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The RTÉ secret payment scandal relates to events from late June 2023 onwards when Ireland’s main public service broadcaster RTÉ first disclosed previously unknown arrangements concerning a leading presenter’s pay, and in subsequent discussions, revelations about corporate entertainment for advertising clients, management numbers and high pay, and executive exit packages.
On 22 June 2023, RTÉ announced that between 2017 and 2022 it had paid €345,000 more than had been previously disclosed to the TV and radio presenter Ryan Tubridy, whose pay was already known to be more than that of anyone else at RTÉ. The celebrity talent agent Noel Kelly of NK Management negotiated the pay supplements and played a central role in funnelling them to Tubridy. The extra payments brought Tubridy’s annual earnings over the €500,000 threshold each year during that time period, while allowing RTÉ to declare publicly that Tubridy was earning less than this. For the years 2020 to 2022, the extra payments were performed using a UK-based “barter account” mechanism, operated with a barter agency, Astus.
The Director General of RTÉ Dee Forbes was asked to resign by RTÉ Board chairperson Siún Ní Raghallaigh. Forbes initially declined to do so, but was later suspended, and eventually resigned on 26 June 2023. Members of the RTÉ Executive Board and RTÉ Board were summoned to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media and the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on numerous occasions to explain what had happened. In late June 2023, more information on the culture within RTÉ entered the public domain, specifically what else it used the barter account for, including €111,000 on trips to Japan and €260,000 on a UEFA Champions League trip. On 4 July 2023, two additional barter account operators were disclosed – along with Astus (the first disclosed), these were Active and Miroma. The controversy turned to exit payments for senior executives in early 2024 which led to the resignation of Ní Raghallaigh.
According to The Irish Times’s political editor Pat Leahy, “The story of RTÉ’s agonies is an important one for politics, society and media”. Ironically, the scandal led large numbers of the Irish public to tune in to RTÉ News updates to follow the story as it developed. RTÉ is using the public relations firm Q4, co-founded by former Fianna Fáil general secretary Martin Mackin, who was briefly appointed to Seanad Éireann in 2002.