RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy has apologised to the Oireachtas, to his colleagues and to his listeners over what he termed a "fog of confusion" over payments to him.
He told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that his decision to step down as the host of The Late Late Show was not linked to the controversy as he only became aware of an issue in May, months after making the announcement.
Mr Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly appeared before the PAC this morning, ahead of a separate appearance in front of the Oireachtas Committee on Media.
Mr Tubridy told the PAC he was "particularly upset and disappointed" about RTÉ linking his name to what he described as a "fiasco", making him "the face of a national scandal".
Scrutiny of governance and financial affairs at RTÉ began after it admitted that fees paid to Mr Tubridy had been underdeclared by €345,000 over a six-year period.
RTÉ executives subsequently explained that the sponsor of RTÉ's Late Late Show programme, Renault, paid Mr Tubridy €75,000 in 2020 under a tripartite deal, but then pulled out of the arrangement.
Two €75,000 payments made to Mr Tubridy for the years 2021 and 2022 were made by RTÉ as it had underwritten the amounts due to Mr Tubridy, in what TDs were told was a verbal agreement made on a Microsoft Teams meeting in May 2020.
Grant Thornton is probing the amounts that RTÉ said led to Mr Tubridy's fees from 2017-2019 being underdeclared. This report is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
On the Renault deal, Mr Tubridy told the committee that he had a separate commercial agreement with Renault, where he would make public appearances and perform roadshows for them.
He rejected the notion that there was a "secret agreement" with Renault that he tried to "conceal".
"Everyone in RTÉ who needed to know knew. Far from being secret, it was well known," he said.
Pay cut
During his opening statement to the PAC, Mr Tubridy rejected the claim that he did not take a pay cut from RTÉ in 2020. "This is not true," he told the committee.
"I took a pay cut from RTÉ of 20% in 2020 for each of the five years of my contract, at a cost of €525,000 to me over the length of that contract," he added.
Challenging Mr Tubridy's claim, Labour's Alan Kelly said there was no 20% drop in salary, and to say so has zero credibility, referring to the earnings from the deal with Renault, which RTÉ had underwritten.
Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster said that "we know that that pay cut was subsidised", when at the time, Mr Tubridy said he was taking it without rancour.
Green Party TD Marc Ó Cathasaigh asked if the €75,000 payment was included in the pay cut.
Mr Kelly said the €75,000 was separate.
"Everything to do with this contract was under instruction from RTÉ but the contracts and payment was with Renault," Mr Kelly said.
Mr Tubridy said pay cuts were taken down through the years since 2012. "I really tried not to shirk my responsibility in that regard."
Questions not asked at the time - Tubridy
Mr Tubridy also rejected the claim that he was overpaid by RTÉ. He said he was "paid fully in accordance with my contract, which my agent negotiated openly, honestly and in good faith."
"There are no over-payments," he insisted.
Mr Tubridy said he is "very very well-paid" and that he will deal with the understandable anger of colleagues over the controversy.
He added that the upshot of RTÉ's "inaccurate declarations" is an impression that he has "been less than honest. This is not the case."
Mr Tubridy then claimed he was not aware that RTÉ were "concealing payments" to him. He pointed out that RTÉ acknowledge this in their statement on 27 June when they "stated that Grant Thornton had made no findings against me".
Ryan Tubridy said he regretted not asking more questions when the under declarations of his earnings were released.
"This is a question I did not ask at that time, and one I should have asked. I fully accept that," Mr Tubridy said.
But he says that he did raise the matter with the national broadcaster subsequently.
Furthermore, Mr Tubridy said that he did not take a €120,000 loyalty payment.
"I actually waived my entitlement to this payment, and I didn't receive one cent of it. I hid nothing. I had nothing to hide."
Asked if he is currently employed by RTÉ, Mr Tubridy said "my understanding is I am still in contract with RTÉ" and "my hope is to go back to work".
Also appearing before the committee was Ryan Tubridy's agent Noel Kelly, who said that Mr Tubridy "has been made the poster boy for this scandal".
In his opening statement to the PAC, Mr Kelly said this has been the worst of times adding this is not the Ryan Tubridy scandal it is the RTÉ scandal.
On the Renault contract, Mr Kelly said it is perhaps the most shocking revelation with RTÉ's decision to underwrite this.
He said the contract ran parallel to the 2020 contract which Mr Tubridy has with RTÉ. This did not strike them as unusual as Renault was a key sponsor for RTÉ, Mr Kelly said.
Mr Kelly said since this controversy began, RTÉ has tried to distance themselves from this decision.
"RTÉ executives have said how there was a strong "push-back" against the idea of underwritng the agreement. That is incorrect."
He referred to the then Chief Financial Officer Breda O'Keeffe and an email which she sent to his office dated 20 February 2020.
He said it is copied to another member of the executive board, the then Director General and RTÉ's solicitor.
"In this email Ms O’Keeffe responds to various points we had been discussing. She states at the top of the email that this is "our final position" in respect of the new contract."
"On the last paragraph on that page Ms O’Keeffe, on behalf of RTÉ, states explicitly that we can provide you with a side letter to underwrite this fee for the duration of the contract."
In a statement RTÉ disputed Mr Kelly and Mr Tubridy's interpretation of the February 2020 email.
"RTÉ does not accept this characterisation. RTÉ's position is that the email of 20 February 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.
"RTÉ’s position is as per previous statements: that, until the verbal commitment given by the former Director General during the call on 7 May 2020, it had not agreed to underwrite the €75,000 payment per contract year."
Mr Kelly said he provided 39 pages of documents to the PAC, including excerpts from Mr Tubridy's 2015 and 2020 contracts with RTÉ, extracts from the accounts of Mr Tubridy's company, and various emails which track the negotiations for the 2020 RTÉ contract and the Renault contract.
Mr Kelly said Mr Tubridy's 2015 contract clearly states the fees he was to receive in each of the following five years. "He received those fees exactly. Nothing more. Nothing less."
Read more:
Live: Updates as they happen
Documents provided to committees
Noel Kelly's opening remarks to the committee
7 points that PAC wishes to raise with Tubridy and Kelly
New documents supplied by RTÉ to the PAC suggest that four people participated in the meeting in May 2021 at which RTÉ agreed to underwrite a tripartite deal between Renault and Mr Tubridy.
A letter from the RTÉ Solicitors' Office on 19 April 2023 references the video meeting on 7 May 2021.
It states it was attended by Ms Forbes, Mr Kelly, the unnamed solicitor, and a fourth person whose name is redacted.
The letter goes onto state: "It was confirmed at that meeting by Dee Forbes on behalf of RTÉ that in consideration of the new agreement, RTÉ guarantees the payments required to be made by Renault under the tripartite agreement and indemnifies Tuttle Productions Limited [Ryan Tubridy's company] in relation to these payments for the duration of the contract."
On the documents handed over to the PAC, Fianna Fáil TD James O'Connor said the 39-page document was submitted this morning at 8.23am, shortly before PAC started private deliberations.
It is not "physically possible" to prepare, he said.
Additional reporting: PA
