A bombshell report into the circumstances surrounding the secret payments to Ryan Tubridy has firmly placed former RTE Director General Dee Forbes in the firing line.
RTE issued a lengthy 3,000-word statement from interim RTE Director General Adrian Lynch based on the findings of an independent Grant Thornton report on Tuesday evening, which can be read in full here.
According to the RTE statement, the report found no illegalities and no "wrongdoing on the part of Ryan Tubridy" in relation to any undisclosed payments made by RTÉ.
The payments of an extra €75,000 a year on top of his salary were made in deals not publicly declared, known as a 'Tri-partite Agreement' between RTE, Ryan Tubridy’s agent NK Management and a commercial partner, Renault.
The statement claims that ex-RTE Director General Dee Forbes was the only person who could have known that Ryan Tubridy's published salary was wrong over the last five years in RTE.
Here is a breakdown of the main points from the RTE statement:
What happened?
The RTE statement states that Ryan Tubridy’s contract was due to expire in 2020 and RTE wanted to introduce wider cost-saving measures, particularly among the top 10 earners of RTE.
They negotiated a new five-year contract for the years 2020 to 2025 with Ryan Tubridy's agent with a 15% pay cut for the presenter. In addition, there was a commercial agreement, known as the ‘Tri-partite Agreement’, negotiated between RTE, Ryan Tubridy’s agent and Renault in early 2020.
The separate 'Tri-partite Agreement' stated that Tubridy would be paid €75,000 per year in exchange for personal appearances up to a "maximum of three events" - however, these were impacted by Covid.
The arrangement was subject to a condition that it was to be cost neutral for the commercial partner, Renault, so RTE issued a credit note which in effect reduced the cost of their overall sponsorship by €75,004.
Ryan Tubridy’s agent wanted a guarantee that Tubridy would be paid the €75,000 each year so it was agreed that RTE would underwrite the terms of the commercial arrangement.
The former RTE Director General, Dee Forbes, agreed to underwrite this however, today's statement claims "there had been significant push back by RTÉ" in relation to this aspect.
After the first year, the commercial partner, Renault, who sponsor the Late Late Show, chose not to renew the commercial deal which resulted in RTE being liable to pay the €75,000 to Ryan Tubridy instead.
RTE paid the money for 2021 and 2022 in the year 2022 when Tubridy's agent issued two invoices for the sum of €75,000 each on 9 May 2022 and 6 July 2022 to the Barter Company.
These invoices were paid via a UK barter account and were labelled with the description ‘Consultancy Fees’ and make no reference to Ryan Tubridy.
Ryan Tubridy’s salary is subsequently reported on RTE’s top 10 talent list for 2020 and 2021, as €466,250 and €440,00 respectively, without reference to the €75,000 per year paid to him by the commercial partner and RTE.
Tuesday's statement doesn’t address the underreporting of Ryan Tubridy's earnings from 2017 - 2019 as they are being reviewed in a separate report.
Ryan Tubridy had ‘no wrongdoing’ in relation to payments, report finds
The RTE statement states that The Grant Thornton report "makes no finding of wrongdoing on the part of Ryan Tubridy in relation to any payments made by RTÉ".
In the Grant Thornton report, Tubridy’s agent states that Tubridy was not involved in making the commercial deal, "Sponsorship agreements between Commercial Brands and RTÉ were entered into by the Commercial team in RTÉ and that these agreements did not include the Talent" - i.e. Ryan Tubridy.
It also states: "Ryan Tubridy was not aware of the credit note provided by RTÉ to the commercial partner."
Who is being held accountable?
The RTE statement states that no one else other than the then RTE Director General Dee Forbes knew the full details of payments at the time.
However, RTE outlined in the statement that as a former employee, she has not had the opportunity to respond to the details set out in the statement and "may therefore challenge or disagree with our understanding and position".
On page five of the RTE statement it claims that Dee Forbes was the only person who could have known that Ryan Tubridy's published salary was wrong over the last five years in RTE.
It states: “No member of the RTÉ Executive Board, other than the Director General, had all the necessary information in order to understand that the publicly declared figures for Ryan Tubridy could have been wrong.”
RTE admits it should have disclosed €75,000 as part of Tubridy's yearly earnings
In the RTE statement, the broadcaster admits they should have disclosed the €75,000 Tubridy received from the commercial agreement as part of his published earnings.
It states: "RTÉ issued the credit note to the commercial partner in July 2020 which should have been publicly disclosed as part of Ryan Tubridy’s earnings for that year."
In today's statement RTE Director General Adrian Lynch also issued another apology for the misstating of Ryan Tubridy's earnings, saying: "This has been a serious breach of trust with the public, the Oireachtas and RTÉ staff. I, as Deputy Director General, on behalf of the RTÉ Executive, would like to again apologise unreservedly."
What is the ‘Tri-partite Agreement’?
Ryan Tubridy's agent negotiated a deal where Tubridy would receive payment to the value of €75,000 per year via a commercial deal.
The commercial sponsor, Renault, would pay Tubridy that money in return for a credit note from RTE of the same value, making it cost neutral for the commercial partner.
RTÉ agreed to underwrite the commercial agreement which would guarantee payment to Tubridy in the event the commercial sponsor did not pay.
Tubridy got paid by Renault in 2021 for the year 2020 however, Renault decided not to renew the contract after the first year meaning that RTE were required to pay the remainder directly to Tubridy.
€75,000 payments 'underwritten' by RTE
The agreement to 'underwrite' and guarantee the €75,000 was approved by the former RTE Director General.
A verbal guarantee was given during a Microsoft Teams meeting on May 7, 2020 between Tubridy’s agent, Dee Forbes and an RTÉ solicitor that RTÉ would underwrite the commercial agreement.
This means that RTE would be obliged to step in and pay Tubridy the €75,000 a year in the event the commercial sponsor did not pay.
Today's statement states that "this final aspect had been sought by the Agent throughout the negotiations and there had been significant push back by RTÉ".
Invoices to UK Barter Account
A barter account is used in accounting to track the exchange of goods or services for other goods or services at their euro value.
On May 9, 2022 and July 6, 2022, there were two invoices of €75,000 raised by Ryan Tubridy’s Agent to a UK barter account for ‘Consultancy Fees’.
The report found, "the two invoices issued by the Talent’s Agent did not mention the Talent’s [Ryan Tubridy's] name."
The report found that: "RTÉ could have made the two payments of €75,000 by an alternative means, for example, payment from RTÉ to Talent’s Agent or Talent’s company".
Why were the payments called ‘Consultancy Fees’?
The two invoices had the description ‘Consultancy Fees’ however, the Grant Thornton report found that "the description on the invoices, “Consultancy Fees” did not reflect the substance of the transactions" as neither Tubridy or his agent provided consultancy services to RTE.
The report did not find who coined the words ‘Consultancy Fees’ to describe the secret payments, stating: "The evidence is inconclusive as to who came up with the phrase “Consultancy Fees”.
When Director General Dee Forbes was questioned about the use of the phrase, she said it could have been used due to "confidentiality around the contract".
The report said: “When meeting with the Director General, I asked whether she thought that the description “consultancy fees” was a reasonable description for the Talent’s Agent to be using on its invoice. The Director General advised me that she did not recall the conversations around it and that she could probably understand why they might have used this phrase because of confidentiality around the contract."
