RTÉ’S NEW DIRECTOR General has told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it was “not appropriate” for RTÉ radio DJ Dave Fanning to describe Ryan Tubridy and Noel Kelly’s committee appearance earlier this week as an “Oireachtas Nuremberg trial”. 

Fanning, a client of Kelly’s NK Management agency, called Kelly and Tubridy’s back-to-back appearances before TDs and Senators on Tuesday a “nonsensical Oireachtas Nuremberg trial” that “we all need a distraction from” in a since-deleted tweet. 

I want to apologise unreservedly to the Oireachtas Committee for my ill judged comment regarding this weeks hearings. There was no intention to trivialise the proceedings.

— Dave Fanning (@davefanning) July 13, 2023

Speaking to the the Public Accounts Committee this morning, RTÉ Director General Bakhurst said: “I don’t know the context of it; it’s not appropriate from my point of view, [if] that is the view of an RTÉ employee, because the work of this committee has been incredibly important.”

Labour TD Alan Kelly hit out Fanning’s comment in the meeting, asking Bakhurst “how is that appropriate?”

“I thought that was very insulting, because if it was anyone else or a politician that said it, well you know,” he added. 

Fanning has since apologised “unreservedly”for the “ill-judged comment”. 

“There was no intention to trivialise the proceedings,” he said in a subsequent tweet today.