Varadkar’s praise and brickbats for our press
WHAT does Leo Varadkar really think about the free press?
Just two months ago, the Taoiseach said that an ‘independent news and media is the cornerstone of a free press’, only to tell an invite-only event in New York that he sympathises with Donald Trump’s trenchant criticism of the media.
In April, the Taoiseach commented that the media should be ‘free from any unjust interference’, adding that ‘we need a plurality of voices in the media’.
Commenting on a data breach of journalists’ emails at Independent News and Media from 1999 to 2014, the Taoiseach said: ‘Journalists must be free to pursue stories. Their sources should be protected and free from any unjust interference, external or internal.’ He commended those who had worked to report on the INM story.
‘The reported data breaches represent a very significant threat to the freedom of our press,’ he said. ‘Obviously, any alleged breach affecting personal data is a matter of concern, whether it relates to journalists or public citizens.’
He also praised RTÉ only last month when RTÉ Investigates exposed evidence of longterm illegal dumping in Donegal by companies that had a waste collection permit from the county council.
When the Taoiseach was asked about this episode during leader’s questions, he praised this episode of RTÉ Investigates as an ‘excellent programme’, going on to say that ‘what we saw last night on RTÉ Investigates was a disturbing picture that tells us that we have a long way to go when it comes to waste enforcement in Ireland’.
That same month, he justified the Goverment’s use of private investigators to spy on hospital consultants who work too many hours in private hospitals at the expense of their public hospital work.
‘We also know, not from the Government but from RTÉ Investigates, that there are other consultants who breach their contracts who work full-time in private and public practice, which is impossible,’ said the Taoiseach.
He added: ‘RTÉ Investigates did the country a service by using private investigators to follow some of these consultants who were in breach of their contract.’
However, for all the praise, there is also criticism. In January, he said of President Trump: ‘As a politician I can be sympathetic about his feelings about the media.’
Mr Varadkar invoked Trump in April when he declared a story about a row in Cabinet over judicial appointments was ‘fake news’, the phrase first used against CNN by the president and since repeated incessantly.
‘This is the third time in the past three or four weeks I have read a story in a newspaper about a Cabinet minister threatening to resign, but I have yet to have one do so,’ he said. ‘This is more fake news, I am afraid. This time it was in The Irish Times, it was the Irish Examiner earlier on in the week.’