RTÉ presenter Ryan Tubridy has told the Oireachtas Committee on Media he is willing to return €150,000 to RTÉ if corporate events for Renault he was paid to host do not take place.
The money was paid by RTÉ to Mr Tubridy after the broadcaster guaranteed the payment in an agreement with Mr Tubridy in 2020.
"The reality with that is... that is referring to six outstanding appearances that were to be made for Renault," Mr Tubridy said.
"I chose to leave the Late Late Show... but there's still outstanding work to be done. If that work is not called upon to be done, of course the money goes back."
Mr Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly were answering questions before the Oireachtas Committee on Media, after appearing as witnesses before the Public Accounts Committee earlier.
Speaking in relation to his RTÉ Radio One programme, Mr Tubridy said it is "touch and go" whether he keeps his job.
When asked whether he is being paid by RTÉ, Mr Tubridy said he was, but when asked what the terms of his agreement with RTÉ were, Mr Tubridy said "I could be out of a job by Friday."
However, RTÉ Director General Kevin Bakhurst has said Mr Tubridy will not be out of a job "by the end of this week."
"This is a big decision for me and for RTÉ and it needs to be properly considered," Mr Bakhurst told Newstalk's The Hard Shoulder programme.
He suspected a decision would probably be made in a matter of weeks.
Mr Bakhurst said RTÉ needs to bear a "lot of responsibility" and that "untold damage" had been caused to RTÉ the short to medium term.
However, he said he was not sure RTÉ was fully to blame. "There was more than one party to this agreement," Mr Bakhurst said.
Mr Tubridy offered to publish his contract on an annual basis as part of the "cathartic" process going on within the broadcaster.
The presenter also said he had waived a €120,000 loyalty payment at the end of his 2015-2019 contract because he had not carried out additional work for RTÉ, although he had made himself availbale for it.
Fianna Fáil's Christopher O'Sullivan asked if Mr Tubridy accepts that he had not taken a 20% pay cut given the two €75,000 payments he received from RTÉ, after Renault pulled out of the arrangement.
Mr Tubridy said he thought the money was coming in from Renault.
"We thought it was a side, a total different agreement entirely, an independent contracted agreement that Renault was paying for," he said.
"That is what I was told. I had to accept that for what it is."
Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster also asked Mr Tubridy if he accepts that he did not take a 20% pay cut given the tripartite agreement.
"I understand why that perception is out," he said.
"We have tried very hard to explain being paid separately by Renault and then RTÉ and trying to explain the accumulation of pay cuts, of 40% pay cuts since 2012."
Mr Tubridy has said that it "strikes me as being unorthodox" that RTÉ paid two €75,000 payments to him after a sponsor pulled out of a tripartite deal.
"I'm not here to be critical of RTÉ," he told the media committee..
"I've been working there since I was 12 years old, you know, it's a very important place to me, but I have to defend myself.
"The new director general of RTE has asked for maximum transparency. That's what he said in the last 48 hours. That's why I'm here."
Mr O'Sullivan asked Mr Kelly about the way in which two €75,000 invoices were labelled as consultancy fees and paid through a barter account.
Mr Kelly said he had no knowledge of the barter arrangement nor was he consulted on it.
"I'd never come across a barter system before this," he said. "We didn't know who Astus [a barter account] was."
Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon asked was it strange that there was a request not to put a person's name on the invoice, to which Mr Kelly said "no, we were just acting under instructions".
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At this morning's Public Accounts Committee, Mr Tubridy said that his decision to step down as host of the Late Late Show was not linked to this controversy, because he only became aware there was an issue in May, months after making the announcement.
Mr Tubridy told the PAC he was truly sorry for any part he played in the payments controversy, but said full transparency and disclosure on RTÉ's part - would simply have avoided a lot of it.
He insisted he has been dragged into a mess not of his own making.
Mr Tubridy told TDs of his upset and how it is hard to leave the house these days in the aftermath of what he described as a frenzy.
But he spoke of being hopeful that he could get back on air to do the job that he loves.
He told the meeting that it is obvious that he has a "beef" with some people in RTÉ but he still sees his future there.
Asked if he would accept that RTÉ created an arrangement to bolster his income with the €75,000 payments through an agreement with Renault which it underwrote; Mr Tubridy said he cannot "accept it as a matter of fact" saying as an independent contractor "you do different jobs" for different people.
The presenter is adamant that everyone in RTÉ who needed to know details of his contracts and earnings did know.
But he said he was truly sorry for not asking more questions when his income was published in January 2021.
His agent Noel Kelly said this has been the worst of times adding this is not the Ryan Tubridy scandal, it is the RTÉ scandal.
