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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Olivia Kelleher

'Nobody shouted stop at RTE as they made very bad decision over Ryan Tubridy pay deal'

Finance Minister Michael McGrath has warned that RTE can't "hold anything back, warts and all" and needs to be put all of the "relevant information" on the table about the deal it made with Ryan Tubridy.

Speaking in Cork, Minister McGrath urged RTE to be as open and transparent as possible.

"Those are questions which have yet to be answered and I do think need to be urgently answered by RTE. We haven't seen RTE yet meet the standard of full openness and transparency.

Read More: Leo Varadkar says some RTE payments 'may have been on the wrong side of the law'

"It is hard to believe that they don't have the information. A proper trawl through the records would reveal essentially what happened here. There seems to be lots of people with bits of information, but nobody able to tell the whole story.

Those who have more information are duty bound to come before the relevant committees to tell their story because we have to put this jigsaw together. And so far there are gaps. The information is incomplete."

Minister McGrath stressed that Ireland has "established processes in place" for considering whether there has been a breach of accountancy rules or company law matters at RTE.

"I think we should just allow the authorities concerned to consider whether or not there is sufficient evidence for them to become involved in this matter.

"But in the first instance I think we still have a journey to go to get all of the answers that are needed. I think the only way through this for RTE is to put all of the information on the table and just reveal everything."

Minister McGrath added that RTE made a "very bad decision" to enter in to this pay arrangement with Ryan Tubridy.

"It would appear that nobody shouted ‘stop’ for a number of years. I understand that the Media committee, and indeed the Public Accounts Committee, have further questions that they will want to have answered so I think we need to allow that process to take its course.

"But RTE need to put all of the relevant information on the table, not hold anything back warts and all. It is the only way they will be able to eventually move on. I would ask them to be as open and transparent as possible because there is a lot of public concern about what has emerged, a lot of information was provided over the course of nine hours of committee hearings over two days.

"That will have to be sifted through and considered. But I think some questions undoubtedly remain unanswered including fundamentally how did this arrangement in relation to Ryan Tubridy’s fees get designed, how did it come in to being in the first place?

RTE board members and executives (left to right) Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins, staff representative to the board Robert Shortt, RTE Interim Deputy Director General Adrian Lynch, RTE Chairperson of the board Siun Ni Raghallaigh, Strategy Director Rory Coveney , board member Anne O'Leary and RTE Commercial Director Geraldine O'Leary leave the Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media at Leinster House, Dublin, on the controversy around Ryan Tubridy's misreported salary payments (Brian Lawless/PA Wire)

"And then the way in which it was reported in the accounts….how it was accounted for internally? And why was it for a number of years his actual earnings were not accurately reported in the published figures?"

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