RTÉ chief defends broadcast despite errors

The author of a report into the controversial RTÉ documentary High Societyhas said that it is credible that a politician could have admitted to taking cocaine.

Noel Curran, RTÉ's managing director of television, told an Oireachtas committee yesterday that the "credibility and non-credibility" in terms of cocaine use had "completely altered for me to a large degree over the last number of weeks" given that a recent Prime Timedocumentary had shown traces of cocaine in 92 per cent of pubs and clubs in the country.

Both Mr Curran and the director-general of RTÉ, Cathal Goan, defended the High Society documentary despite repeated criticisms from politicians that the allegation that a Government Minister took cocaine was never substantiated and that the broadcaster's standards had slipped.

RTÉ has been forced to defend itself after Justine Delaney Wilson, the author of the book on which the documentary was based, said she had deleted the tape containing the alleged interview with the politician.

Mr Curran's internal report, which has not been published, acknowledged that "established controls were not sufficiently exercised", but errors were not systemic and the programme's overall credibility was sound.

Mr Goan told the committee yesterday it was a "matter of very great regret" to him that the focus had been on the controversy over the politician's remarks.

He stressed, though, that RTÉ had come to the conclusion that the "weight of evidence of all the source material which has been checked leads us to believe that the overall programmes are true".

Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney, the party's spokesman on communications, said the public wanted to believe what RTÉ broadcast was true but the allegation relating to the politician was "almost discredited before it was even put on screen".

Labour TD Liz McManus said the programme undermined confidence and trust in RTÉ. "I don't believe all the testimonies were true. It is not evidence-based," she said.

Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Kenneally said he could not believe that a politician would go to Buswells Hotel and admit on tape that he or she had taken cocaine.

"Do you think that's credible because I certainly don't believe it is?" he asked.

Mr Curran replied: "Would we find it difficult to believe that a politician had an alcohol problem or would admit to taking soft drugs?"

Mr Curran said RTÉ was "putting our hands up completely" in terms of the first of the two-part documentary which contained an allegation about the politician. He said RTÉ had not interrogated the material properly before the first programme went out, but had done a thorough analysis of the material broadcast in the second programme.

Before the second programme was broadcast, RTÉ gained full access to the remaining seven hours of tapes and interviewed both the commissioning editor and author, he explained.

Mr Curran said the decision to describe the politician as a politician and not as a Government Minister as had been alleged in The High Societybook was taken by the production company on legal advice and not by RTÉ.