RTE director general Dee Forbes suspended amid furore over Ryan Tubridy salary

The Irish national broadcaster admitted he was paid several hundred thousand euro more than it had previously declared.

RTE director general Dee Forbes (Niall Carson/PA) (PA Archive)

The director general of RTE has been suspended amid a controversy over the national broadcaster’s misreporting of the salary of star presenter Ryan Tubridy.

Dee Forbes, who was already due to step down from her role next month, was suspended on Wednesday, the RTE board announced on Friday.

Culture Minister Catherine Martin welcomed the announcement of the suspension for the “sake of transparency”.

The National Union of Journalists called for a wide independent inquiry into RTE’s corporate governance.

The announcement came a day after RTE apologised as it admitted Tubridy, its top earner and highest profile presenter, had been paid several hundred thousand euro more than it had previously declared.

The RTE board said that between 2017 and 2022, he received a series of payments totalling 345,000 euro (£295,000) above his annual published salary.

Former Late Late Show host Tubridy, who continues to present a daily radio show on RTE Radio One, has said he was surprised to learn of errors in the broadcaster’s public statement about payments it made to him.

He did not host his radio show on Friday morning, with comedian Oliver Callan stepping in.

In a further statement on Friday, the RTE board said: “The RTE board confirms that Dee Forbes, the director general, was suspended from her employment on Wednesday June 21.

“There are processes ongoing and RTE must be mindful of its legal responsibilities and the rights of individuals.

“RTE will not be commenting further on this issue at this time.”

Culture Minister Ms Martin is due to hold talks with RTE board chair Siun Ni Raghallaigh on Monday to discuss the crisis rocking the broadcaster.

Speaking to the media on Friday, Ms Martin said: “I want to know what actions are going to be taken, what processes will be put in place to make sure that this never happens again.

“I do believe it raises concerns in relation to the broader transparency and governance of this organisation.

“Public service broadcasting is so important to society, to democracy, and there is no doubt that damage has been done here.

“Trust has been damaged with the public, but I would say there is a lot of damage has been done to the staff, and that is something the board needs to work on, rebuilding the trust.”

Regarding the suspension of Ms Forbes, the minister added: “I think for the sake of transparency it is good that announcement has been made, that clarity is given that that suspension has taken place.”

Ms Martin said she became aware in March that an issue had been discovered in the RTE audit, but only became aware that it involved Tubridy on Wednesday.

She said: “What I was told in March was that an issue had arisen in the routine annual audit and that the need to do a fact-finding review to establish the actual facts around this.

“That is all I knew in March.”

Ireland’s deputy premier Micheal Martin said the misreporting of Tubridy’s salary represented a serious “breach of trust”.

Speaking to reporters in Galway on Friday, Mr Martin said: “First of all, there’s huge shock and surprise at what has transpired in terms of the manner of this.

“I think we need more clarification.

“I think, particularly in the area of transparency, this is a breach of trust in terms of the public presentation of the figures as opposed to the reality of the figures.

“That is serious, particularly because I think it relates to governance within RTE and given its unique role as a public service broadcaster, clarity is required in all aspects of this.”

On Thursday, RTE revealed that during a routine audit of 2022 accounts in late March, an issue was identified in relation to the “transparency of certain payments”.

In mid-March, Tubridy announced he was quitting as host of the flagship Late Late Show after 14 years. Comedian Paddy Kielty has since been appointed as his replacement.

Following the discovery in the 2022 accounts, RTE appointed an external auditor to carry out an independent fact-finding review.

Tubridy’s previously published remunerations for 2020 and 2021 show he earned 466,250 (£398,500) euro and 440,000 euro (£376,000) respectively in those years, which appeared to represent an 11% reduction on his 2019 earnings.

However, under a separate agreement, Tubridy was guaranteed by RTE an additional annual income of 75,000 euro (£64,000) in 2020 which was intended to come from a commercial partner.

The commercial partner fee due to Tubridy was guaranteed and underwritten by RTE.

I’m disappointed to be at the centre of this story, but unfortunately I can’t shed any light on why RTE treated these payments in the way that they did

Ryan Tubridy

The commercial partner did not renew the agreement for a second year, and since the agreement was guaranteed by RTE, the payments were instead made directly by RTE to Tubridy’s agent.

The presenter received two further 75,000 euro payments in 2022, which prompted the review.

It was then discovered that Tubridy’s remuneration had been understated by RTE by 120,000 euro (£102,000) over the contract period of 2017-2019.

Callan addressed the payments controversy as he opened the radio programme on Friday in Tubridy’s absence.

“It’s Friday – a bit of a weird Friday, I must concede,” he said.

“Clearly this is the last place I expected to be less than 24 hours ago, but here we are, and the reasons are fairly obvious, especially as I get to the review of the newspapers because the usual presenter of the show is the subject of every single front page.

“The wider media, it has to be said, do enjoy a good old RTE scandal – and boy did RTE whip up and serve a cool one for them with a flake on top and sprinkles of shambles.”

After encouraging listeners to contact the show with messages, Callan added: “We have a show for you and the ordinary decent staff of the programme have been working away as they always do very, very early in the morning.

“We’re all here to serve, and bear in mind they are at the receiving end of all those messages here and across the programmes today. It’s an RTE story, so on the one hand we could be accused of talking too much about ourselves, but if I ignored it this morning on this programme I’d be doing a disservice for you.”

After reading out newspaper headlines about the controversy, Callan added: “I’d say for everyone involved yesterday was like starring in a mini-private episode of Succession with the bombshells and the media chatter, phones buzzing, ‘who’s going to get the blame for this?’, and watching the thing about yourself on the news and television with a fresh pair of underpants within lunging distance, I’d imagine, for everyone concerned.”

The payments were uncovered after the broadcaster’s auditors alerted the board to some of the transactions.

On Thursday, Tubridy said he “can’t shed any light” on how the discrepancy had come about.

“Like many people, I’m surprised by the announcements made in RTE’s statement today regarding the errors in the reporting of its accounts,” he said in a statement.

“It is unfortunate that these errors are in relation to how RTE have reported payments made to me but I just want to be clear: this is a matter for RTE and I have no involvement in RTE’s internal accounting treatment or RTE’s public declarations in connection with such payments.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed to be at the centre of this story, but unfortunately I can’t shed any light on why RTE treated these payments in the way that they did, nor can I answer for their mistakes in this regard.”

NUJ members at RTE organised an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss the controversy.

This form of drip-drip announcements, a sort of industrial relations striptease, does nothing to reassure RTE employees

Seamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the NUJ

Irish secretary of the NUJ Seamus Dooley called for a broad investigation into corporate governance issues at RTE.

He said there is “great anger” among RTE members and added that an investigation into industrial relations processes within RTE was also needed.

Mr Dooley said the union was seeking an apology from management to staff as well as a meeting with the trade union group.

NUJ Dublin Broadcasting chairwoman Emma O Kelly said RTE staff wanted a wider independent inquiry into a “culture of secrecy” at the broadcaster.

“People spoke of how devastated they were, how ashamed they were, and how betrayed they felt.”

Employees who are members of SIPTU were also in attendance.

“We have young, talented journalists leaving this organisation and yet in the midst of all this we have these secret payments – so there’s huge anger.”

Ms O Kelly, who is RTE News’ education correspondent, added: “We have huge concerns around the use of the third-party contracts, this is something we have raised with RTE before.”