World of Politics with Harry McGee

Ryan Tubridy and his agent Noel Kelly’s performance before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee was a little bit like the Galway team last weekend. They set off at hurricane pace but could not sustain it over the three hours.

It wasn’t as if they were steamrolled by a Limerick locomotive during the hearing. It’s just that they did not have it all their own way.

Overall, Tubridy probably did enough, as he put it, to begin rebuilding the trust between him and the Irish people. He did that through a combination of his charm, of emotion and simmering rage at being the object of what he claimed was the deceit and unjust treatment meted out to him by RTE over the past three weeks.

However, neither he nor Kelly remained unscathed from the encounter. Several of their claims struggle to stand up to scrutiny following the sober, astute and pointed questioning of the Public Accounts Committee (which had one of its finest three hours) over the controversial side-deal brokered for Tubridy with the Late Late Show sponsors Renault.

In particular, Tubridy’s claim that he was subjected to a 20 per cent pay cut was more or less debunked by the committee. It was only 20 per cent when you didn’t factor in the side-deal with Late Late Show sponsors Renault (worth €75,000 a year to Tubridy).

“I could be out of a job by Friday,”” he told Alan Dillon of Fine Gael. It was a reminder of what was at stake for the nation’s best-known, and highest-paid, broadcaster.

For his part, Kelly was successful in arguing against the notion that it was all a secret and shady deal, kept hidden from everybody.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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