The Catholic Communications Office has complained to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) about remarks made by Irish Daily Star editor Ger Colleran on RTÉ's Prime Time programme on April 11th.
This follows a refusal by Prime Time editor David Lally to broadcast an apology after Catholic Communications Office director Martin Long complained on April 28th. On the programme, Ger Colleran said: "We had too much privacy in this country. We should have had less privacy in respect of clerical abuse of children, when they were screaming in every presbytery all over the country."
In his complaint to the BCC, Mr Long said: "These words are false, slanderous and amount to an allegation against every parish-based priest in the country." He continued, "media representatives ought not to use this issue to distress those innocent of any wrongdoing. In this case, I refer to the overwhelming number of priests in good standing in Ireland."
He said he had written to Mr Lally, "asking that Prime Time broadcast a brief apology disassociating it from the offending remarks and recognising that such a generalised comment regarding presbyteries should in no way be interpreted as applying to the good name of the vast majority of priests in Ireland". Mr Lally had "rejected this request", he said
In an e-mail response, Mr Lally said: "I think the viewing public is well-aware allowance has to be made for a certain amount of hyperbole on the part of studio guests . . . I am quite sure our viewers understood Mr Colleran to mean clerical sex abuse allegations had been widespread and no more than that." Mr Lally did not wish to comment when contacted by The Irish Times.
