BREAKING RTE has issued a 3,000-word statement on foot of the Grant Thornton report findings
RTE has released a lengthy statement regarding the payments controversy surrounding the broadcaster and top earner Ryan Tubridy.
In compiling the top 10 list of highly paid on-air presenters, RTÉ Finance reviews the amounts due under the contracts of each presenter, reconciles that against invoices received and payments made for the year in question. Those figures are verified in the context of RTÉ’s annual audit of accounts and typically published two years in arrears.
The auditors sought further information and informed the Audit and Risk Committee of the RTÉ Board of their concerns. The Audit and Risk Committee promptly sought external legal advice and commissioned Grant Thornton to carry out the independent fact-finding review on the matter in question. As outlined in the Grant Thornton review, in this instance there were in effect two contracts, the ‘Five Year Contract’ and the ‘Tri-partite Agreement’ .
• 20th March 2020 the Agent responds to drafts and encloses a draft side letter stating that RTÉ will guarantee and underwrite the commercial agreement, which was part of ongoing discussions at that time. • 24th - 27th July 2020 outline of commercial agreement with commercial partner confirmed and communicated to agent. The Agent issues invoice to commercial partner for €75,000 for “Bespoke Partnership between [commercial partner] and Ryan Tubridy to include personal appearances. Programme of activity to be agreed between [commercial partner], RTÉ and NK Management”.
• 31 December 2021 – ‘Tri-partite Agreement’ concludes. As per 2.16 of the Grant Thornton review – no additional or follow-on agreement was entered into by the Agent, the commercial partner and RTÉ.• 13th January – 29th March 2022 communications between agent and RTÉ chasing payment on foot of the underwriting of the commercial agreement. for 2021 and 2022, see 2.17 of the Grant Thornton review).
• No member of the RTÉ Executive Board, other than the Director General, had all the necessary information in order to understand that the publicly declared figures for Ryan Tubridy could have been wrong. o A letter stating that there would be no further reduction of fees during the course of the agreement for TV and Radio services, signed by the Director General and dated 21 July 2020
• Other than the Director General and the Commercial Director no member of the Executive Board had knowledge of the two invoices , the payment of those invoices through the barter account, or any of the circumstances surrounding those invoices. The Commercial Director has stated that: • The current Chief Financial Officer joined RTÉ in January 2020. At that stage key terms had been agreed and discussions were at an advanced stage before contract finally being approved by the Director General. He had no involvement in the negotiation of the tri-partite agreement or in putting arrangements in place to facilitate this agreement.
• The Director of Operations and Technology and the Director of Strategy had no awareness of or responsibility for any aspects of these arrangements. The People Payments Manager extracts a report from the Fees system and the Payroll system for the year in question listing all contractors and staff who were paid more than €100,000 in the year.This Talent only report is further reduced down to the Top 10 Talent list. The list is reviewed versus prior years to ensure that no Top Talent are missing.
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