What an astonishing surprise? Could it have anything to do with the givernment washing its hands of the matter? And I agree with the comment about the Kevin Reynolds investigation. Why is it taking so long? Is RTE politically untouchable?

Perhaps Gallagher will now stand down his personal crusade and allow the far more deserving and necessary investigation into the Fr. Reynolds matter to proceed without trivial distractions and sideshows?

Ok gallagher its over now You get over it

Yawn fucking yawn…!

Bow out Sean and move on.

Before these shower waste more of our bailout money on another Wild Goose Chase Inquiry.

Now in the ancient art of morse code. Foxtrot Oscar Gallagher

I complained to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) in October 2010 concerning an item on the RTE main evening news (9pm). In this item RTE announced that the Current Budget Deficit for was 19.2 billion. This was a regular item from August to November 2012 when people may remember the IMF arrived into Ireland.

The BAI rejected my complaint. They claimed to have watched the news programme and that it was “balanced”. Please note I did not complain concerning balance, but concerning the TRUTH of the news item. The only “balance” I was concenred with was that the people be given a true account of the nation’s “balance sheet”.

I appealed the BAI’s rejection my complaint and submitted documentary evidence, from the EU’s web site, in support of my contention that the RTE news item was untrue. In August 2010 the EU had insisted that the Department of Finance must include the cost of the Bank Guarantee in the current spending for 2010. Therefore “the current budget deficit” was a very large and elastic sum far, far greater than the 19.2 billion stated by RTE.

I asked the BAI to submit the script of the news on the date in question to me and I asked them to refer my complaint concerning the news item to the script of the programme concerned. They refused to produce the documentary evidence to refute my complaint. the insisted that they had watched the news and that is was “balanced”

In my experience, the BAI is a despicable quango which totally unfit for purpose in terms of regulating RTE. If they cannot produce documentary evidence and refer complaints to documentary evidence even in something as basic and fundamental as the right of the public to the truth in the main evening news, then they should be abolished. We pay for this “service ” through our licence fees.

I am going to campaign for the abolition of the BAI under the new system proposed by Minister Pat Rabitte and for the right of the public to refer complaints in future to the Ombudsman’s office where they will get a proper hearing.

Incidentally you may be interested to know that RTE stopped referring to the “current budget deficit” after my complaint.
Muireann Neylon
.

Hi everyone,
There was a glitch in this submission. Too much haste – sorry about that! I should have said from August to November 2010 when people may remember the IMF arrived in Ireland.

A lot of people got a big surprise when the IMF arrived here. This is because they genuinely thought that the current budget deficit was 19.2 billion. This is hardly surprising since RTE had been telling them that this was the deficit for the previous four months when in fact it was a much larger sum of money. The IMF would not take over an economy because of a deficit of 19.2 billion. It was because of the huge cost of the bank guarantee that the IMF had to take over our economy.

The BAI should be eliminated when the new scheme of taxation for information comes into place. We should have the right to complain to a proper authority who will regulate the sector – not the BAI – and at least then we would get honesty and integrity for our payments.

Let’s spend millions on a Gallagher tribunal and that great ape might get his ugly baldy mug in the papers some more!

Gallagher you lost, you lied, you don’t get another chance!