Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

But for what purpose? This was not Renault or somebody coming to say: "We would like to latch on to this star for our benefit and we will talk to you about it." This was RTÉ actively looking for something that it was going to pay for. Not alone was RTÉ paying the company the money to funnel it to Mr. Tubridy, but it was also funding the organisation of the event. Surely to God somebody would say there is no benefit in that to RTÉ – zero; absolutely no benefit - and ask why it was doing it. Did that not occur to anyone, and obviously to the head of content as well? Surely there had to be questions there. I have some sympathy for Ms Geraldine O'Leary because quite frankly, she was asked to do something; she was asked to go hunting for somebody who was prepared to participate with RTÉ. I would like to hear from Renault because it seems to me – this has been part of the content of what is coming back – that it decided not to continue with it the following year and we were left on the hook and we never expected to be and that is why we underwrote it and yada yada. The whole thing was concocted. This was a straw hut that was built to funnel money to an individual and one can only conclude, at best, that it was about concealment. Somebody must come out and address the kernel of this, which is why this was put together in the first instance, and how can it not be construed as concealment – legal but concealed, based on the way RTÉ put its reporting together. Going through RTÉ's statements yesterday, it makes it clear that when it comes to putting the top ten list together, there are checks and balances in there, but the director of content sits on that. I do not know who else sits on it, but others do in consultation with the DG. They had to know there was a side deal, a tripartite deal.