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LAST UPDATE | 26 Nov 2024
TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has been asked for more details of what his team communicated to RTÉ following the filming of an exchange with a member of the public in Cork.
En route to tonight’s Leaders’ Debate, he said he did not believe any member of his party indicated to the broadcaster that Charlotte Fallon, the carer at the centre of a viral video, was a member of Sinn Féin.
Questioned by a journalist at a media briefing prior to RTÉ Prime Time, Harris said that he had made his feelings clear on the fact that it was a “very important interaction”.
Harris noted that the allegation being made was very serious.
Earlier today, Harris said that contact his party made with RTÉ surrounding footage of him interacting with the carer was “entirely appropriate and normal”.
When asked by The Journal at an event yesterday if any member of his team or Fine Gael’s team were in contact with RTÉ about the footage and whether there was any suggestion that the broadcaster wouldn’t air it, Harris responded: “I don’t believe so”.
After this comment by the Taoiseach, The Journal had numerous exchanges with the Fine Gael camp yesterday in a bid to clarify the matter and the nature of the contact with the national broadcaster over the clip.
It was established that contact had been made more than once with RTÉ.
In the now viral clip, carer Charlotte Fallon approached Harris while he was on a canvass in a supermarket in Kanturk in northwest Cork and criticised a lack of supports for the care sector.
The Taoiseach walked away from Fallon mid-conversation.
The woman identified herself as a worker in a Section 39 organisation, which are groups that have service legal agreements with the HSE to provide health and social care within communities.
In the interaction, filmed by RTÉ, she said of the Budget: “We’ve fought for our money … but we are ignored.”
Harris responded: “No, no, not at all.”
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris was approached during a canvass this evening by a woman who says she is a carer, and who said she believes the Government has "done nothing for us" | follow live: https://t.co/eUoCK3Qb5Y pic.twitter.com/MXiN9b60Ke
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 22, 2024
Harris publicly apologised on Saturday morning for how he responded to Fallon and yesterday said that he “let myself down” with the interaction.
A spokesperson for RTÉ said yesterday that the broadcaster had no comment on the matter.
Sources at RTÉ said the broadcaster has conversations with all the political parties on a regular basis and that it had strong editorial processes in its newsroom.
The Fine Gael leader today confirmed that contact had been made between his party and RTÉ regarding the footage.
On The Joe Finnegan Show on Shannonside Northern Sound, Harris was asked about a report in the Irish Daily Mail that Fine Gael had “frantically” contacted RTÉ over how it planned to use the clip.
Harris said there is “constant contact between political parties and RTÉ and journalists during the course of an election campaign”.
He said he understood that contact had been made “in terms of offering RTÉ a statement or further detail around what my party intended to do around carers and disability services.”
“But let’s be honest, RTÉ is fully independent,” said Harris, who added that it was “entirely appropriate for that clip to be shown”.
When asked if this was confirmation that contact was made with RTÉ about how the clip “might be handled”, Harris replied that he didn’t “accept that characterisation of it at all”.
“My understanding is that my party would have offered a statement in relation to further details, which is exactly what would happen when RTÉ is covering any story.
“We’d obviously offer information and that’s an entirely appropriate and normal thing to do in any sort of political media coverage.”
Meanwhile, Fine Gael party colleague Paschal Donohoe said any contact that has happened “has been appropriate” and is the “kind of exchange that happens normally”.
“My party and I have never threatened to sue any journalist, we’ve never threatened to review the impartiality of any journalist or broadcaster,” said Donohoe.
Sinn Féin’s general election manifesto contained a pledge to commission an independent review into the objectivity of RTÉ’s coverage of Gaza.
When it was put to Donohoe that Fine Gael had tried to “influence” how the clip would be used and that the “optics” were bad given his criticism of Sinn Féin’s plans for an independent review of RTÉ, he replied: “We have exchanges of views all the time.
“I want to emphasise again that any contact that would have happened would be entirely appropriate.
“It’s the kind of contact that happens, not only in election campaigns, but outside of them.”
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said it was “chilling” that Fine Gael had contacted RTÉ over the footage.
Meanwhile, Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats said the clip was an “insight into Fine Gael as a nasty party”.
“The Taoiseach can’t have his cake and eat it,” said Gannon.
“There were all sorts of videos put out of him dancing at the start of the campaign. We hear him talking a lot about a new energy but what was clearly lacking was a new empathy.
“You cannot stage manage being able to shake a person’s hand, look them in the eye and tell them not only do you feel their pain, but you’re willing to legislate and allocate budgets in accordance with it.”
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We have the other extreme here. Damned if do. Damned if you don’t. The fact is heroin destroys families. They should of thought of that when selling the horrible stuff.
You’ll find that the majority, if not all, these inmates have come from broken homes and deprived communities where they sold drugs to survive. It’s nasty and yes they were part of the cycle that they themselves were trapped in but Obama is acknowledging that solution involve them; much in the same way Mo Molam knew the peace process in NI had to involve inmates in British prisons.
Why is Obama doing this at the end of his term instead of at the beginning? The US prison population stands at over 2million. That’s more than China has incarcerated. It’s almost 2.5 times more than Russia has in prison.
the vast majority of prisons in the US are privately owned, run foe profit and care more about the bottom line than society. barry is an actor..reading off a script and being told what to do, as badly as drugs have messed up parts of society unpunished white collar crime and the burden it has put on society has damaged it a lot more.
in america there is a prison industrial complex,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,thats the problem.
here there are yobos with 17 previous convictions walking free and committing more serious crimes because the justice system is far to lenient on them. the legal system does not mind, its a big cash cow for them.
Obama is a good actor and that’s all. It is well established fact that since he took office his administration has refused more freedom of information requests than other other administration in US history. And if he gave two shits about ‘non-violent crimes’ then he’d have long arranged for Snowden to come home and would have intervened in the Bradley Manning case as he could have done at any time.
He’s a liar, and has done nothing but further liberalise US laws (which is why most of these guys are in prison in the first place).
Hilary Clinton is far worse than he and if she makes it in it’s bye bye US.
OK idiot. Restored pride to US after years of Bush’s wrath. A true statesman. Agree with you about Hillary though. I hope Sanders wins
Try making a point like an adult and I might respond to you. Other than that. Take a hike.
you just replied to him.
My heart is bleeding purple piss reading the sob stories.
If anything our Judiciary here could learn a thing or two from US Judges about sentencing and the whole US legal system.
Instead of having Solicitors and Barristers they have just one set Lawyers who deal with your case from start to finish. Where there is a dedicated Prosecution Service staffed by full time Prosecution Lawyers and a dedicated Public Defenders Office staffed with full time Defence Lawyers for those that would normally get free legal aid here. And then Private Legal Firms for those that can afford them.
Yes because there is so little crime in the US compared to Ireland.
Funny how you, a prison officer, propose following almost every part of the US save the mass privatization of prisons, wonder why that could be, oh right, self interest.
Wari.
Simply because Privatised Prisons have been shown time and time again to be an utter disaster in terms of security and staff safety. One only has to look at our nearest neighbour to see just how much of a bad idea they are and why the rest of Europe are not following suit. In reality they actually cost the state more than those under Government control in the long term.
I’m all for criminals doing time for their crimes especially violent or sexual crime but some of the sentences for carrying a small amount of drugs are ridiculous. Check out the segment John Oliver did on it, it’s a real eye opener. When I think of the idiot I was as a teenager, I would hate to go to jail for 15 years because of being on idiot.
I didn’t deal drugs! lol
If the sale of illegal substances was legalised and regulated then a lot of these places would see a massive reduction in crime as the people relying on the drug trade to make a living would be forced into tax-paying, gainful employment as they could not compete with a well regulated, safe industry. Also, not only would we gain the tax from the legal sale of drugs, it would be much easier to ensure the quality and safety of such substances as they could be tested in proper labs before being passed onto the public. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the head in the sand approach just doesn’t work. As long as there is a clear demand for drugs, there will always be people willing to risk everything to meet that demand for massive tax free profits.
In fact the Americans have the right idea here. Conspiracy to distribute heroin is no small crime. In my opinion 15 years is entirely appropriate. Crime must be punished harshly or we are all doomed.
They should do more about guns than 1000 year prison terms
How about maybe not dealing heroin. Heroin is a violent drug as is most other drugs. And yes that includes Weed. So just because the initial deal was violent… what we should let them away. The Americans have the right way. Full length senences for federal offences. If we could adopt there legal court room system this country would be a hell of a lot better off.
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