FIANNA FAIL and the Progressive Democrats pulled out of participation in Questions and Answers last night because they disagreed with the line up.
RTE had proposed one panellist from each of the Government parties and one each from Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats, a total of five rather than the usual four guests.
At one stage yesterday the possibility of two panellists each from the Government and opposition, or one from each and two non politicians, was explored. However, none of the Government parties would forgo its place, and RTE also felt this line up would distort the overall representation of the parties in the course of the Questions and Answers coverage.
The programme went out last night with no representative of any of the political parties. In a statement RTE said it had been unable to obtain the agreement of all the political parties.
"RTE's only concern in the formulation of the panels for the election Questions and Answers programmes was to provide a balanced debate between Government and opposition and to reflect fairly, in so far as it was possible in the number of programmes available, the relative strengths of the main parties reflected in the Dail representations," the statement said.
The Labour Party leader, Mr Dick Spring, suggested Fianna Fail had pulled out because it was unwilling to share a panel with the PD leader, Ms Mary Harney. "They are reluctant to endorse any of her controversial views, and unable to publicly dissociate themselves," he said in a statement.
A Fianna Fail spokesman vehemently denied this, saying the party only had a problem with RTE's proposal to have three representatives of the Government on the panel, and only two from the opposition alliance, which was unfair.
RTE then came up with one from Fianna Fail, one from the Government and two journalists. We were happy with that. It came up with one Fianna Fail, one PD and two Government, and we were happy with that. Then they suggested one PD, one Government and two journalists, and we were happy with that. Then they decided there would be no politicians at all and that's their right according to the FF spokesman.
Mr John Murray, spokesman for the Progressive Democrats, also said there had been a proposal to have two Government and two opposition panellists which they had accepted. "Originally RTE had said we would be on the last Sunday before the election. Then they asked us if Mary would bring back her slot by a week, and we agreed. On Friday evening RTE said there was a change of plan to two opposition and three Government. At that stage Fianna Fail said, `No', I rang Mary (Harney) back, and she said she would not agree."
Mr Peter Feeney, the editor of current affairs in RTE, said the option of two from each side had been explored, but no such offer had been made.
"The sequence of events was this: last week we had two Government panellists and two opposition, one from Fianna Fail and one Green. This week we planned to have one Fianna Fail, one from Fine Gael and one from DL. Then next week we would have one each from Fianna Fail, the PDs, Fine Gael and Labour," he said.
During the week we started to get the message that Fianna Fail was not happy with the proposal for this week, and we saw their point. So to accommodate them we offered one Fianna Fail, one PD, and one each from the Government parties, and that the chairman would recognise the imbalance in the time allocated to each speaker."
Mr Feeney said RTE had yesterday explored the options of two each from the Government and opposition, or one each and two journalists, but the Government parties would not forgo their place, and we could not blame them. It would also have distorted the representation over the run of the programmes.
"The Labour Party did suggest three on each side, but this raised the problem of who would be the third. Another Fianna Fail representative? That was not accept able to RTE, and it also posed a physical problem with the set. So at that stage we decided not to have any, politicians on the programme, Mr Feeney said.
Democratic Left accused RTE of "a shameful act of capitulation in the face of political pressure from Fianna Fail."