RTÉ confirms Forbes and O’Leary behind misleading answers on 2019 rugby junket
RTÉ’S press office was misled by false information provided by former Director General Dee Forbes and former Commercial Director Geraldine O’Leary, the broadcaster has confirmed.
According to RTÉ, both executives provided inaccurate and misleading answers in response to queries from the Irish Mail on Sunday about an RTÉ trip to the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
Instead of telling the press office that the trip was costing RTÉ as much as €111,000 and was being paid via an off-the-books barter account, the executives provided an alternative explanation.
When contacted by RTÉ’s press office about the query they said the trip was ‘cost-neutral’ because flights and accommodation had been secured on a ‘contra basis’.
Asked who provided this information to the press office, a spokesman this week told the MoS that the press office does not issue responses to media queries ‘without prior approval by the senior manager with knowledge of the issue being queried’.
He added: ‘The information in the RTÉ responses referred to were provided and approved by the former Commercial Director [Ms O’Leary] and the former Director General [Ms Forbes].’
This 2019 episode – which occurred four years before RTÉ’s secret use of barter account funds became public – was a pivotal
‘There was a lot of disquiet about it’
point in the barter account controversy. That’s because it was the first time that spending from the barter account came under any scrutiny by the media.
But because of the misleading response approved by Ms Forbes and Ms O’Leary, the existence of the barter account remained secret until last year.
This represented a missed opportunity for any other RTÉ bosses or board members who read our 2019 report to seek clarity about the Rugby World Cup spending and learn of the barter account.
This point was made at Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearings last year by Sinn Féin TD, John Brady. Raising the MoS reporting of the 2019 Japan trip Mr Brady questioned former RTÉ chair Moya Doherty.
He said: ‘There was media reporting of the trip to Tokyo at the time. I think it was in the Mail on Sunday. This article was published in 2019 regarding the trip to Tokyo by RTÉ and others.
‘There was a lot of criticism that this trip had taken place at the same time as a series of cuts being made at RTÉ. I am sure that particular trip was a topic of conversation at board level.
Ms Doherty acknowledged: ‘Yes, I am sure it would have been.’
Mr Brady continued: ‘I am sure a legitimate question would have been asked as to where the money came from to pay for that trip. Does Ms Doherty recall?’
She responded: ‘I have no direct recall.’ Another board member, Robert Shortt, also recalled our 2019 article being raised at the time, said: ‘There was a lot of disquiet about what had happened and what had been reported.’
But anyone reading RTÉ’s answers to our 2019 questions about the Japan trip would have been misled about where the money had come from.
That’s because RTÉ’s responses, which we printed in good faith, said the trip had been paid for on a cost-neutral contra basis.
As is now known, the trip was not cost-neutral. It used €111,000 that belonged to taxpayers.
Furthermore, it did not involve a contra deal. Last week’s Mazars report makes it clear that contra deals are a completely separate mechanism to barter accounts. The Mazars report states: ‘In respect of contra arrangements disclosed to us by RTÉ, we have concluded that these do not constitute off-balance sheet accounts within the meaning and understanding as attributed to the barter account.’
After the inaccurate 2019 press response and the resulting MoS coverage three other newspapers – the Sunday Independent, the Irish Examiner and the Star – made FOI requests about the Japan trip.
RTÉ responded to these three requests on the same day in December 2019. However, these responses once again made no reference to the use of the barter fund or the true scale of expenditure for the trip. Instead RTÉ told The Irish Star that ‘the bulk of charges were cost neutral to RTÉ’ since credit accumulated with third party intermediaries had been availed of.
The Sunday Independent was told the same thing. So too was The Irish Examiner even though their request had not asked about costs or funding. The Irish Examiner had asked only for memos, emails and minutes of meetings between executives about the trip. In response to this RTÉ told the newspaper that there were no such records because; ‘those involved in the planning of the event sit in close proximity and therefore spoke to each other rather than sending emails’. RTÉ’s FOI responses also told each newspaper that since cost-neutral arrangements had been made for flights and hotels, the Japan trip cost the broadcaster just €2,470.10 for taxis, train and meals.
In reply to each FOI in 2019 RTÉ stated: ‘Occasionally, RTÉ trades with advertising clients through third party intermediaries and offers inventory in exchange for payments and value which is then accrued. This value can be used by RTÉ to purchase goods and services through this intermediary. On this occasion, RTÉ used credit already accumulated for the flights and hotels.’
This week a spokesman for RTÉ said the broadcaster believed this ‘definition of how barter works
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‘This is not a defence, but an explanation’
was at the root of the statement that the purchases were “cost-neutral”, i.e. RTÉ did not directly pay for the flights, accommodation or match tickets.’
He added: ‘This is not a defence. But an explanation of the possible rationale at the time.’
The MoS asked RTÉ if either Ms Forbes or Ms O’Leary had played any role in these FOI responses.
In response the FOI unit said Ms O’Leary was aware of the request adding: ‘The FOI Unit had no knowledge of the visit or the business transactions involved following receipt of the request it relied on information and explanations provided by the former Commercial Director.’
Details of the misleading answers provided by Ms Forbes and Ms O’Leary in 2019 come a week after it emerged that paper records for barter account spending worth almost €400,000 have gone missing.
This meant that Mazars were unable to verify much of this spending. RTÉ has not revealed any detail about the circumstances of how the documents went missing other than to say it involved an unspecified office move.
The MOS sent queries about this article to Ms O’Leary but received no response. A spokesman for Dee Forbes said she remains unfit to answer questions.