Ryan Tubridy has revealed he still has “full faith” in his agent Noel Kelly, amid the ongoing payments scandal.
The 50-year-old and his agent Noel Kelly are set to face six hours of questioning by two Oireachtas Committees today.
The pair appeared before the Public Accounts Committee at 11.30am, and later the Media Committee at 3pm.
During the Media Committee hearing, Chris O’Sullivan TD asked whether Ryan still has “full faith” in his agent Noel, saying “some form of deception” went on with the €75k invoices labelled as “consultancy fees”.
The broadcaster replied: “I do have full faith in Noel. He was doing his job, and in the course of his job he was given instructions, and carried them out.”
“We would never have discussed [the invoices].”
“If I was to look at so many of the things I’ve been hearing, there’s a lot of room for better practice around [RTÉ].”
Ryan revealed he’ll continue to let Mr Kelly represent him.
When Mr O’Sullivan quizzed him that RTÉ’s new Director General Kevin Bakhurst didn’t seem keen to work with Mr Kelly again, Ryan said: “RTÉ is [just] one element of what I do for a living.”
Noel later added on the matter: “We’ll have to see.”
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.
Earlier this month, 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.
