Chair of the RTÉ Board Siún Ní Raghallaigh said the broadcaster has "signed off" on its annual accounts - the auditing of which first flagged payment issues - and she assumes that they will be published "in the next few days".

Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee at RTÉ, Anne O'Leary (pictured), said that it was normal for "Richie Howard of Deloitte" to contact her for work relating to their auditing of RTÉ accounts.

It was not unusual that he contacted her on the St Patrick's Day weekend, she told Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon.

Mr Howard expressed concern over two invoices and he "had no real explanation for them", she said.

As he also said that there were "potentially other issues there as well", she thought "the easiest thing was to move Deloitte aside, and put in Grant Thornton".

Ms O'Leary brought ths issue to the Audit and Risk committee "two days later" and also spoke to RTÉ Legal Director Paula Mullooly.

She "chased up" Grant Thornton "probably once a week" to check on progress.

Grant Thornton "got terms of reference yesterday", and their report will take four weeks, she added.

RTÉ's Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins said that he has taken "an overview" of the barter account looking at "the bigger transactions" and can not see any unauthorised payments, but it will be now examined in detail in the coming weeks.

RTÉ's Commercial Director Geraldine O'Leary said there are no other barter payments "in relation to talent".

She said that, in 2021, the DG spoke to her "on a number of occasions about whether there was another commercial deal that could be done, and my answer was 'No'".

In 2022 "she spoke to me a number of times", Ms O'Leary said.

"She was my boss", she said, asked about the nature of their relationship.

"I had no undertsanding that there was any motivation that these were secret payments", Ms O'Leary said.

"I had no reason to doubt the DG's intention."

Mr Dillon said that she should have talked to the board given that she was aware the money was to be paid to a star.

To fail to do so was a failure in corporate governance.

"I had no idea what the 75 grand represented as part of Ryan Tubridy's overall earnings," she insisted.

Interim Deputy Director General Adrian Lynch said that the relationship between members of the executive board "was quite siloed".

Given we have had two "casualties" (Dee Forbes and Ryan Tubridy), Mr Dillon asked if any other members of the board have reflected on their position.