Comedian Oliver Callan didn't shy away from the subject Ryan Tubridy's payment controversy with RTE as he filled in for him on his RTE Radio One Show on Friday Morning.
On Thursday RTE apologised for a “serious breach of trust with the public“ as it emerged that hidden payments of almost €350,000 were paid to top presenter Tubridy over a period of five years.
Ryan Tubridy has blamed RTE for failing to declare €345,000 paid to the top presenter – saying the error has nothing to do with him.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the RTE board said that between 2017 and 2022, Tubridy received a series of payments totalling €345,000 above his annual published salary, which were not declared to the public and the Oireachtas.
The payments were uncovered after the company's auditors alerted the board to some of the transactions.
Tubridy was missing from his usual radio show on Friday morning with comedian Oliver Callan stepping in which he usually does when Tubridy is unavailable.
Callan opened the show immediately addressing the controversy saying it was a "weird Friday", RSVP Live reports.
"A very good morning friends! It's Oliver Callan in for the next hour. It's Friday, a bit of a weird Friday, I must concede," the host admitted.
"This is the last place I expected to be less than 24 hours ago but here we are."
"The reasons are pretty obvious, especially as I get to the review of the newspapers because the usual presenter of the show is the subject of every single front page."
Oliver said he believed he would be doing a "disservice" by not covering the topic on the show saying: "The wider media, it has to be said, do enjoy a good old RTE scandal and boy, did RTE whip up and serve a cool one with a flake on top and sprinkles of shambles," he added.
Oliver also seemed to pay tribute to the "ordinary decent staff" at RTE.
"The text number, if I dare give it out this morning! We have a show for you, the ordinary, decent staff of the show have been working away for you, as they always do, very very early in the morning, so we are here to serve. Bearing in mind that they are at the receiving end of the messages here today.
"It's an RTE story, so on the one hand we could be accused of taking too much about ourselves, but if I ignored it this morning on this programme I'd be doing a disservice to you."
"For everyone involved yesterday it was like starring in a mini private episode of succession."
Former Late Late Show host Ryan voiced surprise at the announcement made by the station - but said the error has nothing to do with him.
In a statement he said: “Like many people, I’m surprised by the announcements made in RTÉ’s statement today regarding the errors in the reporting of its accounts.
“It is unfortunate that these errors are in relation to how RTÉ have reported payments made to me, but I just want to be clear: this is a matter for RTÉ and I have no involvement in RTÉ’s internal accounting treatment or RTÉ’s public declarations in connection with such payments. “
The father-of-two added that he was “disappointed” to be at the “centre of this story” but added he has no answers to the mistakes made.
“Obviously, I’m disappointed to be at the centre of this story but unfortunately, I can’t shed any light on why RTÉ treated these payments in the way that they did, nor can I answer for their mistakes in this regard.”
