RTÉ offered to include Ryan Tubridy's foregone "exit fee" of €120,000 due at the end of 2019, as part of his new proposed five-year contract from 2020.
So while it was waived at the end of 2019, RTÉ proposed to factor it back into his next contract, from 2020 onwards.
An annex to the second Grant Thornton report published on Wednesday, shows that the outline proposal for the new contract offered to pay the "exit fee" - or "loyalty fee" - in series of €24,000 instalments over five years.
When it came to working out his new salary for 2020 the report also shows that the "loyalty fee" was factored back into his base salary as part of the outline offer in December 2019.
While Mr Tubridy has stated he waived the lump sum due to him in 2019 and RTÉ’s former Chief Financial Officer Breda O’Keeffe is reported as describing not paying the "exit fee" as a "real saving" for RTÉ, the outline contract proposal for 2020 sent to NK management, Mr Tubridy's agent, and internally within RTÉ was proposing the payment should form part of his new contract.
Annex 1 of the report reproduces an internal RTÉ email from 18 December 2019. It contains a spreadsheet titled 'Desired outcomes for New Contract’ showing that €120,000 was listed as "exit fee foregone" to be paid from 2020 onwards, over five years at €24,000 per annum.
This was in addition to Mr Tubridy’s new salary, which was calculated on the basis of a 15% discount of on his previous five years average salary, plus a loyalty fee due over that period.
For reasons unexplained, an email with an almost identical spreadsheet was sent a day later on 19 December 2019 by Ms Breda O’Keefe to NK Management, Mr Tubridy’s agent, making him the same contract offer, but itemising the additional €120,000 to his proposed salary, as a "cross platform loyalty fee."
As we know from other details in the Grant Thornton report, contract negotiations went on for the months after this, so it’s not clear what was in the final contract offered.
In addition, given that Mr Tubridy’s 2020 contract terminated early in March 2023, due to his departure from the Late Late Show, he would only have been eligible for three payments of €24,000 per annum.
In the annex entitled "My Analysis of the Proposal re New Tubridy Contract," the report’s author, Paul Jacobs, Partner and Head of the Forensic & Investigation Services at Grant
Thornton, highlights how the exit fee made its way twice into the 2020 contract outline proposal as set out in mid-December 2019.
Mr Jacob’s illustrates how, if Mr Tubridy had taken a 15% pay cut, as was promised by the former Director-General Dee Forbes for all top earners at the time, his salary for 2020 would have been €446,250 without the exit fee. This was his average salary for the previous five years, minus the exit fee.
But the overall proposed contract offer was for €495,000 in December 2019.
The report’s author sets out how the higher figure was arrived at.
Added to the proposed €446,650 annual salary was €20,400 (the exit fee, with a 15% discount) and €24,000 (his "exit fee foregone" over 5 years) which brought his proposed annual contract offer up to €490,650. Mr Jacobs suggests in his analysis that this amount was then "rounded up" to €495,000 as the proposed contract offer.
He concludes that "the €495,000 recognises the exit fee twice."
In summary, it means that that the "exit fee" was first factored back into Mr Tubridy’s overall pay for the purposes of working out his new salary, with a 15% discount, even though it had been waived.
Secondly, it was added back into the proposal for his 2020 contract, as the "exit fee foregone" which was to be spread out over coming years to be paid back in instalments of €24,000.
Further details of Mr Tubridy’s 2020 contract offer break down the €495,000 into €420,000 as an "RTÉ fee per annum" and €75,000 as a "Commercial deal with 3rd party facilitated by RTÉ." This, we know, is the Renault deal where RTÉ ended up bearing the cost of this deal over three years.
We also know from the revised figures for Mr Tubridy’s salary given by RTÉ in June this year, the ultimate cost of the new contract to RTÉ was €522,500 in 2020 and €515,000 in 2021.
Mr Jacob states "It appears that the RTÉ component of the €495,000 being €420,000 actually became €440,000. I note that €440,000 plus €75,000 equals to €515,000."
When asked by Prime Time to comment on the details of the outline proposal for his 2020 contract, containing the exit fee, a spokesperson for Mr Tubridy declined to comment.
On the release of the report on Wednesday, he stated that he "welcomed the report’s findings that I did not claim €120,000 in fees which was due to me in 2020 and that I did not agree with how RTÉ proposed to account for this decision."
