Not a good look. I wonder did he go because this was going to come to light?
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Ah right, the barter exchange is a broker service. RTE has an account with Astus who trades their advertising slots, other Astus clients 'pay' for the slots with goods or services then Astus charges fees to both clients.
Do those types of brokers provide the bookkeeping, tax returns etc for clients?
How would the CFO not know about such an arrangement?
I want that whole board and executive and 'authority' sacked, preferably rescinding any sweet legislation that was enabled purposely that demands their privacy and 'rights' and 'wellbeing' and all the usual bull that protects their 'class' because that is why those laws are there, not for you and I.
I want the 'stars' including Kielty to be paid a salary commensurate with the size of the fcking kip (ie, approx 150k for him x 30 shows = 5k per shtty show and he can count himself lucky.
I want Leo Varadkar/Simon Harris/ Michael Martin et al to shut the fck up and stop soundbiting on it because it gets them column inches.
I don't want activist journalists and I want an independent news/current affairs team that aren't waiting for the opportunity to be the 'special advisor' to the Minister of Nothing.
I want a no 'talent' side to RTE, I want a full PSB that doesn't hang their hopes on imbeciles like Tubridy, Duffy and D'Arcy or at minimum, pay them minimum that they are worth, like where the hell are these 'talents' going to go.
I want accountability not a sham of accountability.
If ever there was a light shone on the way the State side (and class) of this country works, this is it.
I found this hypothetical re-enactment of a conversation between Richard Collins and Dee Forbes online on the subject of the barter account:
There’s some poetic licence at play, but you can get the gist of it.
Breakingnews/Examiner is focusing on comments made by Collins.
This isn't going to end well for RTE management.
Regards...jmcc
I'm by no means an expert on this, but as I understand that for some commercial deals, some of the funds are paid directly there instead of to the actual bank account (for lack of a better description) so therefore was never on the books in the first place.
Also, from reading online, it appears you can use these kinds of accounts to swap services (I'll paint your house, you fix my car), however, if I painted your house and you didn't fix my car, I can cash out the value of that (which is subject to the 35% commission) and this is what happened here.
Also as an aside, from a quick Google, it appears 10-12.5% commission would be more the norm, so would be interested to know why they were using a service which such high fees.
I don't accept that. I find it intriguing that he offered such a flimsy response to concerns from Deloitte, & not offer to follow it up himself. They then went straight to the ARRC, who then commissioned Grant Thornton. That reads to me that Deloitte felt he was implicated.
He also had a lot of statutory levers to enable him to reject the payment & still be professionally protected.
Did anyone notice that The AARC director said yesterday that she is getting Grant T to look further into 'consultant' invoices, as she has concerns that she can't explain what these are for. She wss silent 2day on that, & got off easy on that one.
Last point Adrian Lynch is far too smooth to be wholesome
I watched a bit of the PAC this afternoon. One of the politicials tried to lead the RTE folks into a corner and succeeded. He suggested that the story about the world cup trip made headline news in 2019. He suggested that the board and RTE staffers probably ended up discussing it. Did they not wonder where that money came from at the time to pay for those trips came from? What did they do at the time to review the ins and outs of those trips?
I cannot recall the stories about it in 2019 but at the very least if true, its extremely poor that they didnt become aware of the barter account at that point.
but how can something be off balance sheet unless there is a corresponding hole elsewhere. unless it was designed to be at nil from that start, and at the end of every reporting period.
Who would have expected to read this on RTE?
Just another day for the PAC if would appear, how's this for comedy gold...
They'd met earlier on Thursday too, for a session with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) - but that meeting didn't go as planned because that board's CFO couldn't attend because he'd taken "voluntary leave" the day before...
I'll say one thing for Richard Collins, he did at the very least attend.
If Collins is just in the last couple of years it's an absolving factor. However after a year and a half he should not have been as easy on DF
Dee Forbes is in serious trouble if it is correct that she gave the alleged misinformation to the CFO.
I used to work in an accounts department and petty cash expenses was something I worked on. If I or another employee gave an expense bill to the Financial Controller, said it was for one thing but it was for something else that was pocketed for an other employees benefit, I would 1) expect to be sacked and 2) Potentially be reported to the Garda. I wouldn't dream of it. And that's just for petty cash expenses. Not for massive sums with the CFO.
RTE may also have to stop working with NKM contractors until it is resolved. And as we know, will probably take years.
Oh yeah, there are isolated incidents, but when you think about the examples I have given (and there are plenty more) very little personal accountability or repurcussions exist.
When the holder of the highest office in the land and former finance minister can get away with saying he didn't have a bank account and people accept it, this give carte blance to the rest of the population try get away with murder with this type of thing.
20 odd years later and he's talking about running for president. We really are soft.
Hi Ryan
100% - and for him - not being able to say how much he's being paid 🙈
Agreed. False invoicing and concealment is a serious crime from what I can see. There's more than enough for the gardai to get involved, but how to report it is another matter.
For 200k you would expect him to be on top of his brief and have a team around to keep him informed of potential landmines like this. Not just going along with everything because the DG said so.
Not exactly true.
His comment about the taxpayers being defrauded and the following question from the PAC may be lethal for a lot of RTE management.
And also out of a Barter Account which is (apparently) for entertaining clients etc. Not business expenses.
It was off balance sheet until (in fairness to him) Collins took over as CFO and insisted it was brought on Balance sheet. I think this is the first year it was actually audited.
What made Deloitte very suspicious was that 'consultancy fees' was such a vague and generic term, especially in the context of a big payment like €75k (and to a guy who was not known for offering consultancy services).
Could you pay Revenue tax by “barter”, eg spare Easter eggs for all the staff in the Revenue office? 🤣
That was my understanding as well.
was this barter account at nil at the end of every reporting period or how was it missed prior?
Happens to a lot of full time contractors really , they’re happy out getting paid but the client hates paperwork
Maybe I picked this up wrong, but I understood the sequence of events to be:
- DG/Commercial Director made the payment to NK with reference Consultantly Fees in 2020/21 ish, can't remember the time
- Deloitte found these transactions during the audit and asked the CFO about them.
- He didn't know, so asked Dee Forbes, and she gave that explanation which he passed back to Deloitte.
- Deloitte were not happy with the explanation and brought it to the attention of the Audit and Risk director, who then engaged Grant Thornton to investigate.
There was never any payments made to NK for Consultancy Fees, they were actually because RTE had underwritten the commercial agreement and needed to pay it from somewhere. The consultantany fees thing was just the excuse she came up with when it was found by the auditors.
The law seems cut and dried on this.
Forbes misrepresented payments to Tubridy as consultency fees to NKM. She did this to the CFO and Grant Thorntan.
Heard that odd "mmm" sound when I was watching Prime Time and thought there was a Bluebottle flying around.
There's a touch of John Delaney about the whole thing.
The executive board were clearly not doing their job. A lot of dodgy practices going on, when you would expect them to be providing oversight and asking questions about where money was going.
The story that Tubridy and his agent were refusing to accept a pay cut at one point is mind boggling. The DG and the board should have been facing him down and insisting on it.
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