Ryan Tubridy has officially been called to Leinster House to face a grilling over €345,000 of secret payments made to him.
If he does not come voluntarily, the Dáil has already given powers to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to compel him and others to appear. And if he still doesn’t appear, the Houses of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Act 2013 provides stiff sanctions, including jail of up to five years, massive fines of up to half a million euros, or both.
€500,000 is roughly what Mr Tubridy has been getting paid annually in recent years. PAC chairman made the callout to Mr Tubridy and other ex-executives from RTE, including the last chief, Dee Forbes, during a Dail debate on Tuesday evening.
He said: “As Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, I’m calling for a further six witnesses to attend the committee.
“They are Director General Dee Forbes, Former DG Noel Curran, Ryan Tubridy, his agent Noel Kelly, former CEO Breda O’Keefe and Director of Content Jim Jennings.
“Invites will be sent this week and we expect all six individuals to attend. Their knowledge of what has occurred at RTE for many years is invaluable to our investigation and we believe they have questions to answer.”
Mr Stanley added: “If they refuse to attend, we will use our powers to compel them. But they should do the decent thing as current and former public servants, just show up."
“Last week, it was announced that there would be a reconstitution of the board. We need to know what that will look like.
“Existing executives need to step down. When did Tubridy know that this story was going to break?
“Did someone in RTE leak that information to him before March 17th? Did the barter account circumvent Irish VAT for the two payments in 2020 for services provided by Ryan Tubridy?
"Has this been alerted to Revenue for review? What are the origins of the other funds in the slush fund?”
The PAC must give time to the witnesses to prepare for an appearance, so it will not be this week when they will attend. However, current executives will appear at the Oireachtas media committee’s second probe into the issues at RTE on Wednesday afternoon.
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