Marian is slated for her ‘soft’ interview
MARIAN Finucane’s radio interview with Pat Hickey’s family solicitor yesterday has been slated by listeners.
The RTÉ Radio One broadcaster was deemed to have given a ‘soft’ interview by those on social media after failing to ask any questions relating to the accusations that have led to Mr Hickey’s arrest.
After introducing the family solicitor, Anne Marie James, Ms Finucane said: ‘I gather you’re afraid I’m going to eat the face off you.’ However, the solicitor had little to fear, with Ms Finucane instead asking questions about the number of people in the Hickey family and how the family were holding up.
On the programme, Anne Marie James claimed the former Irish Olympic boss had been vilified in his home country.
‘For any of us to be trawled across naked or in a state of undress across any paper would be devastating,’ she said.
The family’s solicitor revealed his ongoing detention in Brazil is particularly stressful for his two daughters-in-law who are pregnant. ‘They are being monitored very closely and clearly the stress for that, for them as a family and human beings, is awful and then just the concern that their dad is locked up,’ she added.
She also said Mr Hickey had asked for mosquito repellent to help cope in the prison.
‘This would imply that he’s exposed to mosquitos therefore malaria, zika virus and obviously whatever other endemic diseases in prisons such as TB, with people living in close quarters.’