It was entirely appropriate that the last edition of Panorama to be transmitted on a Monday evening at peak viewing time should have concerned itself with Northern Ireland, and that the programme makers should have had to fight in the courts for the right to transmit it.
The BBC's flagship current affairs programme has been transmitted on Monday at a time designed to attract a mass audience for the past 45 years. It has devoted large resources to investigating stories on such issues as BSE and AIDS. From next week the programme will be shown on Sundays at l0.15 p.m. - what used to be called the late-night God slot.
It's all part of the dumbing down of television news and current affairs. The BBC defends the move on the grounds that the typical Panorama audience (composed mainly of AB viewers) will tune in on a Sunday night, as though those lower down the social scale do not need to be informed on political and social affairs.
Who Bombed Omagh?, the programme which was shown on Monday, has provoked strong reactions. Brice Dickson, the chairman of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, fears that the decision to name four men who may have been involved in the bombing could prejudice the possibility of suspects ever being brought to trial.
Lawrence Rushe, whose wife Elizabeth died on that dreadful summer afternoon, shares this view. Against that, many of the families involved, who co-operated with the BBC, believe the programme represents almost their last hope of persuading people who may have information about how their loved ones died to come forward and give evidence. As Michael Gallagher, the chairman of the Omagh Support Group, whose son Aidan died in the bombing, put it: "We are 2 1/2 years down the line and not one person, North or South, has been charged with a single murder in Omagh."
These families need to see justice done if they are to come to terms with their grief.
Police on both sides of the Border have said they believe they know who made and transported the bomb and that 15 suspects are involved. On Monday night Sir Ronnie Flanagan told Panorama that a "very full intelligence picture" exists of the bombing, but that the police are unable to bring charges because those who might be able to help the prosecution are unwilling to give evidence.
You may have noticed that the programme did not carry the usual production credits giving the names of the crew. This was because threats had already been received by the BBC as to what would happen if the programme was shown.
John Ware, who has a fine record of making carefully researched and troubling programmes about Northern Ireland, clearly had the co-operation of police on both sides of the Border in assembling his evidence, particularly the logging of mobile phone calls made on the journey to and from Omagh.
He quoted from a number of statements made to gardai by people who were not themselves involved, but have information which relates to the case. Not surprisingly perhaps, they have so far refused to give evidence in court for fear "of ending up with a hole in the head", as one of them put it. The hope now must be that some of these people may find the courage to come forward. Much of the Panorama programme was taken up with harrowing testimony from the relatives of those who were killed in the blast. It is against this background of their hunger for justice, thus far denied, that this brave programme must be judged.
There is another issue here, at least for a journalist like myself who has spent more years than I care to remember reporting from Northern Ireland. During most of that time, television - particularly, I would suggest, British television - has been crucial in exposing some of the worst miscarriages of justice that have occurred as a result of the conflict.
John Ware, who made Monday's Panorama, previously worked for Granada's World in Action, where he made a number of brave programmes on Northern Ireland. Such work demands not only resources, but a serious commitment from the programme bosses to getting politically controversial journalism on to the screen. Now World in Action has gone. So has Yorkshire Television's First Tuesday, which helped to achieve the release of the Guildford Four.
Who Bombed Omagh? was seen by over four million people. Panorama is unlikely to attract that kind of audience in a late-night slot on Sunday night. The danger then is that any decline will be taken as evidence that the programme is going downhill and that it will be denied the resources it needs.
At RTE, the commitment to serious investigative journalism can be seen in programmes like States of Fear. But, as several correspondents have remarked recently in this newspaper, the national broadcasting station has not escaped the pressure to chase the ratings. The decision to produce a local version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? is just one case in point.
There have been reports that the most recent audience figures for Prime Time, the station's main current affairs programme, have shown a serious decline over the same period last year. Insiders complain that it has been starved of the resources it needs to make serious investigative programmes.
Given that most of us get our information about what is going on in the country from television, this is deeply worrying. RTE needs to show that it remains committed to its public service remit in this regard. Perhaps it might consider transmitting Who Bombed Omagh? to a wider audience in this State.
mholland@irish-times.ie