CUT IT OUT RTE Bosses blasted for censoring award show criticism of the government
RTE has been blasted for censoring criticism of the Government by a winner at the People Of The Year Awards.
TV chiefs cut out comments by medicinal cannabis campaigner Vera Twomey when they posted highlights of the ceremony on Youtube.
Vera has been fighting for two-anda-half years to get permission to treat her daughter Ava Barry with medicinal cannabis.
Ava, eight, suffers from Dravet syndrome, which causes severe, dangerous and frequent seizures.
Vera was honoured among other unsung heroes on Sunday night in a ceremony broadcast live on RTE, with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in the audience.
In her acceptance speech she said: “We’ve been let down by the Government but we were never let down by the Irish people who supported us the whole way through this for the last two years.
“And I would like to say, because Mr Varadkar is here, I would like to say that the outstanding issues must be resolved.
“I would like to say that the outstanding issue is legislation for medical cannabis in Ireland.
“We need legislation to access treatment properly. We want our rights – we do not want the pressure. We need our medication.” The campaigner was given a standing ovation.
But her damning quotes were edited out in the highlight video, which end at the part where she says the family had to “fight to get what Ava needed”.
Vera told Red FM in Cork: “It’s really sad isn’t it? It’s sad that they’d exclude it, you know... it’s so flipping important.
“I said that we were disappointed in the Government. It’s sad to say it was cut out because they don’t want to recognise that legislation is necessary. You could feel the support in the room. It was wonderful.”
Social Democrats representative for Dublin Mid-west Anne-marie Mcnally tweeted:
“I’m more sad than angry that
@rtenews cut #Veratwomey #Peopleoftheyear speech so as to delete bit where she called out @campaignforleo.
“Sad too that @morningireland had a six min package on awards and never even mentioned Vera.”
In a statement, RTE said: “Vera Twomey’s acceptance of her award, and her full speech, can be found in a standalone segment on the
RTE Player and the full programme is also available on RTE Player. The clip referred to was uploaded to Twitter (hosted on Youtube) during the live People Of The Year Awards show in order to direct viewers to the full show on TV and also to make the public aware of our catch-up facility.
“Due to time limitations, and in order to capture a selection of moments from the full show, there were no entire speeches from award winners uploaded on this platform. The clips posted during the live show ranged from 15 seconds to over 4 minutes (Aslan’s opening act).” Vera with award