A FIANNA FÁIL TD has called on Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte to “step aside” from dealing with the complaint about the final television presidential debate on RTÉ.
Seán Fleming said Mr Rabbitte should not deal with the issue of the tweet that damaged Seán Gallagher’s presidential election campaign, claiming he had a “personal, financial vested interest in the outcome”. But Mr Rabbitte described his claim as “outrageous”.
The Minister said: “I am not often lost for words but, in all my time in this House, I have never less anticipated a line of questioning than that just pursued by my friend Deputy Fleming. The innuendo is outrageous.”
Mr Fleming raised the issue in the Dáil in advance of a special meeting of the RTÉ Authority today and said the authority “must appoint an independent person to carry out an investigation”.
Mr Fleming said the content of the tweet referred to a political donation and that Mr Rabbitte had canvassed for the election winner and donated to his campaign.
The Fianna Fáil TD was “surprised” Mr Rabbitte was to deal with the issue in the Dáil and said the Minister should have “declared his personal interest in the matter” to the House, “particularly in view of the fact that we are discussing a political donation”.
However Mr Rabbitte said it was a “matter of public record that I canvassed on behalf of my former parliamentary colleague”.
“It is true I made a financial donation to his campaign,” he said, and the donation was twice what was reported “in some quarters”.
But to suggest that his campaigning for Michael D Higgins “has any bearing on the investigation of a complaint on behalf of one of the defeated candidates in the presidential election is little short of outrageous”, he said. “I did not conduct this inquiry.”
It was a matter for an independent body – the Broadcasting Authority. “I do not know how in heaven’s name Deputy Fleming can believe I am conflicted in my approach to this issue.”
The Broadcasting Authority upheld a complaint by Mr Gallagher that the broadcast on The Frontlineof a tweet incorrectly attributed to the official Martin McGuinness for President twitter account was unfair to Mr Gallagher and there was no apparent efforts made to verify the tweet.
Mr Fleming had earlier noted RTÉ’s apology for the mistake, but said it had refused to “countenance an inquiry into the matter”. Mr Rabbitte had pointed out “both the Broadcasting Authority and RTÉ are independent bodies, each with clear roles and functions”.
Mr Rabbitte said: “It would be inappropriate for me as Minister to interfere in the editorial affairs of RTÉ.” He fully accepted it was a serious matter and most people would agree with the finding that the use of the tweet was ill considered. He was encouraged that new guidelines for the station would “reinforce protocols around the authentication of social media and other inputs to programmes”.
