RTÉ admits paying Tubridy €345,000 more than declared

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231648#Comment_121231648

When I heard tubs was leaving the first thing I thought was he was either going to be canned and they let him get ahead of the story to preserve his brand. This was the same way several rte personalities ruled themselves out of the late late slot when it was obvious that they were not going to be selected.

The other scenario I thought likely was that he saw the writing on the wall himself, or had a falling out with the powers that be in there.

The personal, burn out reasons all lacked credibility, even before the scandal broke.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231646#Comment_121231646

Maybe the bank has changed the terms of the overdraft, if RTE is now very worried about cash flow. They still have €35m of OD facility according to Bakhurst. How much are they spending if the €35m, the reduced licence fee income, and their advertising/commercial income can't keep the lights on.

Baba Yaga

all im getting from any of this is rte saying "yeah,we have pissed money away,we're still pissing it away and whats more we will continue to piss it away so give us more" that the gist of it?

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231648#Comment_121231648

Tubridy can be summed up in one word - EGO.

And therein surely is the answer to your question - he knew things were going tits up for him in terms of RTE staff and probably the public learning of his backhander deal.

But he thought he could hang in there - as the great Messiah.

Whereas in reality many in the public have viewed him as a fraud from early days.

In short, he made the fatal mistake of believing in his own publicity.

Caquas

Media darlings are doomed to believe their own hype or become paranoid. Tubridy is definitely in the former camp and he probably did believe that “he could hang in there - as the great Messiah.”

But why then abandon the LLS, his greatest pulpit?

Certainly not because he couldn’t face a live audience, as some here believe. That would mean he had lost his self-confidence, the one talent that he has consistently demonstrated before and during the current scandal.

podgeandrodge

At least Bakhurst repeated that Tubridy had a moral obligation to repay the €150k, whatever about a legal one.

I'm sure over 90% of the population would agree with him, if not more .

People that ask him to appear at book signings and pension talks should be asking themselves wtf they think Tubs will add to things.

Edit, sorry,maybe not 90%, I forgot those dimbo Instagram followers he has :)

hawley

Would love to know what is contained in the document relating to Tubridy’s contract. Must be quite damning for the management of RTE.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231593#Comment_121231593

Maybe the silver lining will be a brand new greatly reduced relaunched national broadcaster after the majority of staff are turfed out on statutory redundancy - that doesn’t have its snout in the trough lining the executives pockets and others and actually provides proper 21st century service to the people who pay their fcking expense accounts.

I honestly couldn’t care less about job losses or whatever- if they haven’t put money aside when the gravy train ran out of gravy, suck it up buttercup is all I have to say to that - if they’re paying a photographer 60k a year for a few photos every week, they don’t deserve to survive in their current format

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121233850#Comment_121233850

That crowd would only amount to a few thousand once the followers who are only there to see if he gets a real job are taken into account - northwards of 90% is a safe enough figure 🤪

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231648#Comment_121231648

What happened that he threw away most of his power last march

CollyFlower

I'm disappointed with Bakhurst, he started starts off as promising but now he's becoming less transparent. ... What's he /RTE hiding, I wonder....

When is the next meeting /grilling with the committee?

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121235550#Comment_121235550

Bakhurst says his legal advice is that he can’t hand over the document the Committee wants I.e. the note of the meeting that rubber-stamped the Renault deal. I’m inclined to believe him but I wonder - which lawyers and on what grounds?

Arthur Cox solicitors wrote to the Committee on behalf of RTÉ objecting to providing the top-100 earners. They quote GDPR but it sounds like a make-weight argument in a typical legal attempt to throw everything at the other side in hopes that something will stick. If RTÉ’s lawyers use GDPR to block this inquiry, this raises issues of such fundamental importance about the scope of data protection that it must be tested in court. If the court agrees with RTÉ, the Oireachtas should re-write the law so that it is not a barrier to parliamentary oversight of State bodies.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-41246344.html

If RTÉ in-house legal advice is blocking this document for any reasons, I’d say Bakhurst should look for his own outside lawyers, not Arthur Cox (however much that would aggravate RTÉ’s own lawyers and their friends).

If this in NK’s lawyers saying the Renault negotiations are covered by a confidentiality clause in Tubridy’s contract, then we need an even more fundamental discussion about the accountability of State bodies. The HSE is spending billions of Euros on legal settlements and insisting on non-disclosure clauses to ensure that we learn nothing about their medical failures.

I think Alan Kelly was reflecting the mood in the PAC. There is an epic legal battle in the makings here. The PAC was slapped down by the courts over its treatment of Angela Kerins but it can’t back down from this fight now.

Bathurst says it’s “a matter of principle”, without saying which principle (“Keep your enemies closer still”🤔?) If he doesn’t fix this soon, principles won’t protect him.

Tow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121235951#Comment_121235951

Listen back to last meeting. The legal advice came from RTE's internal legal department. She attended the meeting and has high opinions of herself, giving guff to the politicians.

Hyperbollix

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121231648#Comment_121231648

Ok, there is certainly something to getting ahead of the story for reputational damage reasons.

On further reflection, my reading on it is this;

Tubridy was from the beginning, fully aware of the nature of his topup payments. He and Kelly would have agreed a strategy to keep his plus €500k salary intact, despite RTE's political requirement to keep it much closer to €400k.

He may not have known anything about barter accounts or arcane methods of getting the money, but he was WELL aware that the figure he was being paid by RTE was much larger than the stated figure in the RTE top earner's list. Why do I say RTE and not Renault? Because Noel Kelly would have surely told him that he had RTE on the hook to pay those topup's regardless of there being any third party there to pay them. In 2022, three years after the Dundalk Renault appearance, Kelly was chasing RTE for payment for work which wasnt done nor ever would be done. So in essence it was a sham that all parties agreed to, in order to get Tubs extra cash.

Deloitte flag up the issue of the €75k payments in mid March this year. Forbes notifies all interested parties, first on the list Tubridy/Kelly. Since we're talking about Tubridy and his decision to quit the LLS, lets omit the Kelly angle and his secret British barter account. From Tubridy's perspective, he is told the jig is up. His stated salary which RTE published is false. In order to pay him his topups, RTE engaged in some "creative accounting" to put it charitably and now they are obliged to seek legal advice and appoint outside accountants. As media people looking at an unfolding in house scandal, they are all well aware of the implications here. Forbes is, conveniently at the end of her term anyway and the RTE board help her to concoct a scenario where she can resign and face no repercussions.

Tubridy is staring into the abyss of an enormous fall from grace. He knows he will be taken off air for editorial reasons and even if he fights his corner and brass-necks it out, he likely faces his removal from radio and tv hosting duties in the longer term. The change of management in May may have focused his thinking on this too. Similarly to Forbes, he is given the option to jump before he is pushed and is allowed to have a two month resignation party where he signs off in triumph in May. A man with an ego the size of Tubridy's couldnt countenance being axed quietly over the summer so he gladly takes the opportunity he is bestowed and goes out as a national treasure. He knows given the details of the payments, there is no future for him on the LLS after this scandal breaks, but in the best traditions of Official Ireland he is allowed to save face and choose the timing of his departure. He hopes he can keep the radio gig providing the fire can be put out relatively quickly.

Queue late June revelations, "I knowa nathing!", "I'm just a poor Irish gobshite" routine from Tubs.... and here we are.

HildaOgdenx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121235550#Comment_121235550

I lost faith in him early on. I know it has been said by lots of us on the thread, but they really needed a completely new and ruthless broom that would come in and do whatever needs to be done. I appreciate it is a huge task but I am just not sure he is the man to do it.

I have only watched bits of the committee meetings admittedly but when he was at the one where the photographer cost was mentioned, for example, he was still saying something along the lines of - I will have to look into that and get back to you. I thought, hmm, you need to have more and better answers at this stage.

I briefly saw the exchange with the committee this week where he said he wanted to see the committee's legal advice (I think) - Alan Kelly challenged him on that comment. I thought there was more than a hint of arrogance there on the part of Bakhurst.

I don't understand - genuinely don't understand - why the powers that be in RTE feel that they can keep getting bailed out without having to provide the information they are being asked for. Also it seems people can resign and get redundancy packages, and that is still happening. I have never heard of that anywhere I worked.

Sadly I believe that the government will hand over the money without pressing RTE very much and the same closed shop, do as we please scenario that held sway in RTE for years, won't be long about repeating itself.

I sincerely hope I am wrong.

NIMAN

So rte are currently 65m into their 100m overdraft? Is that right?

And when KB says they are OK for cash until the early Spring, does that mean until they reach the 100mill overdraft limit? So they are just going to spend another 35mill foolishly until then?

Surely if you are an organisation in such dire financial circumstances, you don't keep digging frantically because you have another 35mill to waste?

Madness.

MrMusician18

Does anyone know when the big podcast is starting?

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236450#Comment_121236450

That's what it sounds like. If they need cash that badly I'm sure Cairn or Glenveagh would give them a nice sum for a few more acres of Montrose.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236606#Comment_121236606

Not being a Dub, or knowing anything about the Montrose site, I have often read about selling it off.

I would be one to think there is no point selling the whole site and relocating to a cheaper part of the country, as that would not be practical and probably cost so much it would make the sale worthless.

But I don't know how big the site is. Is there acres and acres of greenfield area doing nothing? How many acres could rte realistically sell off and still be able to exist as rte with all its original building stock?

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121235963#Comment_121235963

Better still, read the transcript

https://data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/debateRecord/committee_of_public_accounts/2023-10-12/debate/mul%40/main.pdf

It doesn't answer my questions (or the Committee's). RTE's in-house lawyer initially said the document was covered by legal privilege. When the Committee pointed out that RTE could waive legal privilege, she switched to a claim of client confidentiality, a related but distinct proposition. Her legal advice to Dee Forbes regarding the Renault deal is protected by lawyer/client confidentiality but that too can be waived. The GDPR issue is only mentioned in relation to the 100 top earners list but it may also affect the exit packages, about which there was more discussion but still not real clarity.

Bakhurst said

I am not trying to hide behind legal advice but the Chair will appreciate that as a

responsible organisation, if we have taken legal advice about what we can, cannot and should

disclose, it would be remiss of us to act against that.

I think he means is that an ordinary firm would simply ignore legal advice which had potentially devastating consequences for its business and would deal with the legal consequences later. That's what's typically meant by "See you in court!". Bakhurst is saying RTÉ is a State entity and as such must behave as a model citizen i.e. in accordance with its understanding of the law. But what happens if your legal advisors are up to their necks in it?

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236636#Comment_121236636

Virgin Media operates from a studio in an industrial estate, no reason rte can't do the same.

The land they're sitting on is worth a fortune, and is wasted at present.

saabsaab

True any serious attempt to save RTE will have to include selling Montrose site Or involuntary redundancies.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236636#Comment_121236636

RTE could probably sell off another third to a half of their current site if they relocated or closed the Fair City production.

There's a couple of protected structures on the campus that make redevelopment awkward but not impossible.

Caquas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237637#Comment_121237637

What a deplorable failure of management and a betrayal of the public trust!

RTÉ was endowed by the State with the Montrose site for use as its HQ when its television station was established. It was not given to RTÉ as a slush fund to make up for lavish expenditure in excess of its income or as an unfunded pension scheme.

RTÉ has already dipped into its "land bank" by selling almost nine acres of its Montrose site to developers in 2017 for just over €107 million. Now that the principle of a public trust has been abandoned, another sell-off looks inevitable to shore up its finances but that is not a sustainable solution.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237872#Comment_121237872

But at least another land sell off should be able to clear if not all, at least the majority of their debt, and alleviate the burden on the taxpayer.

downtheroad

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237872#Comment_121237872

Ffs, received €107m from that asset sale and still are somehow €65m in overdraft. Any other business would be long liquidated by now.

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237894#Comment_121237894

Because they have been throwing money around like its confetti for many years.

We have seen countless examples in the last few months how there was no controls put on spending at rte. It was a free for all. When that land sale happened in 2017, it appears that instead of using it to clear debt and set themselves on a secure footing, those with the cheque books simply seen it as a chance to go buck mad with the money.

Yet not a head will roll.

I too would advocate for rte not getting a cent of a bailout until they provide every document and piece of info they have been asked for. Is there some sort of legal requirement to have rte broadcasting? I mean, realistically if rte stopped broadcasting for 2 or 3 months, we'd all survive without them. There are other tv and radio stations to tune into. Most people have satellite TV.

Let them fail and restart with a much smaller, streamlined model

TinyMuffin

Recruitment freeze in the health service and these gougers lookin for money.

jippo nolan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237931#Comment_121237931

And probably all have private health insurance!

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121237910#Comment_121237910

We would all survive of course but our political system is absolutely terrified of any other voices filling the void (since every other voice is now termed "far right") so rte completely collapsing will not be allowed to happen.

The absolute worst case scenario that could happen (and even this is far fetched) is that rte news and current affairs with some sport is retained as a state funded public broadcasting service and the rest is let go, either to fail or as a fully commercial service.

That option is fraught with risk as journos in there would see their colleagues thrown to the wind and likely have to take serious cuts as well. They'd be completely poisoned against those that instituted the change.