Celebrity, secrets and lies: Ireland watches as scandal engulfs RTÉ

It has become Ireland’s top-rated show â€" a tale of celebrity, secrets and lies that has entranced the public and dominated the airwaves. Some reckon it is the most gripping drama ever produced by RTÉ.

Unfortunately for the national broadcaster, it is an all too real scandal over clandestine payments that has engulfed its star presenter and senior managers and planted a question mark over RTÉ’s future.

The stakes rose on Friday when the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said laws may have been breached. “Some of these payments may have been on the wrong side of the law,” he told reporters, capping a calamitous week for the broadcaster.

The story erupted on 22 June when RTÉ disclosed hidden payments of €345,000 (£295,000) to Ryan Tubridy, who hosted The Late Late Show and a flagship radio programme, in addition to his published salary between 2017 and 2020.

The revelation caused outrage because RTÉ is publicly funded and had given false statements about Tubridy’s salary to staff, viewers and the government while it was seeking pay cuts and extra funding. The broadcaster apologised for a betrayal of public trust.

With RTÉ staff staging protests and calling for changes, other high-profile presenters took to the airwaves to reveal their salaries and to deny having any clandestine top-ups.

The director general, Dee Forbes, was suspended last week and subsequently resigned. The legislature’s public accounts committee grilled her former colleagues in televised sessions this week that exposed a “slush fund” for corporate hospitality and glaring holes in RTÉ’s governance and accountability.

When asked about his salary, Richard Collins, RTÉ’s chief financial officer, replied: “I think that’s a private matter.” Reminded that he was paid with public money, Collins paused, then said: “I don’t know what my exact salary is, off the top of my head.”

James O’Connor, a Fianna Fáil member of the committee, expressed disbelief. “The chief financial officer of RTÉ can’t tell us what he’s paid. Are we supposed to buy that?” When pressed, Collins said he believed his salary was “around €200,000 base salary plus a car allowance of €25,000”.

Collins said taxpayers may have been “defrauded” over undeclared payments to Tubridy and that he believed some entailed “concealment” or “deception” to bump the presenter’s annual salary over €500,000.

RTÉ’s interim deputy director general, Adrian Lynch (left), and the chief financial officer, Richard Collins, arriving at Leinster House in Dublin to answer questions about the controversy. Photograph: Brian Lawless/PA

Labour’s Alan Kelly said the committee hearings exposed profound dysfunction. “This is an executive that isn’t functioning and can’t continue. Neither can the board after what we saw.”

Executives and board members traded blame, saying they were unaware of the payments. “An act designed to deceive,” said the RTÉ chair, Siún Ní Raghallaigh. She said the term “talent” should no longer be used to distinguish presenters and other performers from colleagues. “It implies some have greater worth than others. The first step in culture change is to consign this term to the dustbin.”

The drip drip of disclosures â€" forced in part by robust, forensic reporting by RTÉ journalists â€" has rotted goodwill towards the broadcaster and undercut its campaign to obtain more funding and overhaul its funding model.

Politicians are keen to question Forbes, who declined to appear at the public affairs committee, citing ill health. They also want to question Tubridy and his agent, Noel Kelly, who funnelled the hidden payments through the agent’s British company. The pair denied wrongdoing and have not detailed how any payments were made.

Tubridy’s future is unclear. The scandal has tainted his genial everyman persona, and he has stopped presenting his radio show since the story broke.

On 16 March, a week before RTÉ’s bombshell disclosure, Tubridy announced he would step down from The Late Late Show, which he had hosted since 2009. RTÉ’s interim deputy director general, Adrian Lynch, said it was possible Tubridy knew of the brewing crisis before his announcement to step down.

Tubridy’s successor, the Northern Ireland comedian Patrick Kielty, disclosed he would earn €250,000 for each 30-episode season. Kielty, who lives in London, said that under his contract he could have put travel and accommodation on expenses but had chosen not to. “I genuinely hope this helps clarify things,” he said.

Oliver Callan, the stand-in for Tubridy’s radio show, joked to listeners that he would allude only sporadically to “the unpleasantness in the basement” and invoked the hashtag #DontMentionTheThing.