Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The committee is trying to put a picture together. There are people unable to attend and some are refusing to attend. That is part of the reason that document is so central. We are united on that in the committee.

Between the Department and RTÉ, quite a lot of money is being spent on outside agencies to inquire into what happened. The Grant Thornton report of 16 June says that on 9 May and 16 July, "the Talent’s Agent raised invoices of €75,000 each with the Barter Company" and that “On the balance of probabilities, the description on the invoices, 'Consultancy Fees' did not reflect the substance of the transactions”. It went on to say: “On the balance of probabilities these two invoices [referred to] 'Consultancy Fees' related to Year 2 and Year 3 of the Talents contract...”.

We subsequently got documents from Ryan Tubridy and his agent and saw the instructions given by Geraldine O’Leary to the agent:

Do not put any person's name on the Invoice. If he sends It back to me I will then sort everything else out.

It said the company name to be put on the invoice was Astus, the address to be put on the invoice and so on. I asked one of the people who has refused to attend today, Geraldine O’Leary, when she was in before if anything had been raised with her about these invoices in 2022. She said: “No, the issue [only] came up in March of this year, in 2023.” I said:

So Ms O'Leary is saying, categorically, that nothing was raised with her last year in relation to this invoice. She is absolutely categoric about that.

She said, “Yes.” Then I asked what she told the staff to do when they asked her what the consultancy services were for, and it goes on. The transcript is available. Before Geraldine O’Leary departed RTÉ, did Mr. Bakhurst interview her about her exact role in all this? Has she co-operated with the various inquiries taking place?