Ryan Tubridy’s agent Noel Kelly has claimed they acted on instructions from RTÉ “at all times” and “trusted the process”.
The presenter and his agent appeared before the Public Accounts Committee today to face questioning over payments made to him by RTÉ.
RTÉ was plunged into chaos last month when it was revealed that their highest-paid presenter’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 Ryan later 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.
After the scandal came to light, it emerged that RTÉ underwrote a commercial sponsorship of Ryan by Renault.
RTÉ labelled invoices of €75,000 payments to Ryan as “consultancy fees”, and the now-infamous barter account was used to pay them.
During Ryan and Noel’s meeting with the PAC today, the presenter’s agent claimed they “trusted” RTÉ’s process.
“What we did at all times was act on instructions from RTÉ,” Mr Kelly claimed.
“We trust the process, why would we not trust the process? We simply acted on instructions from RTÉ.”
Mr Kelly also claimed he didn’t know the UK account used to make the payments was a barter account.
