The disclosure of an email to Ryan Tubridy’s agent has undermined attempts by senior RTE executives to distances themselves from the payments controversy, parliamentarians have been told.
Agent Noel Kelly described the email to him from former RTE chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe as a “shocking revelation” that directly contradicted the claim that ex-director general Dee Forbes had done a “solo run” by agreeing to underwrite a 75,000-euro-a-year deal involving RTE, Tubridy and Renault.
The disclosure was one of several made by Mr Kelly and Tubridy on Tuesday as they sought to challenge RTE claims around the 345,000 euro of misreported payments to the presenter.
They also rejected the suggestion that 120,000 of that total represented additional payments to Tubridy across the years 2017-19.
Tubridy and his agent instead contended that RTE incorrectly under-reported the agreed salary paid to the star across those years by a total of 120,000 as a way to “set off” a 120,000 euro loyalty payment that the presenter was due at the end of his contract, but did not ultimately claim for.
“There have been no overpayments of any sort,” said Tubridy.
He said all the issues related to the misreporting of payments to him were down to RTE’s “unfortunate accountancy errors”.
One of the most contentious aspects of the furore at the national broadcaster involves a tripartite agreement between RTE, Renault and Tubridy in 2020 that saw the star paid 75,000 euro a year in exchange for personal appearances for the motoring company.
In the first year, Renault paid the 75,000 euro to Tubridy – albeit it received a 75,000 euro credit off its sponsorship arrangement with RTE as a result.
More controversial was RTE’s decision to underwrite the agreement, meaning when Renault pulled out after the first year, the public service broadcaster picked up the tab for two 75,000 euro payments for 2021 and 2022.
The broadcaster also used a UK-based commercial “barter account” to make those two payments.
Last week Ms O’Keeffe told parliamentarians that when she left her role in March 2020, RTE’s position was that it would not underwrite the deal due to risks involved.
“My recollection is that Mr Tubridy’s agent requested that the commercial agreement be underwritten by RTE and this was refused,” she said.
She added: “I was not aware any guarantee had been issued until I heard about it last week in the media reports.”
On Tuesday, Mr Kelly revealed an email sent by Ms O’Keeffe in February 2020, cc’ing Ms Forbes and director of content Jim Jennings, that informed the agent of RTE’s willingness to “provide you with a side letter to underwrite this fee for the duration of the contract”.
Mr Kelly said the email directly contradicted Ms O’Keeffe’s own claims last week, and the further assertions of others in RTE around who was responsible for the underwriting.
“This is perhaps the most shocking revelation this morning,” Mr Kelly said.
“Since this controversy began, RTE has tried to distance themselves from this decision.
“Effectively they have blamed former director-general Dee Forbes for doing a solo run and for giving a verbal commitment to underwrite the contract on a Zoom call in May.”
Tubridy and Mr Kelly said they were not aware chat show sponsor Renault had withdrawn from the tripartite agreement after year one.
In response to questions from Fianna Fail TD Paul McAuliffe, Mr Kelly said “No, no idea”.
Mr Kelly was also asked why he had used the description “consultancy fees” on the invoices he raised for the 75,000 euro payments for 2021 and 2022 and not put Tubridy’s name on them.
He said he was following instructions from RTE and rejected any suggestion he colluded with the broadcaster to conceal the true nature of the payments.
“I think the lack of credibility is on RTE’s side,” he said.
Mr Kelly was challenged why he had not queried why the first invoice was paid by Renault but the second two by Astus, the UK company linked to the RTE barter account.
“We acted at all times on instructions from RTE,” he explained.
He added: “We trusted the process, why would we not trust the process?”
Mr Kelly has said it was the idea of RTE’s former commercial director Geraldine O’Leary to label invoices for payments due to Tubridy as “consultancy fees”.
The agent also rejected the suggestion that the deal with Renault was designed to compensate for the pay reduction Tubridy had signed up to with his new RTE broadcasting contract – a cut that amounted to 525,000 euro across five years.
“This was a separate contract for separate services,” he said.
Pressed on why he had sought the broadcaster to underwrite the annual 75,000 euro payments, Mr Kelly said the commitment was requested to ensure the arrangement would continue if the sponsor changed.
“I asked for the deal to be underwritten because the relationship with the sponsor is with RTE, it’s not with us,” he said.
Tubridy and Mr Kelly claimed they both thought the invoices that were paid from the UK-based barter account in 2022 were actually paid by Renault, given the first of the three invoices had been paid by the motoring company.
“That’s the misunderstanding,” said Mr Kelly.
On Tuesday, RTE rejected the claim that it gave an “incorrect version of events” to the Oireachtas over its agreement to underwrite payments.
The broadcaster said: “For clarity, the claim relates specifically to an email that was sent by the former CFO of RTE to NK Management (Noel Kelly’s company) on February 20 2020, which is being characterised as a contractual commitment on the part of RTE to underwrite the payments in question.
“RTE does not accept this characterisation.
“RTE’s position is that the email of February 20 2020 formed part of the discussions and engagement between it and NK Management in relation to the proposed new TV and radio contract with Mr Tubridy/Tuttle Productions and did not comprise a binding legal or contractual commitment on its part.
“RTE’s position is as per previous statements: That, until the verbal commitment given by the former director-general during the call on May 7 2020, it had not agreed to underwrite the 75,000 euro payment per contract year.”
During the Public Accounts Committee on Tuesday morning, Tubridy answered at length on the 120,000 euro of misreported payments between 2017 and 2019.
The star said RTE had cited “accountancy reasons” as an explanation as to why they were proposing to retrospectively underreport Tubridy’s actual salary across those years to offset the 120,000 end-of-contract payment that the presenter did not take up.
“And we said that this didn’t make any sense as we had neither invoiced, or received or refunded the 120. So how could it be deducted?” said Tubridy.
He suggested the approach was “kind of mad”.
“RTE’s proposed treatment of this would give the impression that I was being paid 120,000 euro less than I was actually paid.
“We made clear that the 120,000 should not be taken off or deducted for prior year actual earnings.”
He claimed RTE initially agreed with this argument but then latterly reverted to its original approach when it published the figures for RTE’s top 10 earners – figures that under-reported Tubridy’s salary by a total of 120,000 across three years.
“We were obviously very surprised to see that,” said Tubridy.
