Politics

Taoiseach declines or defers 80% of requests for formal media interviews

Enda Kenny has turned down interviews with journalists such as Vincent Browne, Marian Finucane and Channel 4’s Jon Snow

British journalist Jon Snow unable to secure interview with Enda Kenny. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
British journalist Jon Snow unable to secure interview with Enda Kenny. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
Stephen Dunne
Sat Nov 30 2013 - 01:00

Taoiseach Enda Kenny declines or defers almost 80 per cent of the formal interview requests made to the Government Press Office, according to records released under Freedom of Information.


Media outlets
An internal "interview bids" log maintained by the Government Press Office at the Department of the Taoiseach shows there were 175 requests for interviews with Mr Kenny in the two years from August 2011. They came from a range of Irish and international media outlets.

Mr Kenny declined 104 of the 175 interview opportunities. A further 34 requests, some dating back as far as October 2011, are listed as pending.

As well as turning down requests from Woman's Way and Sky Sports News, Mr Kenny rejected or deferred opportunities to be interviewed on programmes presented by such journalists as Adam Boulton of Sky News, Jon Snow of Channel 4, the late David Frost on Al Jazeera, and Irish journalists Vincent Browne, Matt Cooper and Marian Finucane.

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Mr Kenny agreed to do 37 of the formal interview requests over the period. As part of these, the documents record that the Taoiseach gave more than half (21) to foreign or international media outlets and journalists. He agreed to interviews with various US, Chinese and British media, including TV stations NBC, CNBC, CNN, China Central TV and the BBC and newspapers such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

Also included is his interview with Time magazine last year, which saw Mr Kenny appear on its cover with the headline "The Celtic Comeback".

Domestically, Mr Kenny accepted 15 formal requests. Eight of these were with Irish daily newspapers, including three interviews with The Irish Times. Two interviews with RTÉ are recorded, and various other interviews, including an appearance on Clare FM and Today FM's Championship Sunday in September last year, are also noted.


Broadcast interviews
According to the Department of the Taoiseach, the released log is a "working document" which omits interview requests turned down immediately by the press office. Not all interviews are recorded in this schedule, the department added, because of "a short lead-in time" for interviews, particularly broadcast ones.

As a result, the department also released a second schedule which identifies a further 109 “one-on-one/specific interviews” with Mr Kenny.

In a statement, a spokesman for the Taoiseach said: “The Taoiseach has an extremely busy media schedule and obviously a highly demanding overall diary of Dail business, Government business and other engagements. The number of interviews undertaken by the Taoiseach in relation to requests received is high as is his level of interaction with the media on ‘stories of the day’, which has led to his participation in 316 doorstep interviews from the period when he took office up to August this year.”

This article was ammended on Saturday 30th November.