The Oireachtas Media Committee still wants RTÉ’s former Director General to appear before it, the chair has said. 

In June, Dee Forbes announced her resignation from the broadcaster “with immediate effect” following the controversy surrounding the hidden payments to Ryan Tubridy.

The following day, a spokesperson said she would not attend that week’s Oireachtas hearings on health grounds.

A second Grant Thornton review into the broadcaster is ongoing and Media Committee Chair Niamh Smyth said its findings could necessitate a hearing during the Oireachtas summer recess.

“If there are any revelations in that report that the committee feels are important to interrogate further, we absolutely stand ready to reconvene,” she said.

“But also, maybe more importantly, [we would sit to hear from] the absent voices to the conversation so far… Dee Forbes and also Jim Jennings, Head of Content, who were not available due to illness.

“[If they] make themselves available whenever they are fit to come before committee.”

Dee Forbes

Deputy Smyth said there are a number of issues members of the committee would like to raise with Ms Forbes.

“The idea that a commercial deal and a mechanism be put in place to pay for an extra €75,000 for Mr Tubridy’s contract - that that would be done through a barter account and kept off balance and why was that insisted upon?” she said.

“Was it insisted upon from her side or from Mr Kelly’s [Ryan Tubrudy’s agent] side?”

Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee Chair Brian Stanley told The Hard Shoulder last month that it would seek to interview Dee Forbes when she is fit to do so and if necessary the committee has the power to compel her to testify before it.

Main image: RTÉ Director-General Dee Forbes leaving an event at the National Concert Hall in Dublin January 2020. Picture by: PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo