Wexford County Council backs chief executive in long-running row with local radio station

Wexford County Council has backed its chief executive Tom Enright as South East Radio planned a second complaint to the Standards In Public Office commission (Sipo) about his behaviour.

On Tuesday evening, the council described an allegation Mr Enright had subjected the station’s news editor to a “serious and unprovoked” verbal attack after the conclusion of an interview at the station as “unfounded”.

Senior managers at the council, in a separate statement, said they had always found Mr Enright “to be a person of utmost courtesy, decency and dedicated to public service”.

The disagreement is the latest chapter in what has been a long-running controversy involving the station and council.

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The council’s statement said Mr Enright “engaged in a discussion” with Alan Corcoran, who also presents the Morning Mix show on the station, “in relation to some of his recent shows” immediately after the interview had finished. He had “requested that the Council would be invited on his show at the same time as he had invited others on to discuss significant matters concerning the Council”.

After this, the council suggests, Mr Corcoran “shook hands with Mr Enright before he left and thanked him for the interview”.

In a statement on Monday, however, Mr Corcoran said “once the interview had been completed, Mr Enright proceeded to launch into a tirade ... a premeditated attack on me” and said the incident had turned into “an ordeal” that “has left me very distressed”.

Two years ago Sipo found Mr Enright had put “unwarranted” pressure on the station by raising advertising spend during a dispute over its coverage of the council.

A few months later there were further problems when then county secretary David Minogue suggested “criteria” be agreed with the station about its coverage of the council as part of a “service level agreement” between the two organisations.

Mr Corcoran reported the latest encounter to management at the broadcaster.

An exchange of letters followed in which managing director Eamon Buttle told Mr Enright that Mr Corcoran had experienced “trauma” and “significant distress” as a result of the incident and that the council official was barred from entering the station’s premises.

A solicitor acting on behalf of Mr Enright responded to say his client was “shocked and dismayed” by the allegations and sought to have the suggestion of a ban withdrawn.

In addition to the council’s statement on Tuesday, a number of members of senior management at the local authority expressed their support for Mr Enright.

Six Directors of Services, including the council’s Deputy Chief Executive Eamonn Hore, described the complaints against him “as profoundly sad in terms of professional local radio broadcasting”.

In Mr Corcoran’s earlier statement, which was read out during his show on Monday, he described the conversation as “a blatant attempt by Mr Enright to influence the editorial practices of the Morning Mix programme, which is incredible, given the outcome of the Sipo investigation into him just two years ago”.

He said he had “asked South East Radio management to refer this matter to the Standards in Public Office Commission to undertake an independent investigation and they have agreed to do so”.

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