RTÉ HAS ISSUED a statement defending the host of the Late Late Show in response to criticism from an Ireland-based Jewish group over Patrick Kielty’s handling of an interview with musician Boy George. 

Holocaust Awareness Ireland said that Kielty had shown a “lack of empathy when speaking about Jews” after the programme aired. 

The group was commenting on an exchange between the host and the singer, during which Kielty asked Boy George about being in Golders Green in London on the day that two Jewish people were attacked. 

The man accused of carrying out those attacks is also accused of attempting to murder Ishmail Hussein in a knife attack at Hussein’s flat in south London.

Journalists who were in court on the day that the accused appeared charged in court reported that the earlier attack was linked to a “personal dispute”. 

Kielty described the attack as “horrific”. 

Boy George explained that he has had a lot of “abuse online” for his support of his Jewish friends. 

“For me personally growing up I had so many beautiful Jewish friends and I still have, and being asked to turn against a whole race of people is just not acceptable to me,” Boy George said. 

Kielty responded by saying: “It’s that idea isn’t it that, you know you’ve got an attack on the Jewish community and the backdrop of that is obviously the horrors in Gaza, and this is a complex thing, but I know you’ve always spoken out that… violence is never the answer”. 

“I think you don’t blame whole nations for what is going on in America or Russia or anywhere else, I think it’s really about your relationships with people, I don’t choose my friends based on their race or their sexuality or their age, I choose people because I like them,” Boy George responded. 

He went on to say that he knows lots of amazing Jewish people, and said “if you don’t know any Jewish people maybe that’s the problem”, and then turned to the audience and said “do you know any Jewish people?”. 

When the audience did not respond Boy George said: “Look at the quiet, so weird, as a country that’s had a lot of pain, we should know what that feels like,” Boy George then commented. 

Kielty responded by saying “I know, I know, it’s that idea that you need to learn from the past and try to do different”. 

Holocaust Awareness Ireland – which is a group founded by the son of a Holocaust survivor, said that Kielty had shown a “singular lack of empathy when speaking about Jews”, and posited the question of whether Kielty had been “corrupted” by the “RTÉ hive mind where the narrative around the issue of Israel and Jews is disturbingly unbalanced?”. 

RTÉ, in a statement issued today, put forward that Kielty had said that the attacks took place against the backdrop of the horrors in Gaza, but at no point did he say “that there was any justification for the attacks whatsoever”. 

“As someone who lost his father to a terrorist attack, Patrick has always been empathic, measured and sensitive on such matters, which he was again on this particular show.

“Shortly after the 7 October attacks in [Israel in] 2023, Patrick signed off the Late Late Show with an expression of sympathy for the victims and a hope for peace.

“On Friday’s show Patrick allowed his guest to share his experience and views in a sensitive and editorially appropriate manner,” an RTÉ spokesperson further said. 

Two Jewish men, Shloime Rand and Moshe Shine, were stabbed in Golders Green in London on Wednesday. 

A man named Essa Suleiman has been charged with three attempted murders in relation to the incident. 

The victims have since been discharged from hospital after sustaining serious injuries in what has since been declared as a terror incident by British police.