scrap to start the year, with the usual roaring and shouting and possibility of a big political scalp at the end of it. Paschal Donohoe, who is now in the frame for a big job in the IMF, was clearly, briefly, worried.

The circus moves on.

The politicians carry on.

And the people of inner city Dublin are left to carry the can.

Michael Stone, local boy made good, resigned his unpaid position on the board of the State-funded Dublin North East Inner City (NEIC) initiative because of the controversy. He was seen locally as a committed and dynamic chairman of its programme implementation committee.

“Mick Stone is probably the best person to happen to this community. He was very effective. It’s a big loss for us,” said activist Paddy Murdiff.

“All he did was put up those bleedin’ posters.”

February

Bertie exploded back on the political scene amid rumours that he wants to run for the presidency in 2025.

The former taoiseach was in demand for speaking gigs at Fianna Fáil events all over the country as the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement approaches.

His pivotal role in the negotiations is rightly lauded and he luxuriates in the limelight.

It was confirmed that he is now officially back in the Fianna Fáil fold having paid his €20 membership fee.

Considering a tilt at the Áras?

“Honestly, and with the greatest of respect, it’s too far away.”

Meanwhile, Catherine Murphy and Róisín Shortall stepped down as co-leaders of the Social Democrats after eight years at the helm.

First-time TD Holly Cairns, the only woman deputy in Cork City and county, was immediately installed as favourite to succeed them. After a few days of soul-searching and number-crunching by colleagues contemplating a run, the Cork South West deputy was her party’s unanimous choice.

Sinn Féin’s Dessie Ellis caused a stir when he said that cocaine use is widespread across all sectors of Irish society. “It’s even rife in Dáil Éireann,” he said.

Patrick Costello, Green Party TD for Dublin South Central, worried about the installation of Chinese-manufactured security cameras in Leinster House and the possible threat they might pose to national security.

The post-Brexit Windsor Framework agreement was signed between the UK and the EU.

The DUP is still sulking.

March

In a surprise announcement, Ryan Tubridy announced he would be leaving The Late Late Show at the end of May after 14 years in the hot seat.

RTÉ’s outgoing director general Dee Forbes thanked him for his “enormous commitment” to the show. (She was far less outgoing a month later.)

“There are so many great memories and special moments to look back on, and more to come, which we will rightly celebrate in the months ahead,” she trilled.

Indeed. Although “celebrate” might not have been the right choice of word, going forward.

The most interesting return journey from the annual St Patrick’s week schmoozefest in Washington, DC involved Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson. Booked on the same fight, they were assigned adjacent seats in economy for the long and awkward way home.

The Labour Party tabled a motion of no confidence in the Government – its first in 23 years – over its handling of the housing crisis.

The Coalition came out fighting. There were particularly ill-tempered exchanges between Labour and Fine Gael TDs who just fell short of accusing their former Coalition partners of treason. To add insult to injury, leader Ivana Bacik’s rather grandiose declaration that a Labour government would build a million new homes in a decade was greeted with cross-party derision.

April

US president Joe Biden kept us entertained at the beginning of the month. But some commentators across the water were far from amused by the happy scenes in Éire.

Joe began his sentimental journey in Northern Ireland, spending a relatively brief time in Belfast before heading across the Border to tick off all the places on his special and very personal Irish bucket list.

The more patriotic sections of the English media whinged about him paying far too much attention to Ireland. Being far more important, they felt insulted.

[ Biden confuses Black and Tans for All Blacks in Rob Kearney gaffe ]

The Times of London published a graceless cartoon featuring dancing Biden leprechauns and pints of Guinness (he doesn’t drink). In a pub in Dundalk, Biden mentioned meeting sportsman Rob Kearney (one of his many distant Irish cousins) in the White House.

Kearney was part of the Irish team which memorably beat the All Blacks in 2016.

“He was a hell of a rugby player and he beat the hell out of the Black and Tans. Oh God,” wheezed Uncle Joe, accidentally on purpose.

The Dáil chamber was packed for his address.

“Well, Mom, you said it would happen,” he smiled. “As the proud son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden, well, you knew I’d be coming ... It’s so good to be back in Ireland.”

The speech was unadulterated cheese. It should have been mortifying, but Biden’s touching pride in his Irishness and genuine joy in being here melted hardened hearts.

Back in the real world, Fianna Fáil Minister of State Niall Collins eventually survived the fallout from a report in the Ditch website claiming he attended a subcommittee meeting of Limerick County Council 15 years ago at which it was agreed to put council-owned land on the market. The land was subsequently bought by his wife.

The Coalition backed him. Tánaiste Micheál Martin went on the offensive against the investigative website for carrying out “attempted character assassinations” of politicians.

May

The budget wasn’t happening until October, but the kite-flyers were out early.

Three high-profile junior Ministers from Fine Gael donned their thinking caps and rattled out an opinion piece (or agreed to sign their names to the finished article) for the Indo. In it, they called for more tax relief for middle-income earners.

The publication of Martin Heydon, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Peter Burke’s opus blindsided their Fianna Fáil partners, who are not best pleased to learn that the trio submitted their composition with Leo Varadkar’s blessing.

As various FF heavyweights fulminated anonymously to the political correspondents about “nuts” solo runs, Michael McGrath, the FF Minister for Finance, was not drawn into the row.

“An unusual approach,” he murmured dismissively.

In the Dáil, Kerry’s Michael Healy-Rae was already thinking about next year’s local and European elections.

“The public will have the same interest in you as they would have in voting for the boo-bonic plague,” he told the Taoiseach. “Fianna Fáil and Fyne Gael have lost rural Ireland.”

He cited a Department of Agriculture briefing document on meeting climate targets by reducing the national herd by up to 65,000 dairy cows a year.

Minister of State Martin Heydon insisted that the document was merely “an options paper” exploring ways to cut numbers. (Leo doesn’t do Ag.)

But the Rural Independent Group wasn’t buying that.

Brian Ó Domhnaill, the former Fianna Fáil senator from Donegal who cranks out media statements at a terrific rate for Mattie McGrath and the Rural Independents from his base in Canada, rushed out an explosive press release, crowning it with the best headline of the year.

“Rural Independent TDs denounce heinous attack on rural Ireland: Government secret plot to massacre our precious cows.”

June-July-August

Some matters unrelated to RTÉ happened.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin held his Consultative Forum on International Security Policy but his big event was overshadowed by protests that it was an attempt to water down Ireland’s neutrality, and by a sideways swipe from Michael D Higgins.

Helen McEntee’s controversial hate crime Bill made its way through a sleepy Dáil without much comment. But that situation changed by the time it landed in the Seanad, not least because of increased social media attention and interventions from such bastions of reason and common sense as Elon Musk and Donald Trump jnr.

And then came Tubsgate – the only game in town. It centred on two committees packed with attention-grabbing politicians grilling RTÉ’s top brass for days on end, live on television.

There was a drip feed of information on top star Ryan Tubridy’s financial arrangements with RTÉ, and a glimpse into the world of Noel Kelly, the country’s top talent agent.

[ Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly blame RTÉ for payments saga during hours-long defence ]

There were details, but not enough, of the unmitigated, expensive disaster that was Toy Show The Musical.

There followed 3½ hours of debate in an Oireachtas committee room, with overwrought deputies wailing about the disgraceful culture of overspending and widowed pensioners struggling to pay their television licences while reprising all the juiciest revelations from the hearings.

This was a rare occasion when they would get no pushback from voters for their grandstanding efforts.

There were TDs nearly apoplectic about flip-flops purchased for an indoor beach party out of the RTÉ “slush fund” barter account. There was outrage over the marketing department laying on a bus from a restaurant in Drumcondra to nearby Croke Park for advertisers enjoying RTÉ hospitality at a U2 concert.

There was the notable absence, for medical reasons, of former director general Dee Forbes, who dealt with Tubridy and might have been able to shed further insight into the arrangements put in place to secretly top up his earnings.

And then there was a chief financial officer who couldn’t remember how much he earned.

A viral highlight was the delicious, lost-in-translation confusion over Mattie McGrath’s epic “Who are ye lyin’ to?” question about loyalty to baffled interim director general Adrian Lynch.

Then followed the anger of RTÉ rank-and-file workers, the backbone of the organisation, as the details emerged.

And then we cannot forget TDs and Senators pronouncing “Renault”. It had everything: sponsors, cars for stars, Marty Morrissey.

The controversy spilt into July with that box-office day when Tubs and his agent appeared before the committees – the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in the morning and the media committee in the afternoon.

PAC chair Brian Stanley’s brilliantly incisive question to the talent agent, who said he used to work for Cadburys: “What were you selling for Cadburys?”

Noel Kelly shot him a look. “Cadburys? Chocolate.”

There were late-night document dumps, Moya Doherty’s beatific smile, Dee Forbes’s unfortunate silence, the constant repetition of questions by a stream of politicians.

Noel Kelly proclaimed: “This is not the Ryan Tubridy scandal. This is the RTÉ scandal. We acted under the instructions of RTÉ at all times.”

In his riveting opening statement, Ryan Tubridy shared “seven untruths” being told about him and his RTÉ pay.

What about the bewildered children of Ireland who are wondering why the Toy Man is in the news, Tubridy was asked. “My relationship with the children of Ireland is so important to me,” the Toy Man replied.

There were other revelations.

“Yes, the salary is enormous ... but that doesn’t affect my soul,” Tubs said.

“When a feather leaves a pillow, it’s very hard to get that back, and with my good name the feather has left the pillow,” he also said.

There was so much juicy detail. There is so much more to come. It can only be a matter of time before RTÉ the Musical hits the boards.

But looking back now on frenzied few months, it feels like the small world of politics and media went ever so mad as the bountiful revelations flooded in from Montrose.

The treatment of Ryan Tubridy in particular – complex payment arrangements or not, clunky statements or not – leaves a sour taste. He is a performer and he put on a professional if melodramatic performance before the committee.

Outside of it, he looked stricken and sounded dazed by the whirlwind happening around him. RTÉ made him and cosseted him and was his world from the time he was a teenager. His world turned upside down in a few crazy weeks. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how that must have felt.

He has moved to London now. New job with Virgin Radio. Television offers in the pipeline, apparently. It might be the best thing that ever happened to Ryan Tubridy.

Meanwhile, RTÉ’s most engrossing drama looks set to run and run well into next year.

September PT

The Dáil returned for business after all the usual political suspects put themselves about at the Ploughing Championships in a rain-sodden and muddy Ratheniska.

It was an equally dismal start to the final term in Kildare Street when far-right agitators and a motley collection of people angry with life, the Government and politicians in general protested outside the Dáil and earned themselves a satisfying lockdown of Leinster House for the day.

They brought along a home-made gallows and adorned it with pictures of party leaders and a wide selection of TDs.

A small group of swaggering loudmouths took up position at the St Stephen’s Green end, refusing people entry to Kildare Street and warning workers passing out through the barrier that they would not be readmitted. It was astonishing stuff.

During the day, some politicians and journalists who left Leinster House on foot were followed, verbally abused and jostled.

Gardaí, the frustration evident on many of their faces, followed instructions and left the pathetic little mob to their own devices. Later in the evening, they pushed their squeaky wheeled gallows with its dangling effigy around to the Merrion Street entrance. They blockaded the gates so TDs and Senators couldn’t drive out. The ensuing uproar led to promises of tougher action on disruptive protesters.

Meanwhile, the media committee met and did not discuss the RTÉ controversy. Hardly anyone attended.

Shocking details emerged about spinal surgery carried out in Crumlin children’s hospital.

October

Elaborate crowd control barriers became the norm in Kildare Street after September’s carry-on. But few protesters turned up to take the bare look off them. Even on Budget Day the streets were quiet.

Fine Gael’s Jennifer Carroll MacNeill had a pre-budget TV spat with Sinn Féin’s Padraig MacLochlainn. After she gave him an ear-bashing on the finer points of finance policy the Donegal TD remarked that Pearse Doherty would “be putting manners” on her in the Dáil.

The junior Minister and deputy for Dún Laoghaire followed up with a letter of complaint to his party leader Mary Lou McDonald over what she alleged was a “misogynistic comment”.

The PAC heard suggestions that the long-delayed new national children’s hospital might not receive patients until early 2026.

And the Government was said to be furious with HSE boss Bernard Gloster for briefing Opposition TDs and saying on radio that next year’s health budget wouldn’t be enough to fund the health service.

The ever-present problems in Health and Housing returned centre-stage to the Dáil chamber and they remain the most pressing issues for Government as elections loom.

Former Fine Gael minister and MEP Frances Fitzgerald announced she will not be contesting next year’s European elections.

November

The Taoiseach told the Dáil that Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews’s decision to sue Irish Times journalist Harry McGee was “frightening”. He said suing a journalist personally was only designed to do “one thing” and that was “to make journalists afraid – it’s designed to make them think twice about what they write, and I think it’s wrong”.

He was replying to Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns, who was concerned about the prevalence of strategic lawsuits against public participation.

[ Sinn Féin TDs may be asking themselves, did the motion of confidence in Helen McEntee backfire? ]

The Dáil continued to debate the Government’s response to the Hamas atrocity in Israel and Israel’s subsequent scorched earth onslaught on civilians in Gaza. But focus on the worsening war in the Middle East was derailed by events in Dublin city centre when the random stabbing of three children and their carer outside a school on Parnell Square sparked anti-immigrant protests that escalated into serious rioting in the capital. A double-decker bus was burned, a Luas tram was destroyed, shops were looted.

Dublin and the rest of the country was left in shock.

Sinn Féin quickly blamed Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and the Garda Commissioner for the failure to anticipate this outbreak of far right-driven violence and the inadequate initial response to the riot.

December

The call for resignations in the wake of the riots culminated in Sinn Féin tabling a motion of no confidence in the Minister for Justice. The party spent an unseemly amount of time deciding whether or not to seek a scalp until finally opting to go for McEntee.

All the faffing around only served to rally the Coalition troops while other Opposition politicians were loath to give any encouragement to the agitators by condemning a senior Minister.

The Sinn Féin strategy, which smacked of populism, went out with a whimper.

And Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was pranked by Russian hoaxsters posing as international diplomats hoping he would say something embarrassing. They had already duped a number of high-profile politicians, including Giorgia Meloni, Angela Merkel and Boris Johnson.

But Leo, who has a reputation for putting his foot in it, said nothing controversial to the comedians during a 13-minute call. Very well done.

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