It will be "very difficult" for the Public Accounts Committee to make a decision on the RTÉ payments scandal without evidence from Dee Forbes.

That's according to Fianna Fail TD Paul McAuliffe, who was speaking to Newstalk Breakfast following the delivery of a second Grant Thornton report to RTÉ's board on Ryan Tubridy's payments.

The report investigates the bonus fees planned for the presenter from 2017 to 2021.

Deputy McAuliffe said it is "long-awaited" and was promised by RTÉ "very early on" in the investigation into the payments scandal that rocked the broadcaster earlier in the summer.

"We now have an opportunity to look into consistency; how consistent are the contents of this report with what was given in terms of evidence at the PAC?" he said.

"Secondly, in terms of cooperation, there's a number of people that haven't come before the PAC yet – either because they aren't in a position to or they decided not to.

"Then, you come back to the issue of accounting practices within RTE and possible questions for the auditors around the accrual of this €120,000 balloon payment at the end of Ryan Tubridy's contract prior to 2019."

Public spending

Deputy McAuliffe said many people may feel the PAC has "exhausted" the story already.

"I think the PAC are very consciousness that, in the overall scale of public spending, this is a small story," he said.

"Our hope would be that we would wrap this up, that we would get these answers, and that we will be able to publish our report.

"We have a PAC scheduled for the end of October, and it isn't clear yet who will appear at that."

The report

Deputy McAuliffe said the PAC is hoping to have a copy of the report "as soon as possible".

"I also imagine that there are probably elements of it that they want to bring to public light in advance of making the final decision in regards to if Ryan Tubridy returns on-air," he said.

"We haven't had to compel anybody, we haven't had to compel documents.

"They will be questions for us in the near term if there are outstanding people, for example, Dee Forbes or others.

"Do we compel them? Or, is there enough in the Grand Thornton report?"

Dee Forbes

The current PAC are in an "enviable" position compared to their predecessors, according to Deputy McAuliffe.

"We've been given very specific remit by the Oireachtas and no other PAC has ever been given that," he said.

"If we choose to compel witnesses, we do have that option."

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

Deputy McAuliffe said it is "very hard" to accept RTÉ's claims that Dee Forbes was at the helm of the hidden payments scandal, without hearing her evidence.

"That issue will have to come before us again," he said. "We have to be proportionate, and we have to be reasonable and so on."

"It would seem very difficult for us to draw conclusions in the absence of having that evidence or of a decision by that person to contest it and to delay it and so on.

"It's not about just one witness, there are a number of witnesses that haven't taken up the opportunity to attend the committee."