RTÉ must publish four internal reports immediately

RTÉ must publish the four reports and investigations awaited from the Ryan Tubridy pay saga, a Fine Gael TD has said.

Deputy Alan Dillon, who serves on the Media and Public Accounts Committee, said the controversy is being allowed to continue into a third month to the detriment of all concerned.

Both Oireachtas committees have heard from the highest paid RTÉ presenter, his agent and numerous board members from the national broadcaster.

“TV licence revenue is collapsing and 1,800 people are employed at RTÉ. At the same time, we are left awaiting numerous reports which we have been promised for weeks at this stage,” Deputy Dillon said.

“The only way we can move on from this is to rebuild trust and that cannot happen until we have a clear and accurate picture of what occurred at the publicly funded national broadcaster which received €196m in TV licence fees in 2021.

The outstanding miscellaneous investigations concerning RTÉ include:

• the Grant Thornton interim report 2017 to 2019.
• Internal RTÉ review into Tubridy payments 2017 to 2019
• Report into Toy Show – The Musical
• Report into the voluntary exit schemes in 2017 & 2021

“All bar the latest RTÉ annual report which Media Minister Catherine Martin has had for several weeks are under the commission of RTÉ. We need to have all of these published immediately in the public interest,” the Mayo TD said.

“Minister Martin also needs to publish the latest RTÉ annual report and audited accounts,” he added.

A register of interests is also due to happen at RTÉ. Deputy Dillon said this should be set up and published for the end of Q3 2023.

“Last month, it was announced that the then incoming Director General Kevin Bakhurst was to develop a comprehensive register of interest of RTÉ staff and contractors. This work needs to be completed in a timely fashion,” he said.

Mr Dillon repeated his call to have a hearing of all the key players at a Oireachtas committee.

“Central to getting the answers to all of this is to have everyone, all the key figures at the same time, in a Public Accounts committee meeting.

“I have written to the clerk of the PAC for RTÉ to furnish us with the internal review of Mr Tubridy’s previously stated renumerations for 2017-19 which arose after Grant Thornton 1.

“I asked RTÉ for this document on June 28^th at the very first hearing of the media committee.

“At a previous Public Accounts Committee hearing, RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst indicated he would be open to another committee meeting with presenter Ryan Tubridy also present.

“So let’s get the relevant material published and all key players back in so we can hear from all on the one day. Obviously, there has been health issues for some but if time allows, perhaps they too can attend.

“We need to hear from all in the one setting; presenter Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly, RTÉ DG Kevin Bakhurst, former DG Dee Forbes, Deputy Director Adrian Lynch, RTÉ CFO Richard Collins, former RTÉ CFO Breda O’Keeffe, RTÉ Director of Content Jim Jennings, RTÉ Chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh, former Chair Moya Doherty and anyone else with skin in the game here,“ Deputy Dillon said.