I became the face of a national scandal - Tubridy

Ryan Tubridy arrived at the Irish parliament on Tuesday morning

Ryan Tubridy, the presenter at the centre of RTÉ's pay controversy, has claimed he "became the face of a national scandal".

Mr Tubridy faced questions from politicians, along with his agent Noel Kelly, over his pay deal with the Irish public service broadcaster.

An audit of RTÉ's finances found Mr Tubridy was paid €345,000 (£296,800) more than was declared publicly between 2017 and 2022.

Mr Kelly told an Oireachtas (Irish parliamentary) on Tuesday his client had been made an undeserved "poster boy" for the scandal.

RTÉ is funded using advertising revenue as well as a TV licence fee.

The Irish government has announced two separate external reviews of RTÉ abut the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Media Committee in Dublin are conducting their own probes into the affair.

Tuesday was the first time the former Late Late Show presenter has spoken publicly since the payments were revealed last month.

In his opening remarks to the PAC he said the broadcaster "created a fog of confusion" over the undisclosed payments.

"Full transparency and disclosure on RTÉ's part would have avoided this."

Agent Noel Kelly said Ryan Tubridy had agreed to a 20% paycut

Mr Tubridy said: "I am here to do one thing and one thing only: to set the record straight and to call out some untruths."

But the Green Party TD Marc Ó Cathasaigh said "public trust" in both RTÉ and Mr Tubridy had been "shattered" by news of the payments.

"When you told us we were all in it together during Covid in particular and during the recessions we believed you," Mr Ó Cathasaigh said.

What was Ryan Tubridy paid?

Noel Kelly told the committee that Mr Tubridy had been paid between €495,000 (£421,430) and €545,000 (£463,998) a year by RTÉ between 2015 - 2019.

From 2020, Mr Kelly said that Mr Tubridy's salary from RTÉ was €440,000 a year - a 20% cut.

But he admitted that figure did not include a payment of €75,000 (£63,855) a year under a contract with the car-maker Renault in exchange for personal appearances by Mr Tubridy for the company.

Renault pulled out of the deal after a year, but it later emerged RTÉ had subsequently underwritten some of the payments, which led to Mr Tubridy's pay being underdeclared by them.

At the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) it was suggested that RTÉ had come up with the arrangement to bolster Mr Tubridy's income.

The presenter said: "I cannot accept that as a matter of fact."

Sinn Féin's Imelda Munster added that "we know that that pay cut was subsidised", when at the time, Mr Tubridy said he was taking it without rancour.

The committee hearings have garnered widespread interest

Barter accounts

Some of the undisclosed payments to Mr Tubridy from RTÉ were made through a UK-based "barter account" operated by the organisation, but there is confusion over how exactly that was done.

Media companies often use these to trade advertising space in return for goods and services instead of cash.

Mr Kelly told politicians on the media committee he had no knowledge of the barter account system and thought the payments to Mr Tubridy had come from Renault.

"We trusted the process, why would we not trust the process?," he said.

He rejected any suggestion he colluded with the broadcaster to conceal the true nature of the payments.

Mr Tubridy also said he had not tried to conceal any "secret agreement" with Renault.

"I signed a contract in good faith, I declared my earnings, I paid every cent of tax," he said.

"My employer has acknowledged that, it has engaged in deceptive practices to pay me, practices that were hidden from me.

"The result of this is that I've become the face of a national scandal, I've been accused of being complicit, deceitful and dishonest."

He said, though, he took "full responsibility" for not asking more questions about how his pay was declared by the broadcaster.

Mr Tubridy added later in the day that he would return €150,000 to RTÉ if corporate events for Renault he was paid in advance to host do not take place.

Who is Ryan Tubridy?

Mr Tubridy is the broadcaster's highest paid presenter.

He took over hosting duties for RTÉ's flagship talk show The Late Late Show in 2009, before stepping down in March after 14 years.

The 50-year-old is due to be replaced by Northern Ireland-born presenter and comedian Patrick Kielty later this year.

He also hosts a weekday show on RTÉ Radio One, but has not been on-air since news about his undisclosed payments broke in June.

Mr Tubridy said on Tuesday that his decision to step down from the Late Late was not linked to the pay controversy.

His agent claimed the arrangements for Mr Tubridy's pay were widely known within the executive board of RTÉ.

"We trusted RTÉ," Mr Kelly said.

Reputation 'sullied'

Later, while being questioned by Fine Gael TD Colm Burke, Mr Tubridy said that he wanted to return to presenting his radio show on RTÉ Radio One.

But admitted this was "touch and go".

Becoming emotional during questioning, Mr Tubridy described the last three weeks as "chaotic, destructive and beyond difficult".

When asked by Fine Gael TD Alan Dillion if he was trying to put the sole blame on RTÉ in relation to the payment scandal, Mr Kelly replied: "Yes, completely."

Kevin Bakhurst became RTÉ director general on Monday

The new RTÉ Director-General Kevin Bakhurst and other executives from the broadcaster are due to appear before the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday.

On Monday, Mr Bakhurst stood down the organisation's executive team in response to the controversy.

In an all-staff email, he said "the culture in RTÉ needs change, from top to bottom".