Noel Kelly has said it’s “undeserved” that Ryan Tubridy has been made the “poster boy” for the ongoing RTÉ payments scandal.
The talent agent and his client Ryan are set to face six hours of questioning by two Oireachtas Committees today.
The pair will appear before the Public Accounts Committee at 11.30am, and the Media Committee at 3pm.
In his opening statement to the Public Accounts Committee, Noel said: “At the outset I want to say that we appreciate the seriousness of these issues. The controversy of the past few weeks has been damaging to RTE. It’s also been hugely damaging to Ryan Tubridy, to myself, and to my own business.”
“In January 2021, when RTE made its incorrect declarations, they knew what they had paid Ryan,” the statement continued, claiming then-Chief Financial Officer Breda O’Keefe emailed them Ryan’s actual earnings – which included the publicly undisclosed €75,000.
“But just over a year late, RTÉ made false or incorrect declarations about these same figures,” Noel alleged. “In some respects, this was an accident waiting to happen.”
“We had previously asked RTÉ to give us reasonable notice when they planned to publish these figures. If they had done that, we would have had time to check the figures and avoid errors. However, RTÉ ignored our request for reasons which l don’t understand.”
“In March 2020 we saw the first sign that RTÉ – with all its accountants and auditors – might be struggling to understand the correct accounting treatment for what they paid Ryan in 2017, 2018 and 2019.’
“That month, they sent us a letter about the exit fee/bonus Ryan was due as part of his 2015 contract. It was agreed that Ryan was not going to raise an invoice for this, and they wanted to agree how to explain that.”
“But in the drag which they sent to us they proposed to change the payments which they had made to Ryan already – effectively lowering them by a total of €120,000. Their logic was that they could offset the €120,000 we had agreed not to ask for in 2020 against payments which they had already made to Ryan in 2017, 2018 and 2019.’
“We argued against that, and they accepted our point at that time. For some reason however, it looks like their confused thinking returned and they published the wrong figures in January 2021 effectively causing huge reputation damage to Ryan in the process.”
“One important point I should add,” Noel continued. “Just last month, on the 23rd of June RTE published new figures. Effectively they restated figures for payments to Ryan in 2017, 2018 and 2019 and added in declarations for figures paid to him in 2020 and 2021. Bizarrely, the figures they declare for both 2020 and 2021 are wrong. In both years they overstate the amount they paid Ryan.”
The talent agent claimed “clearly RTÉ is struggling with these declarations” as he alleged that Ryan’s overstatement for 2020 is€62,536, and the overstatement for 2021 is €83,381.
“Now let’s turn to the Renault Contract which ran parallel to the 2020 contract which Ryan has with RTÉ.”
“[An email which will be disclosed sets out RTÉ’s starting position for negotiations on the 2020 contract. You will see in the email that this is where the idea of a Commercial Sponsorship with a 3rd Party with an annual fee of €75,000 is first suggested. It comes from RTÉ.”
“That did not strike us as unusual as Renault was a key sponsor for RTÉ so it was understandable that they would wish to ensure that all parties were aligned.”
“Next we come to the RTÉ decision to underwrite this Renault contract,” Noel continued. “This is perhaps the most shocking revelation this morning.”
“Since this controversy began, RTÉ has tried to distance themselves from this decision. Effectively they have blamed former Director General Dee Forbes for doing a solo run and for giving a verbal commitment to underwrite the contract on a Zoom Call in May.”
“RTÉ executives have said how there was a strong ‘push-back’ against the idea of underwriting the agreement. That is incorrect.”
“Now let’s move to the invoicing arrangements for the Renault Contract. Our document pack shows that RTÉ did not just suggest the idea of a contract with Renault, they oversaw its development and implementation. We were happy with that.’
“We knew Renault was a major sponsor for RTÉ, so RTÉ would be committed to keeping them happy. We knew the contract with Renault was separate to the contract for independent contractor services Ryan had with RTE for Radio and TV work.”
“We understood that Ryan would have to do extra work for Renault. But that was no different to the extra work he did to fulfil obligations for the BBC or for his book publishers.”
“Ryan was agreeing to a substantial pay cut from RTÉ and he was entitled to seek work outside RTÉ. But there was nothing secret about this. Far from it. The contract required Ryan to do public appearances for Renault for which they could seek and expect attention – as indeed they did.”
“So, with the terms agreed, RTÉ instructed us on how to invoice for this work. For the first invoice, they instructed us to raise an invoice directly with Renault. They gave us names and details and they set out the proposed narrative for the invoice.”
“You should know that while the invoices were made out to Astus, we were directed to email them to RTÉ. They would do what was necessary to process them with Astus. I should stress that at this time we in NK Management had no idea who Astus was.”
“We had no reason to think Astus was linked to RTÉ or that it was acting on behalf of RTÉ. We had no idea that they might be making the payments to us on behalf of RTÉ or that the payments were linked to RTÉ underwriting the Renault contract.”
“RTÉ never said that to us. Astus never said that to us. Renault never said that to us. We simply followed the instructions we were given as we had with the first invoice.”
“We are nearing the end. But I want to address one other thing. There has been a lot of coverage of a side letter with the 2020 contract in which the RTE Director General says the agreed earnings in the contract won’t be reduced during the term of the contract.”
“As any lawyer will confirm, this letter had no practical impact. The contract itself guaranteed the earnings… that is what a contract does.”
“We were simply trying to impress on RTE that Ryan had just signed up to cut his earnings from RTE by €525,000 so they shouldn’t even think about coming back for more given the size of those cuts.”
In conclusion, Noel said: “For the past number of years, Ryan has continued to perform at the highest level; working with colleagues and leading shows which bring in tens of millions in commercial and raise tens of millions for charities through the Toy Show Appeals and through Covid appeals and so on.”
“We have heard a lot about RTÉ’s public service ethos. But let’s call a spade a spade. RTÉ is a hybrid organisation. Its commercial activates are key to keeping the station afloat, maintaining jobs and creating content. ‘
“Ryan has been a huge driver of RTÉ’s successful commercial activities for the past 14 years. Ryan and I have attracted a horrendous amount of criticism and abuse in the past few weeks because he is such a high profile and successful figure in Ireland, and he has been made the poster boy for this scandal. That is undeserved.”
RTÉ was plunged into chaos when it was revealed that Ryan’s earnings were publicly understated by €345,000 over the last six years.
The issue was identified during a routine audit of RTÉ’s 2022 accounts, prompting an independent review of the matter.
The RTÉ Board issued an apology over the error, and later Ryan also apologised for not questioning RTÉ over his published earnings.
The scandal resulted in the suspension of RTÉ’s Director General Dee Forbes, who later resigned from her role.
Last Wednesday, the RTÉ Board and executives arrived at Leinster House to provide evidence to the joint committee on tourism, culture, arts, sport and media amid the ongoing scandal.
The following day, they arrived at Leinster House once again, this time to face questioning from the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee.
During the initial hearing, it emerged that RTÉ underwrote a commercial sponsorship of Ryan by Renault.
RTÉ labelled invoices of €75,000 payments as “consultancy fees” and the now-infamous barter account was used to pay them.
