RTÉ INCREASED ITS audience share for its documentary about Maurice McCabe last night, with an audience share of 44% tuning in to see the second part of the whistleblower’s story.
An average of 555,000 people tuned in to Whistleblower: The Maurice McCabe Story on RTÉ One, an increase on the 509,000 that watched the first part on Monday night.
McCabe – who recently retired from An Garda Síochána – and his wife Lorraine described their experience since the former sergeant began to raise concerns about misconduct and wrongdoing within An Garda Síochána over a decade ago.
The Disclosures Tribunal report last month found that there was a campaign run against McCabe by the then-garda commissioner Martin Callinan, that was aided and abetted by Superintendent Dave Taylor.
This campaign came at a time when McCabe was highlighting deficiencies within the penalty points system within An Garda Síochána, where fixed-charge notices were routinely cancelled.
An RTÉ spokesperson told TheJournal.ie: “The two-part series has had a 1.1 million reach on TV, and it has been one the most watched documentaries ever on RTÉ Player, with almost 90,000 views in the last two days.”
The show has been praised widely on social media since the first part aired on Monday, and the issue continues to dominate proceedings at Leinster House.
Yesterday in the Dáíl, Social Democrats’ Rosin Shortall called for a change to employment terms for senior civil servants who receive pensions even if they have engaged in serious wrongdoing.
This morning, Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that the cancellation of Martin Callinan’s pension is currently subject to legal advice.
“Like any other public service pension, it is based on his own contributions,” he said.
I cannot say at this stage how this can be dealt with in a way that sees the cancellation – immediately or at some stage in the future – of a public service pension.
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