‘Guardian editor needs to quit from Irish media panel’
After columnist Greenslade revealed his IRA links, call for his former boss to be kicked off media committee
LABOUR leader Alan Kelly has said former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger should resign from the Irish Media Commission or be sacked following the revelation that columnist Roy Greenslade had been a secret IRA supporter.
And Tánaiste Leo Varadkar piled pressure on Sinn Féin to answer questions about what they knew of Mr Greenslade’s views at the time he criticised rape victim Máiría Cahill in a Guardian column.
Last week, Mr Greenslade wrote in the British Journalism Review that he backed the IRA’s armed campaign while he was working as a journalist during the Troubles.
Ms Cahill told the Irish Mail On Sunday that if Mr Rusbridger ‘has any decency he must be seriously reflecting on his future’.
Mr Rusbridger has ‘associated’ himself with apologies from the Guardian to Ms Cahill over the article written in 2014 by Mr Greenslade about her case. Mr Rusbridger said he was not aware of Mr Greenslade’s support for the Provisional IRA but ‘I am happy to associate myself with these apologies’.
However, Mr Kelly said: ‘After these shocking revelations by Roy Greenslade, there is no way Alan Rusbridger can sit on the Future of Media Commission operating out of the Department of An Taoiseach.’ He said ‘it simply wouldn’t be appropriate or acceptable’.
The commission was set up in September to examine the future of the media in Ireland . Mr Kelly said: ‘If he doesn’t resign in the next few days, then the Taoiseach must remove him. I presume he will be gone before the Dáil sits on Wednesday.
‘Furthermore, Mr Rusbridger also needs to issue a full apology to Máiría Cahill and speak to her personally if she requests such a discussion.’
The departure of the former Guardian editor from the showpiece commission would be embarrassing but one senior Government source said: ‘Confidence is hanging by the barest of threads.’
In a statement Arts Minister Catherine Martin said: ‘I was contacted by Máiría Cahill on the evening of 4th March in relation to Alan Rusbridger’s appointment to the Commission and I have written directly to Máiría Cahill in response. I have conveyed to Ms Cahill my abhorrence at the abuse she suffered and the subsequent horrendous ordeal that she had to endure.’
She added: ‘In the circumstances, I am treating her correspondence with the utmost seriousness. I have noted that Ms Cahill made a complaint to the Guardian Newspaper readers’ editor and that the Guardian has since published an apology... I welcome her initiative in this regard.’
Ms Martin added: ‘I note also the recent statement by Alan Rusbridger in relation to his role as the editor of the Guardian newspaper at that time... I intend to reflect carefully on all of the issues raised by Máiría Cahill in consultation with colleagues, taking account also of all subsequent developments.’
Commenting on Ms Martin’s statement, a senior source said: ‘I can feel the frost towards Rusbridger in every line.’
Speaking to the MoS, Ms Cahill clarified that she had not, in conversations with the Taoiseach and Ms Martin sought the resignation of Mr Rusbridger. But she said ‘if Mr Rusbridger has any decency he must be seriously reflecting on his future.’ Ms Cahill added: ‘To date his public responses do not stand up well to scrutiny. If he did not know about Mr Greenslade’s tendencies, he should have. His responses have fallen well short of being satisfactory.’
Ms Cahill, commenting on Mr Rusbridger’s role in the Media Commission added: ‘This is a very important inquiry into a troubled industry. I would be seriously reflecting on my position and whether he thinks his presence might taint the Inquiry.’
Ms Cahill also warned that the former Guardian editor’s credibility had been fatally compromised noting ‘how does he sit in judgment of others. If I was an editor, I’d laugh him out of the place’.
Tánaiste Mr Varadkar warned that Mr Rusbridger ‘definitely needs to give an explanation as to what he knew’. He also said: ‘Why is nobody asking questions of Sinn Féin? He was writing under a fake name for their party newspaper. They must have known before now and are there others?’
‘His responses have fallen well short’