Ryan Tubridy has backed out of his first public appearance since the ignominious end to his RTÉ career.
The broadcaster, now defined by the RTÉ payments controversy over the summer months was listed as keynote speaker at Irish Country Living’s annual Women & Agriculture Conference being held at Lyrath Estate Hotel in Kilkenny next week.
However in a mover that will have caused to all Irish country women in agriculture The Irish Times reported on Tuesday that Tubridy had decided to bail out.
Attendees had been told that Tubridy would be due to speak about his experience as a presenter and author but there was no mention RTÉ.
Tubridy was swiftly removed from his RTÉ Radio 1 show duties on June 22 when the payments controversy first emerged.
Shockingly it was then revealed that he had been paid €345,000 more than had been declared to the public by the state broadcaster between 2017 and 2022.
By the end of the summer, Tubridy had been in talks to return to his radio show, with plans to return in September.
However, these talks disintegrated when RTÉ director general Kevin Bakhurst took exception to some of Tubridy’s public utterances on the controversy.
Tubridy’s first talk was promoted under the banner ‘Rediscovering yourself in your second life’.
It read further: “When you walk away from the job, which has filled that work slot during your adult life, you are likely to experience a sense of loss, of dislocation.”
