HOW do you solve a problem like Ryan Tubridy?
To say the people of the South, who have to pay their TV licence, are disillusioned with Tubridy’s complicated salary scheme would be an understatement. There was his public RTÉ salary, and then there was €345,000 extra which wasn’t mentioned but which was paid to him, most of it out of the public purse.
When the news broke, Tubridy quickly and foolishly declared he had nothing to do with how much he was paid, that this was a matter for RTÉ to explain, not him. Then very shortly after, when he saw that wouldn’t wash, he apologised for taking the €345,000 and said he was sorry. But not, at the time of writing, so sorry that he was about to pay it back.
So much of this has to do with public image. Tubridy was the man the people of the South just loved. Like that other much-loved figure, Gay Byrne, Tubridy did a morning RTÉ radio show five times a week and then The Late Late Show on RTÉ television on Friday evenings. In 2019 RTÉ announced an average cut of 15 per cent for its top ten presenters. (Easy, Virginia, easy – I’ll come back to that.) So that was the public pay Tubridy got. What wasn’t revealed was that Tubridy was getting an extra €75,000 per year which was hidden from the public.
Right now, Tubridy is damaged goods. I was watching Miriam O’Callaghan’s expression on Thursday’s Prime Time and I thought I noticed a slightly embarrassed look behind the make-up. It may have been nothing or it may have been empathy for Tubridy with his payments going under the microscope. Whether the fact that RTÉ’s top ten earners are now expected to reveal all may or may not have been on her mind. Miriam and Claire Byrne have since declared their earnings to be public and accurate. But I’m going to hazard a guess that around RTÉ these days, it’s squeaky bum time.
I’m sure there are those who thought Tubridy overpaid in the first place – I’d be one of them and I’d add Joe Duffy and a few others to the list. But it’s not how much RTÉ said they paid Tubridy as the fact that they, um, misrepresented how much. Money under the counter, you might say. And then Tubridy’s embarrassing effort to pass it all off as nothing to do with him – that takes some brass neck. Even Tubridy must have noticed that sweet extra €75,000 in his bank account each year. Now, belatedly, it looks like the RTÉ Augean stables are going to be cleaned out, so stand by for some nostril-damaging smells.
Which is good – the Irish people need to be able to trust their national broadcaster. But... but, but, but, but. In all this, there’s no mention of the quality of RTÉ output – what the likes of Tubridy were being paid for. So here’s a suggestion: Check out Youtube.
There you’ll find separate interviews Tubridy has done with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness. In the Adams one, Tubridy suggests that Adams has blood on his hands, but when Adams points out that the same could have been said of Tubridy’s grandfather, Tubridy tells him he’s being glib. In the McGuinness interview, Tubridy asks McGuinness if he finds it difficult to sleep at night, bearing in mind his role in the Northern conflict. McGuinness suggests that Tubridy wouldn’t ask the same question of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown or British military figures. Such comparisons Tubridy dismisses as being totally different.
I know it won’t happen in the real world, but I’ve been having this recurring dream over the past week. Miriam O’Callaghan is conducting an interview with Tubridy and she asks when he last went to confession.
Long runs the fox.
