RTÉ’s former Chief Financial Officer Breda O’Keeffe has revealed she won’t be attending tomorrow’s hearing with the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee.
Last Wednesday, the RTÉ Board and executives – including Ms O’Keefe, arrived at Leinster House to face questioning from the Oireachtas Media Committee.
During her lengthy opening statement, the former CFO denied that she had any knowledge of the €75k invoices, which were labelled “consultancy fees”, that RTÉ underwrote for a commercial sponsorship of Ryan Tubridy by Renault.
Just days later, in his opening statement to the Public Accounts Committee, Ryan’s agent Noel Kelly disputed Ms O’Keefe’s claim that she had no knowledge that RTÉ had underwritten the commercial sponsorship.
“In January 2021, when RTE made its incorrect declarations, they knew what they had paid Ryan,” the talent agent’s statement read, claiming the then-CFO emailed them Ryan’s actual earnings – which included the publicly undisclosed €75,000.
Ms O’Keeffe has since revealed that she won’t be attending the Public Accounts Committee hearing on Thursday.
The former CFO said: “I was obliged to take time off work and spend considerable time in preparing my opening statement to the Oireachtas Media Committee and and attending the meeting on the 5th of July.”
“My opening statement was well received by the Oireachtas Media Committee and no substantive questions arose from my opening statement. I have nothing further to add to that statement with respect to the matters addressed therein.”
In a statement refuting Noel Kelly’s claim that it provided the Oireachtas Committees with “incorrect” information, RTÉ said: “RTÉ rejects the claim that an incorrect version of events was presented to the Joint Oireachtas Committee and/or to the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts regarding RTÉ’s agreement to underwrite payments of €75,000 per contract year due to Mr Tubridy.”
“For clarity, the claim relates specifically to an email that was sent by the former CFO of RTÉ to NK Management on 20 February 2020, which is being characterised as a contractual commitment on the part of RTÉ to underwrite the payments in question.”
“RTÉ does not accept this characterisation,” the statement continued. “RTÉ’s position is that the email of 20 February 2020 formed part of the discussions and engagement between it and NK Management in relation to the proposed new TV and radio contract with Mr Tubridy/Tuttle Productions and did not comprise a binding legal or contractual commitment on its part.”“RTÉ’s position is as per previous statements: that, until the verbal commitment given by the former Director General during the call on 7 May 2020, it had not agreed to underwrite the €75,000 payment per contract year.”
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.
Over the weekend, RTÉ’s Director of Strategy Rory Coveney resigned from his role with immediate effect having appeared a number of times before multiple Oireachtas Committees.
On Monday, RTÉ’s new Director General Kevin Bakhurst confirmed the disbandment of the Executive Board when he took over office from Ms Forbes.
Later that day, Commercial Director Geraldine O’Leary later announced her early retirement.
