And, in the unlikely event that it did happen, RTÉ’s Prime Time Investigates would get wind of it and expose it as a failure in public service governance.

Except that the public service body whose governance stands questioned today is RTÉ, a major part of whose mission is to hold politicians and the public service accountable. And the individual who received more than €300,000 over five years, outside of RTÉ’s officially published books, is Ryan Tubridy, whose official compensation had been radically reduced in deference to RTÉ’s financial problems.

In the context of the drop in money Tubridy took, €75,000, while not paltry, isn’t enormous. The reputational damage to the national broadcaster and to Tubridy himself, on the other hand, is enormous.

The Late Late Show is sufficiently influential to attract the Tánaiste on to one of the last Tubridy episodes, to answer questions about his life, career, and future. It still matters. It still must be, like Caesar’s wife, above reproach.

Ditto Tubridy, the paternal, always trustworthy personality who shepherded his audience through the pandemic.

Yet, while RTÉ and Tubridy were getting credit for him taking a pay cut, a convoluted deal had been done behind the scenes to reduce his pain by €75,000. Which didn’t appear in the published accounts.

In terms of corporate governance, it’s somewhere between ropey and shocking. We know the chairwoman of RTÉ Siún Ní Raghallaigh, pulled in Grant Thornton to look at the books, but we don’t know what provoked her to do so. Her actions generate a rake of relevant and urgent questions.

One of those questions is who authorised this unorthodox payment method and why. Although €75,000 isn’t a huge sum in terms of the national broadcaster’s overall budget, it is nonetheless a significant figure to pull out of that budget and hand, secretly, to a presenter.

To the question of who authorised it must be added the question of who else knew.

Did the governing body’s compensation or risk committees know?

Did the chair and director general know? And if they didn’t, how was it concealed from them over five years?

Also, what was the rationale behind the payments? Ryan Tubridy is a competent and popular presenter in Ireland. He’s done the occasional substitute radio presenter gig in the UK. But there has never been a suggestion that overseas demand for his services was so threatening to his retention by RTÉ that it needed to be fended off. Plus, if he was likely to walk, €75,000 was neither here nor there.

The revelations had a new broom ring about them. It seemed that a new administration had spotted something — precisely what and who did the spotting isn’t clear — and called in accountants and, once the nature of the transactions was established, went public with it.

Ryan Tubridy's statement

Ryan Tubridy’s own statement suggests neither the new administration nor Grant Thornton consulted him about it.

Crisp. Indignant. Speedy. Too speedy. And way too smart.

The secondary part of this astonishing story is what he calls RTÉ’s “errors in the reporting of its accounts.”

But the primary part, the shocking part, is that he may have entered into a secret arrangement with RTÉ which vitiated his public stance as an uncomplaining loyal servant willing to take one for the team. He and RTÉ may have misled the public which pays for RTÉ to exist and Tubridy to get behind a microphone.

Tubridy’s own statement begs another question. He may not have had involvement in RTÉ’s “unfortunate” accounting errors. But he knew that an organisation required to exemplify the highest standards was creating those errors. Year after year. Yet he didn’t act on that knowledge.

€75,000 a year over five years may have seemed to those involved like a small gesture of appreciation, an OK sneaky tip.

But as Albert Reynolds memorably observed, it’s the small things that bring you down.