RTE BOSS CALLED TO ACCOUNT FOR COVID VIOLATION
Dee Forbes set to face a Dáil committee grilling
RTÉ boss Dee Forbes is to face a Dáil questioning after some of the broadcaster’s top stars failed to stick to Covid restrictions. Oireachtas Communications
Committee chairwoman Niamh Smyth told the Irish Daily Mail last night: ‘RTÉ needs to swiftly calm public concern.’
And in an indication that the station can expect a tough grilling, Independent TD Mattie McGrath, a committee member, said he is concerned that the State broadcaster has become a Government ‘mouthpiece’, and has abjectly failed to be balanced.
The crisis comes as local authorities
face massive losses due to the pandemic and TDs warn that the property tax may be hiked because of them.
Meanwhile, Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath admitted that the move from Level 3 to Level 5 restrictions last month is costing taxpayers €40million a week in extra welfare payments.
Fianna Fáil TD Ms Smyth said: ‘It is my intention that the director general Dee Forbes i s swiftly brought into the committee to respond to public concern on this issue.’ Some committee members are looking forward to a grilling of RTÉ over what they see as media double standards over the Golfgate scandal involving Supreme Court Judge Séamus Woulfe.
Ms Smyth said: ‘ RTÉ needs to swiftly calm public concern. My objective in calling in Ms Forbes is to secure the facts and to calm public unease.’ She stressed: ‘There is no desire to scapegoat. Good people make mistakes. But it i s very i mportant that RTÉ management offer clarity and leadership. We will have to have a conversation. Our committee is responsible for scrutinising RTÉ and I will be contacting committee members to chart a path.’
Mattie McGrath said the affair should ‘provide RTÉ with a lesson in the importance of balance’.
He said: ‘ What happened was unfortunate. Ultimately, I am far more concerned about how RTÉ has become a mouthpiece for Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar. There has been an abject failure in its responsibility for balance in guests and coverage.’
Another committee source said: ‘RTÉ will probably get a fool’s pardon but, after all the high moral ground stuff about Golfgate and the rest, they will have to sample a bit of Dáil humble pie.’
Meanwhile, Pippa Hackett, junior Agriculture Minister, yesterday ruled out a complete reopening of society for Christmas and said ‘yo-yo-ing’ in and out of restrictions is not going to help.
She said a ‘free-for-all’ Christmas could result i n Ireland being plunged into another lockdown in January, and that there is ‘no point indicating to people we are going to open up for two weeks at Christmas because that is a free-for-all’.
The Cabinet and the National Public Health Emergency Team are engaged in tense discussions over whether the Level 5 lockdown will continue i nto December. Senior Fianna Fáil backbenchers Jim O’Callaghan and Barry Cowen have also expressed unease over the consequences of excessively harsh lockdown provisions.
An increasing number of Government ministers also believe that ‘the biggest threat we now face is the issue of public consent’.
It comes amid growing strains in the public, with one renegade Cavan pri est holding Mass yesterday in defiance of the gardaí and telling the Irish Daily Mail that the bishops are close to ‘heresy’ for refusing to fight against the restrictions. Many TDs are worried that the public will ignore the restrictions over Christmas and will not cooperate with gardaí.
Broadcaster Miriam O’Callaghan said yesterday that she will be ‘forever sorry’ after being pictured at an RTÉ gathering where social distancing guidelines were breached.
Late last week, images emerged of RTÉ stars – including Bryan Dobson, David McCullagh and Ms
O’Callaghan – posing for pictures at an event for retiring colleague, Phil Collins. Many of those involved have since apologised for disregarding social-distancing guidance to pose for pictures at the presentation.
Ms O’Callaghan was yesterday the latest to issue an apology, as she told listeners of her radio show that she regrets the error. ‘I want to apologise for that photograph you may have seen of me failing to observe social distancing here at RTÉ last week,’ she said.
‘It was completely my own fault, no one else’s and I am deeply sorry.
‘I am also acutely aware that, as someone in the public eye, it’s so important to lead by example. By posing in this photograph in the way I did, I seriously failed to do that, and I know in that moment I let everyone down and for now, I will be forever sorry.’
Others who attended include political correspondent Paul Cunningham, presenter Blathnaid Ní Chofaigh and managing director of RTÉ News, Jon Williams.
The controversy forced Six One news anchor David McCullagh, News At One anchor Bryan Dobson and the News At Nine’s Eileen Dunne to issue unreserved apologies live on air.
Gardaí confirmed that they are making inquiries into the incident to see if there was a breach of the regulations after they received complaints.
However, when asked by the Mail last night where the gathering took place and who organised it, a spokesman for RTÉ said: ‘As previously confirmed, RTÉ is reviewing all the circumstances which led to the gathering in question, our public health measures and the communications with our staff to ensure an incident like this does not happen again.
‘This review is being led by the RTÉ health and safety manager.’
‘An abject failure to provide balance’ ‘It was completely my own fault’