Presenter expected to seek work with other broadcaster

RTÉ will not pay Ryan Tubridy a severance package after dumping him over the payments scandal.

The former Late Late Show presenter is now expected to seek work away from RTÉ as the broadcaster will not renew his contract.

However, there is still the possibility of legal action being taken by Tubridy amid ongoing confusion over his contractual status.

It remains unclear what the position is concerning the €150,000 arising over the Renault deal.

Tubridy was on a five-year contract running to 2025, but this was for both television work as host of The Late Late Show and presenter of his morning radio show.

Once he stopped presenting the flagship chat show, his contract was up for negotiation.

RTÉ says it will have to enter into discussions with Tubridy about ending his employment, but it does not accept he is entitled to any severance pay.

“Now that RTÉ contract negotiations with Ryan Tubridy have concluded, as confirmed yesterday by RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst, payments to Ryan Tubridy will conclude in due course. There will be no severance payment,” RTÉ told the Irish Independent.

Ryan Tubridy not returning to RTÉ airwaves

Tubridy was due to return to the airwaves next month, to go back on his RTÉ Radio 1 show on Monday, September 4.

He was due to begin a new contract worth €170,000 a year to do the radio show and a podcast.

Tubridy was also due to pay back €150,000 to RTÉ from the Renault deal, which was paid from the national broadcaster’s barter account “slush fund” for work he ultimately did not do.

But that new contract was taken off the table by Bakhurst following a breakdown in trust over Tubridy’s reaction to a report.

Although RTÉ has left the door open to him returning at some point in the future, he is now understood to be seeking work elsewhere.

RTÉ continues to insist a statement by Tubridy “damaged trust between both parties” and clarifications sought “were not addressed to RTÉ’s satisfaction”.

“RTÉ wrote to Mr Tubridy’s representatives on Wednesday seeking clarification on the statement issued by Ryan Tubridy earlier that day. RTÉ also sought clarification on two matters. These matters were not addressed to RTÉ’s satisfaction,” RTÉ said.

“Regardless of the intent, Mr Tubridy’s statement and the timing and manner of its publication damaged trust between both parties and that, along with a range of other issues outlined by Kevin Bakhurst resulted in the conclusion of the negotiations.”

However, in the clarification, Tubridy’s team told RTÉ he had “no intention of causing any difficulty”.

But he said he was “not in any way inferring that RTÉ was incorrect” in stating his full salary details, including the Renault deal payments.

There is now uncertainty over the status of the €150,000 paid by RTÉ as part of that deal.

“This is a decision for Ryan Tubridy,” RTÉ said.

The possibility of Tubridy taking legal action against RTÉ remains, particularly as the precise contractual arrangements are unclear.

Bakhurst confirmed Tubridy is still being paid by the broadcaster and that negotiations on resolving that issue would be his “next step”.

Tubridy has been off-air since June 22 when the scandal emerged about his publicly declared salary being lower than what he was actually paid.

“We need to resolve that, that’s the next step now,” Bakhurst said. He admitted the dispute over whether Tubridy was still in contract after stepping down from The Late Late Show in May remained unresolved.

“Well, I think, as has been said before, he had that contract, which covered both the Late Late and his radio work,” he said.

“When he decided to leave The Late Late Show, clearly there was some discussion about whether he’d left that contract or not, and I don’t think there’s agreement on that.

“We continued to pay him because I thought it was a fair thing to do over that period, because we would normally pay someone over the summer, and it was our decision to take him off-air for a while.

“But we didn’t pay him at the level that they were seeking for him to be paid.”

Discussions have already begun within RTÉ about who will replace Tubridy in the morning radio slot.

Standing in for him yesterday morning, Brendan Courtney said it was “a little bit strange to be here” in front of the mic for the 9am programme, adding: “We all feel a bit discombobulated this morning.”