Results 2,121-2,140 of 5,948 for speaker:Paul McAuliffe

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: I am not asking Mr. Kelly how it arose. I appreciate he is referring to his notes. I am not asking how it arose. Does he accept that RTÉ reduced its income from Renault by €75,000 and that Mr. Tubridy gained an additional €75,000 for additional work?

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Of course, but does Mr. Kelly accept that is what happened?

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: The crux of the problem is that this is what actually happened and we need to find out who knew that because it looks like there is an attempt to deceive.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: It is entirely likely that they do not know, but are Mr. Kelly and Mr. Tubridy both saying they were not aware that the title sponsor of "The Late Late Show" was reducing its sponsorship by €75,000?

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: So that never came up. That is not part of it.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: The cost-neutral nature of the agreement is really important because that is what really brings it down to the core, which is that money was taken off the books. Ms O'Leary stated in her evidence that she raised the credit note of €75,000 on the instruction of Ms Forbes, and Mr. Kelly and Mr. Tubridy are saying they had no idea of this arrangement.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: It never former part of any of the contract negotiations and so on.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: That is great. That is important to get on the table. The difficult with that is that many of Mr. Tubridy's colleagues would have taken reductions and they would perceive this additional arrangement facilitated or arranged by RTÉ to be not in the spirit of what was happening at the time. I suppose Mr. Tubridy wanted at some point to go back into RTÉ, go into the canteen and be...

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Yes. However, the facts of the situation were that Mr. Tubridy received additional money and they did not.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Other reductions.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: I fully accept that but the facts are before us and that is Mr. Tubridy's difficulty. It is everyone's difficulty.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: I want to turn to the invoice that was raised. There is an email in Mr. Kelly's pack on page 25 which appears to be from somebody in RTÉ which reads "Do not put any person's name on the Invoice. If he sends It back to me I will then sort everything else out". Who was that email from?

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: So it is from an RTÉ staff member.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: Can Mr. Kelly provide the committee with the name of that person? I am happy if he wants to reflect on it.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: It looks very clear to me, as somebody responsible for public money, that when somebody says in an email not to put any person's name on the invoice, it is important for me to know who that was. I ask the witnesses to reflect on that and whether they can provide us with the name. I will ask RTÉ the same question. The second question is that on 7 May, a Microsoft Teams meeting was...

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: A colleague of Mr. Kelly's. The fourth person who we have not been able to identify so far was a colleague of Mr. Kelly's. Again, this is useful information. I then turn to the issue of the invoices. I have to question Mr. Kelly on this point because I have the invoice for the first €75,000 here and also the invoices from the other two €75,000 payments. One is raised by...

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: One contains the full description and the other two are without the full description, all relating to the same €75,000 and the arrangement with Renault. Mr. Kelly is the only one who raised these two invoices. It really strikes at the credibility of what he is saying that he treated one separately from the other. Even at RTÉ's instruction, Mr. Kelly treated these invoices...

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: However, the invoices were raised with Mr. Kelly. Mr. Kelly has a fiduciary responsibility as director of his company. He raised two invoices for the same three payments. He raised them under different companies, for different reasons, and invoiced them to different people.

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: This is my final point. Mr. Kelly is very clear when he says that, "I should stress that at this time we in NK Management had no idea who Astus was. We had no reason to think Astus was linked to RTE or that it was acting on behalf of RTE." Would he be surprised that his name is also mentioned elsewhere in the Astus account?

Public Accounts Committee: RTÉ Commercial Arrangements: Mr. Ryan Tubridy and Mr. Noel Kelly (11 Jul 2023)

Paul McAuliffe: It was the barter account. On 30 November 2018, there is a reference to €2,394 raised from a charity lunch, held by Noel Kelly in aid of Chernobyl.