Fionnán Sheahan: Ryan Tubridy was crucified for far less by RTÉ bosses who lecture on ‘integrity’

For a good laugh, take a read of RTÉ’s whistleblowers’ charter:

“RTÉ is committed to preserving the highest standards of integrity, transparency, probity and accountability, and recognises that staff members play a key role in achieving these aims,” RTÉ Protected Disclosures Policy, September 2022 states.

It’s a hoot. Six months before the walls began to crumble, the RTÉ hierarchy was lecturing staff about how to raise concerns about “actual, or potential irregularities”.

RTÉ had even hired an independent company “to provide a confidential reporting line to raise concerns”.

Aside from the phone line, “allegations” could be made to “the office of the director general”, with Dee Forbes’s email provided. Alternatively, “where for any reason, the person making an allegation considers it inappropriate to refer the concern” to the director general, allegations could be made to the chair of the audit and risk committee. “The chair of the audit and risk committee is an RTÉ board member, independent of RTÉ day-to-day management”.

What a hoot.

The gags just keep on coming.

“RTÉ has a duty to conduct its affairs with propriety having regard for its role as a designated public service media organisation and its stated public service broadcasting commitments to its customers.”

A list of “examples of concerns” is provided, including “irregularities in the running of RTÉ” such as “improper departures from good governance” and “material breaches of procedures”. So there’s a wide variety of applications beyond your regular “collusion”, “misappropriation”, “fraud” or “criminal activities” which are also in there.

Let’s say, hypothetically, someone knew about a payoff of €450,000 to a staff member without it being cleared through the proper protocols.

Let’s say, entirely hypothetically, that someone knew about information being withheld from the board on a project that would ultimately lose €2.3m.

Let’s say, utterly hypothetically, that someone knew about figures being massaged to present a different picture to the public of what was going on inside the organisation they were funding directly by paying over €160 a year.

All of those would fall under “concerns”.

Unfortunately, the Protected Disclosures Policy doesn’t seem to have been circulated among the executive of RTÉ.

For example, the RTÉ director of human resources Eimear Cusack knew for six years that a colleague was leaving under a voluntary redundancy scheme that didn’t follow the proper protocols. She had her concerns and she raised them with the director general. She says it was for the director general at the time “to take the next steps to raise the matter with the executive board or the RTÉ board as she thought appropriate”.

“It is a fact that a separate and confidential arrangement was entered into between the former director general and the former CFO, whereby it was agreed to release the former CFO under the 2017 VEP scheme, without going through the normal VEP approval process,” she told an Oireachtas committee last week.

Right, so what did Cusack do about concerns which could be classified as “irregularities in the running of RTÉ”, “improper departures from good governance” and “material breaches of procedures”? She signed a letter saying it was all in order, “as approved by the executive board”, even though it wasn’t.

“This administrative oversight is one I take full responsibility for in my capacity as the signatory to that letter,” she says.

She didn’t tell other executives about it for six years until questions were ultimately raised. She did not go to the chair of the audit and risk committee with her concerns as outlined in the RTÉ Protected Disclosures Policy. Who put the Protected Disclosures Policy together? “It is developed by personnel in RTÉ legal affairs, human resources and internal audit.” That would be the same RTÉ human resources department that Eimear Cusack is in charge of.

RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst tells us that Cusack “recognises this shouldn’t have happened”. “This is the way the organisation was being run, outside of the rules,” he says.

But that’s all in the past now and Cusack is vital to the all-new RTÉ.

“I have full confidence in her and I need her to drive change.”

To be fair to Cusack, raising the concern with the audit and risk committee of RTÉ would have been as useful as writing to the Tooth Fairy about it. This is the same committee whose members attended a meeting on Toy Show The Musical yet never actually discussed the financial risks attached.

“Perhaps I should have put it on the agenda and said I had asked for this information,” Anne O’Leary, the chair of the audit and risk committee, says.

Oh and the executive in charge of the musical saga is gone. Bakhurst told us last July that Rory Coveney had “resigned from RTÉ”. This weekend, he told us “Rory Coveney and I agreed that it was best he stand down” and that “an exit payment was offered by RTÉ”. After presiding over a debacle that cost €2.3m, Coveney left RTÉ with a year’s salary, about €200,000.

By the way, there’s a batch of other exit payments to senior executive we haven’t been told about – yet.

Towards the end of last week, a TD who has sat through some of the Oireachtas committee hearings commented privately: “In hindsight, poor ol’ Ryan Tubridy was crucified by these lads for far less.”

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