RTE has confirmed in its latest statement that payments made to Ryan Tubridy were done through a barter account, but what exactly is a barter account?
Last month it emerged that national broadcaster RTE had paid former Late Late Show presenter Ryan Tubridy €345,000 extra in monies that wasn’t publicly declared over a five year period. Ryan Tubridy has publicly apologised for failing to ask questions about payments he received from RTE, but said that he had "no responsibility for the corporate governance in RTE or how or what they publish in their accounts."
The Oireachtas Media Committee is due to meet at 1:30pm today to seek answers about barter accounts from RTE board members and executives. These include former chairwoman of the RTE board, Moya Doherty, and former chief financial officer Breda O’Keeffe. It is understood that RTE has forwarded a document to the Joint Oireachtas Committee confirming that there are two more barter accounts.
Read more: RTE faces 'existential crisis' as finance review finds more barter accounts
Here's everything you need to know about barter accounts, how it relates to RTE's payments scandal, and more:
What is a barter account?
RTE is a dual-funded public service media provider, meaning that it derives its funding from both television licence fee and commercial revenue.
A barter account is where a company, usually a media company or organisation, records the exchange of goods or services for other goods or services that it receives. A simple example is a radio station being given the use of cars from a local car dealership in exchange for providing radio advertising for the dealership.
In RTE's case, the national broadcaster uses barter accounts for the purpose of hospitality and entertainment in relation to advertising clients and other media agencies. This is done so that RTE can increase its advertising revenue which it needs to function.
RTE is expected to explain at this afternoon's committee that from 2012 to 2022 it generated €1.65 billion in commercial income and €1.6 million of barter account revenue was used for client entertainment and hospitality.
What has RTE said about its barter accounts?
In its statement, RTE has said it paid two payments worth €150,000 in total were made to Ryan Tubridy through a barter account in 2022.
These payments were worth €75,000 in the years 2021 and 2022.The two payments through a barter company were described on invoices as “Consultancy Fees”, Grant Thornton found in its report.
Invoices were raised by Tubridy’s agent to the barter company on May 9, 2022, and July 6, 2022. The €75,000 payments, which were valued at a gross figure of €115,380 each, were subsequently paid by the barter company on May 25, 2022, and July 20, 2022.
The Barter Account Statement issued by the Barter Company describes each expenditure as a “Fee agreed by Director General”.
Separately between 2017 and 2019, Tubridy was paid an additional €120,000 in payments that were not publicly declared. RTE has since said that the reasons for these payments are under investigation, and that the payments were flagged by Grant Thornton in their report.
Yesterday it emerged that a review has discovered that RTE has more barter accounts. Further detail on what exactly these accounts have been used for and what else has been discovered in RTE's latest review of its accounts will be discussed later at the committee meeting from 1:30pm.
Sign up to the Dublin Live Newsletter to get all the latest Dublin news straight to your inbox.
