Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that he can’t rule out the possibility that RTÉ’s now-infamous barter account may have been “on the wrong side of the law”.
Speaking as he arrived at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, Mr Varadkar said: “I don’t think we can rule out the fact that it’s not just a case of irregular payments, that some of these payments may have been on the wrong side of the law.”
“But I don’t want to jump to that conclusion.”
Mr Varadkar said that although it isn’t unusual for a corporation to entertain clients, “the fact that it was so untransparent, even concealed, that payments were made for work that perhaps wasn’t done”.
“That’s much more serious, I think, and is a matter of real concern,” he explained, before adding that he’s “not sure” if the situation had reached a point where gardaí may need to intervene.
“It did concern me to hear that payments were – or it would appear anyway – that payments were made by RTÉ to outside contractors for work that wasn’t actually done.”
“That does raise issues in terms of accounting rules, and company law. But I think we’re not yet at that point.”
“[RTÉ] receives public money from the licence fee and other sources and receives commercial money from advertising and commercial partners and that all goes into the one pot,” Mr Varadkar continued.
“I’m not sure that’s going to be appropriate going forward. I know, as someone who’s a trustee of a political party, we have to keep the public money separate from the money we raise ourselves, we have to produce separate accounts. And I’m wondering, might it have been better if [RTÉ] operated on that basis.”
An Taoiseach urged caution over the question of RTÉ’s waiving legal privilege over documents requested by the Public Accounts Committee, saying: “That does depend on circumstances. Legal privilege is there for a reason and does need to be protected.”
“I don’t know the exact circumstances that are there, but individuals, companies, governments use legal privilege because if you’re involved in a court case if somebody’s suing you, and the fact that you’re forced to release all your documents and the other side isn’t, puts you at an enormous disadvantage.”
“So there is a reason for legal privilege – I don’t know whether it’s appropriate in this case or not. I just don’t know enough about it.”
The RTÉ Board and executives appeared in front of an Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee on Thursday, to discuss the ongoing payments scandal.
During the session, Colm Burke TD slammed the now-infamous barter account as nothing other than a “slush fund”.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary a slush fund is “an amount of money that is kept for dishonest or illegal activities in politics or business”.
When questioned as to how much money has gone through the barter account, Chief Financial Officer Richard Collins said he believes the sum to be over €1 million over the past ten years.
The CFO admitted that he wasn’t there to “justify” the barter account, as he “wasn’t happy” with its existence when he first came across it.
The question was raised as part of an ongoing investigation after it was revealed that RTÉ’s highest-paid presenter Ryan Tubridy’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.
Last Thursday, 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.
