SENIOR RTÉ staff have told an Oireachtas committee that they were uncomfortable with a Late Late Showprogramme which included a staunch defence of Taoiseach Bertie Ahern by the Sunday Independent's Eoghan Harris just before the last general election. Mr Harris was subsequently appointed to the Seanad.
Both Cathal Goan, director general of RTÉ, and Ed Mulhall, managing director of news, expressed unease at the segment when the issue was raised at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources yesterday.
Labour's Liz McManus had asked if a cultural and entertainment programme such as the Late Late Showshould be giving a platform to promote political views during an election campaign.
Mr Goan said he would not second-guess decisions made by the programme team but added that he was "not comfortable" with the segment, given that it was so close to the election. However, he pointed out that the independent Broadcasting Complaints Commission had found no imbalance when it adjudicated on a formal complaint so RTÉ had "fulfilled its statutory duty".
Mr Mulhall said he too was "uneasy" with the programme in question but said that Eamon Dunphy, who spoke out against the Government, seemed to have the audience behind him.
Mr Goan said "a lot of rubbish" was written about the so-called John Crown affair, when Prof Crown was disinvited from a Late Late Showdebate on the health service. "It was blown out of all proportion," he said. It was "absolutely not true" that Prof Crown was disinvited because of political interference and he wanted to say "absolutely categorically" that it was the Late Late Showteam which took the decision to step down Prof Crown.
The meeting also heard claims of bias in favour of the Government in programmes such as Morning Ireland.
Ms McManus said there was a recent trend whereby Opposition politicians were put on Morning Irelandearly in the programme and the relevant minister was interviewed separately, later in the programme. She said this put the minister in a very privileged position as he or she was able to reject the arguments made earlier without being challenged.
Mr Mulhall said the programme makers would like to make the call on when and how people would appear on the programme but this was not always possible for a variety of reasons.
He said parties from all sides had set out certain conditions relating to their appearance.
Ms McManus said that if she objected to the way an item was presented she would be dropped from the programme yet a government minister would be facilitated. "I'm not saying the playing pitch is level," Mr Mulhall said. It was not level because certain parties were in government and others were not.
He also rejected criticism by Senator Joe McHugh about the Bryan Dobson interview with the Taoiseach.
Mr Mulhall said this was the first time that many of the issues had emerged and all the key questions were asked.
Fine Gael's Simon Coveney asked if RTÉ should consider providing "an empty chair" in cases where a minister refused to take part in a debate but Mr Goan said this would not serve the purpose of facilitating public debate.
And Fianna Fáil deputy Mattie McGrath claimed Questions and Answerswas not a "a very good programme" because the audience was hand-picked.
