MacGill boss: ‘I wasn’t sexist in my RTÉ role’

Director hits back in row over lack of female voices on School panel

THE director of the MacGill Summer School, who is under fire for the dearth of female speakers on the panel, has rejected accusations that he was ‘sexist’ in his previous role at RTÉ.

Speaking with the Irish Mail on Sunday, Joe Mulholland said there wasn’t ‘a sexist bone in my body’ when asked about the connection between the two incidents, which happened years apart.

In 1999, as RTÉ’s managing director of television, Mr Mulholland caused another furore when he decided to ‘glamourise the weather’, as some described it at the time, by replacing experienced meteorologists with more camera-friendly presenters. He acknowledged at crisis: Joe Mulholland the time that it had been a mistake to replace meteorologists.

This week, he was again in hot water – this time over the lack of women panellists at this year’s prestigious event in Glenties, Co. Donegal.The summer school’s programme sparked outcry because it featured 45 men and just 15 women, including speakers and moderators.

‘MacGill tries and I have tried very hard to represent women at the highest level,’ Mr Mulholland told the MoS yesterday.

‘It has been stated publicly by my former colleagues – and I’m grateful to them – that I don’t have a sexist bone in my body and I have huge respect for women. I believe in many ways they are better than men and more capable. Whatever previously happened in RTÉ, I don’t even remember. It wasn’t anything major, that’s for sure.’

Mr Mulholland said he is now working with ‘two eminent women journalists’ to produce a revised programme, which should be available within a week. ‘We are under huge pressure of time but hopefully the deficiencies in it will have been rectified,’ he said.

Two female speakers, Social Democrats TDs Róisín Shortall and Catherine Murphy – as well as other speakers – have threatened to withdraw from the event if the gender imbalance is not rectified.

Panels featuring more women have since been added.

Mr Mulholland has apologised for the programme and earlier this week said: ‘I tried my best – obviously my best is not good enough.’

‘We hope that the public will respond and come to the school because we have need of support,’ he told the MoS. ‘We have very little resources and that’s what people forget – this is run on a wing and a prayer from year to year.’

Journalist Olivia O’Leary yesterday spoke out in defence of Mr Mullholland, writing in a letter to the Irish Times that anyone who would consider him to be a misogynist hasn’t worked with him.

‘I did [work with him] for many years and not only did he support female presenters at a time when few others did, he encouraged women reporters, producers and directors as well, and he ensured that issues about women’s rights were covered.’

RTÉ journalist Ingrid Miley, Fine Gael MEP Maireád McGuinness and Vicky Phelan are among the female speakers at the event.