An emergency meeting of members of the National Union of Journalists will be held at RTÉ today. 

In a statement yesterday, RTÉ announced it had paid former Late Late Show presenter Ryan Tubridy €345,000 more than it had publicly declared over a five year period. 

Between 2017 and 2022, Mr Turbridy had been paid an additional €75,000 a year from a commercial partner, ‘in exchange for a number of personal appearances’.

The broadcaster said during “a routine audit of RTÉ's 2022 accounts, an issue was identified in relation to the transparency of certain payments.”

A review of RTÉ’s other nine most highly paid presenters found “all remuneration figures have been correctly stated and accounted for by RTÉ.”

RTÉ Board Chair Súin Ní Raghallaigh declared it a “serious breach of trust with the public”.

Ryan Tubridy is pictured on set ahead of the RTÉ One The Late Late Show St Patrick's Day Special. Picture Andres Poveda

The NUJ said the broadcaster still has questions to answer. 

“What we need at this stage is a comprehensive explanation from the Director General and the Executive Board of what happened,” Seamus Dooley of the NUJ said. 

“We have had a comprehensive statement from the Board of RTÉ, the chair has given a public interview. 

“The RTÉ Board did not, to my knowledge, sign off on the agreement and, therefore, responsibility rests with the full-time Executive Board. 

“We need to know who made this decision and why it was made.” 

Mr Tubridy described the controversy as “unfortunate” and said he cannot "answer for [RTÉ’s] mistakes in this regard."

The presenter will be absent from his radio show on RTÉ today.

Main image: Ryan Tubridy. Picture by: Alamy.com