RTÉ secret payment scandal

The RTÉ secret payment scandal[1][2][3][4][5] relates to events from late June 2023 onwards when Ireland's main public service broadcaster RTÉ first disclosed previously unknown arrangements concerning a leading presenter's pay, and in subsequent discussions, revelations about corporate entertainment for advertising clients, management numbers and high pay, and executive exit packages.

The celebrity talent agent Noel Kelly of NK Management negotiated the pay supplements and played a central role in funnelling them to Tubridy.

[12] Ironically, the scandal led large numbers of the Irish public to tune in to RTÉ News updates to follow the story as it developed.

[3][13] RTÉ is using the public relations firm Q4, co-founded by former Fianna Fáil general secretary Martin Mackin, who was briefly appointed to Seanad Éireann in 2002.

[16] In October 2020, RTÉ Director General Dee Forbes told employees that the broadcaster would be looking for more redundancies in January 2021, as it "must now begin planning a series of initiatives" to deal with a "persistent gap" between its income and expenses.

[28][29] It was also confirmed that Forbes had resigned her position on the board of GAAGO, the subscription-based sports channel for Gaelic games which she was heavily involved in establishing.

[31] On 27 June, RTÉ Acting Director General Adrian Lynch released a nine-page statement, alongside the Grant Thornton report, stating that no member of the Executive Board other than director general Forbes could have known figures publicly declared for Tubridy could have been wrong and that external legal advice found there was "no illegality" and "payments were made pursuant to an agreed contract", adding that while RTÉ Director of Content Jim Jennings signed off on the payments deal, he was "not aware" the broadcaster was "underwriting" any payments that were now under scrutiny and that there was "no finding of wrongdoing" against Tubridy or the commercial partner involved in what happened.

RTÉ Board chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh stated that she asked Director General Dee Forbes to resign but that this request was not accepted at the time.

RTÉ Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins refused to say what he was earning, then admitted to a base salary of €200,000 with an additional €25,000 car allowance.

[11] Past and present members of the RTÉ Executive Board met the Oireachtas Committee on Media the following afternoon for a second consecutive Wednesday.

New documents given to the committee showed that RTÉ had used its barter accounts to spend €1.6 million on client entertainment and corporate hospitality over the previous 10 years, paying out hundreds of thousands of euro for alcohol, Ireland jerseys, golf outings, cinema screenings, balloons, lavish hotel stays, client dinners in top restaurants and dozens of match and concert tickets, as well as nearly €5,000 on 200 pairs of flip flops for a summer party.

[45] In an email to staff the following morning, Bakhurst stood down the Executive Board and replaced it with an interim leadership team,[46] meanwhile RTÉ Director of Commercial Geraldine O'Leary announced her early retirement with immediate effect.

[47] On 11 July, Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly appeared before two Oireachtas committee meetings, which heard that Tubridy had endured a "tortuous", "chaotic" and "destructive" three weeks during which his name and reputation were "sullied", that he had become "the face of a national scandal; accused of being complicit, deceitful and dishonest" and blamed RTÉ with creating a "fog of confusion over what I was paid and when I was paid, what I knew, and when I knew".

[52][53] Soon after the news broke, presenters Claire Byrne, Joe Duffy and Miriam O'Callaghan all confirmed that their most recently published salaries were correct.

Two days later, this was raised at the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where Fanning's reference to a "nonsensical Oireachtas Nuremberg trial" was put to newly appointed RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst, who was asked "how this is appropriate... A person who is paid by the taxpayer – through his agent [Noel Kelly] – on RTÉ saying, effectively, what the Public Accounts Committee are doing..." Bakhurst responded by stating that Fanning's remarks were "not appropriate".

[70] However, in early 2009, Tubridy refused to take a pay-cut (even when colleagues such as Pat Kenny and Marian Finucane agreed to salary cuts), and he attracted criticism for this decision.

[68] Kelly, who maintains a low profile, runs NK Management, and has been a controversial figure since at least 2011, when he claimed that some of his clients might not be able to afford a second car if RTÉ reduced their wages.

At that time, Noel Kelly had 46 clients in his "celebrity portfolio", including RTÉ's Tubridy, Joe Duffy, Gráinne Seoige, Claire Byrne, Dave Fanning, Virgin Media's Sinéad Desmond, Martin King and Karen Koster, as well as Bernard Dunne and Patrick Bergin.

[73] Kelly and NK Management are also involved in activities in the UK, with clients including Craig Doyle, Diarmuid Gavin and Erin O'Connor.

[76] Mazars were unable to identify any benefit to RTÉ in exercising the option to make purchases through barter media agencies "rather than cashing out on the available trade credit balance".

[84] On 14 February 2024, Director General Kevin Bakhurst confirmed at an Oireachtas Media Committee hearing that former RTÉ Chief Financial Officer Breda O'Keeffe was paid €450,000 when she left the organisation.

[86] Early the next morning, Ní Raghallaigh resigned as chair of the RTÉ Board, saying it was "abundantly clear" she no longer had the confidence of Minister Martin.

[87] Ní Raghallaigh later broke her silence and hit back at Minister Martin around what she described as her "enforced dismissal" designed to "traduce" her reputation.