Simon Coveney and Sinn Fein slip away in RTE mist and fog

MARTIN Mansergh, in a letter to the Sunday Independent contesting my criticisms of the Department of Foreign Affairs, draws attention to my role as backroom adviser to David Trimble, as if that finished off any credibility I might have with nationalist readers.

Dr Mansergh is a little out of touch with the liberal pluralism of Middle Ireland. Working with David Trimble might have damaged me with tribal nationalists, but not with real republicans who appreciate that I was acting with good authority.

Without any monetary reward, I was risking abuse from my own tribe by working with Trimble as part of his successful struggle to set up the Northern Executive.

So why am I so slow to give credit when Sinn Fein seems to reach out to unionists as Gerry Adams did last weekend?

Because it’s invariably followed by some squalid sectarian episode that reinforces Protestant fears of being fooled.

How can Northern Protestants be sure of Sinn Fein’s sincerity when, within days of the Adams speech, Stephen McCann, the Sinn Fein chair of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council, steadily refused to condemn the Enniskillen bombing?

But I am always alert to genuine acts of good authority. Like those of Tommie Gorman, RTE’s Northern Editor, in relation to the Irish Language Act.

Gorman puts Sinn Fein’s case for a standalone act but he balances this, both at Sinn Fein press conferences and in his RTE reports, by drawing attention to some of the difficulties the DUP have with many aspects of the proposed act.

Apart from not giving parity to Ulster-Scots, these include calls for 10pc of civil service jobs to be reserved for those with fluent Irish, an Irish language commissioner with more powers than their counterpart in the Republic, and, perhaps most contentious of all, street signs in both English and Irish.

As an Irish speaker, I can’t help seeing some hypocrisy in Sinn Fein’s demand for a one-sided Irish Language Act while pretending to reach out to Protestants.

Take the proposal that all street names should be bilingual. How easy it is for us in the Republic to sneer at the loyalists of Sandy Row having problems with street names in Irish — and how quickly we forget.

Because I remember the savage rows we had in the Republic about compulsory Irish. Furthermore I can even recall rows about street names in English, based on snobbery rather than religion.

Breandan O hEithir and myself made a hilarious film for the Irish language RTE programme Feach about residents in Glasthule who objected to their salubrious Victorian roads being renamed after republican heroes.

Fine to call some road in Donnycarney Patrick Pearse Terrace but dare try that in South County Dublin. Surely the same holds for Sandy Row, and in spades?

Common sense should tell us that there is no chance whatsoever of the DUP accepting a standalone Irish Language Act as long as Sinn Fein uses it as a cultural cudgel.

If the rest of RTE shared Tommie Gorman’s passion for promoting peace by balanced reporting, they would be making documentaries depicting the DUP’s difficulties, not just with Irish, but the problems of conscience its members have with abortion and gay marriage.

Instead RTE makes choices, especially when picking out DUP spokespersons, that inflame rather than inform the audiences in the Republic and promote prejudices which benefit only bigots and the political project of Sinn Fein.

Contrast Shane Coleman’s choice of Jeffrey Donaldson to set out the DUP stall on Newstalk — which Donaldson did calmly and clearly — with Morning Ireland’s choice of Sammy Wilson MP last Monday.

Wilson is a well-known maverick who does not represent the progressive Foster-Donaldson leadership of the DUP and on Morning Ireland he predictably came across like a bigot.

It’s the predictable part that bothers me. Morning Ireland must have known Wilson would come across badly in the Republic.

Why bring him on to make things worse and only benefit Sinn Fein?

Why not create a pluralist conversation by selecting moderates like Donaldson, Edwin Poots or Peter Robinson?

Who benefits from RTE seeking out cultural bigots except bigots North and South? Including Sinn Fein which benefits most of all.

You might argue that Morning Ireland made a maladroit choice that objectively benefited Sinn Fein by accident rather than design. But last week there were no fewer than four such accidents.

Last Wednesday, RTE’s two main evening TV news programmes did not report Micheal Martin’s careful contexting of the Irish Language Act in the Dail. He rejected Sinn Fein’s use of Irish as a cultural cudgel — which the Taoiseach had failed to do.

Noting the long, noble tradition of Protestant involvement with Irish, Martin recalled during the Hillsborough negotiations visiting a Presbyterian chapel to view a 16th-century bible in Irish in a glass case.

Those two TV news programmes also failed to report another blow to Sinn Fein when the European Parliament overwhelmingly voted against one of its pet projects, special status for Northern Ireland. Why?

The following day, the two evening TV news programmes also failed to report that Sinn Fein and a handful of communists had voted against a major motion establishing an antiterrorism committee in the EU parliament. Again we must ask why?

But the biggest why is why last Wednesday RTE’s Six One and Nine O’Clock News totally blanked out Peter Murtagh’s Irish Times report of a row between Simon Coveney and an Aer Corps pilot.

Coveney has been a pet of RTE News since he stood up for Sinn Fein’s position on the Irish Language Act?

Then David McCullagh on Prime Time, failed to ask the Taoiseach a single question about Northern Ireland.

This meant Varadkar was not asked about his view of Simon Coveney’s failure to deliver a deal on restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland

By letting both Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney off the hook, McCullagh softened an already soft interview.

Given that McCullagh works in television, he should also have challenged Leo Varadkar’s citing of Jobstown video evidence which gave traction to Paul Murphy’s complaints.

Having directed films for 25 years in RTE, I know the camera can lie. In fact, I wrote a paper about why the camera can’t be trusted called Television and Terrorism.

Reviewing his first few weeks, it seems me the Taoiseach is trying to be all things to all men. But he can’t please both Paul Murphy and Middle Ireland.

Most decent people I meet think Murphy is a trendy toff who led a mob and should be convicted in the court of public opinion of bad behaviour.

Finally, let me warn the Taoiseach that right now he’s riding a hot air balloon of puffy popularity and had better come down to earth before he’s shot down.

‘RTE makes choices that inflame rather than inform and promote prejudices which benefit only bigots and Sinn Fein’