The managing director of RTÉ news and current affairs, Ed Mulhall, and the editor of the Prime Time Investigates programme, Ken O'Shea, have stepped aside from their posts until the conclusion of the inquiries into the Fr Kevin Reynolds libel case.
In addition, reporter Aoife Kavanagh and executive producer Brian Páircéir will not be involved in any on-air programming until the inquiry is completed.
Both Mr Mulhall and Mr O'Shea, who exercised ultimate editorial judgment over the Mission to Prey programme, have stepped aside with the agreement of director general Noel Curran.
A statement from RTÉ said the men had agreed to the decision “in order to remove any possible doubt about the objectivity and impartiality of RTÉ’s news and current affairs services at this time and are taken without prejudice to any party”.
Ms Kavanagh and Mr Páircéir will assist the twin inquiries being held by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) and an internal inquiry held by RTÉ.
The RTÉ board met earlier today and the actions were taken following that meeting.
Yesterday evening the Cabinet agreed the BAI’s compliance committee should hold an independent inquiry into how it came about that RTÉ falsely accused Fr Reynolds of raping a minor while working as a missionary in Kenya and fathering a child by her.
The compliance committee will meet next week to decide the scope of the investigation which will be the first of its kind in Ireland.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte today described the issues surrounding RTÉ’s defamation of the Fr Reynolds as “very grave” and he did not recall “a lapse of this magnitude before in the history of RTÉ”.
RTÉ yesterday suspended the current affairs series for the rest of the year pending the outcome of the inquiry.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland programme today, Mr Rabbitte said there was considerable public concern and public disquiet about the case of Fr Reynolds.
“RTÉ plays a very unique role in public affairs and public life of our society. It has traditionally adhered to very high standards and it's in the interests of the broadcaster as well as in the public interest that questions which remain around the Fr Reynolds case be cleared up.”
Yesterday, RTÉ’s director general Noel Curran announced the current affairs programme would be suspended for the rest of the year and admitted its journalists had made “one of the gravest editorial mistakes ever made” in the national broadcaster.
Mr Curran signally failed to rule out the possibility of resignations over the programme and said recommendations would be brought forward to the next RTÉ board meeting in December.
Mr Rabbitte has charged the BAI’s compliance committee to examine if RTÉ had “met its statutory responsibilities around objectivity, impartiality and fairness”.
Rejecting any inference of undue interference with RTÉ, he said: “There is extensive public disquiet about the case and it involves the national broadcaster. Taken together, this provides the basis for the decision that was taken.”
In its decision, the Cabinet invoked previously unused legislation, which allows the authority’s compliance committee to appoint an investigator to inquire into how a programme was made.
It will have the power to compel witnesses to attend and to provide all records relevant to the making of the programme.
On the inquiry’s terms of reference, Mr Rabbitte said the BAI would have work to do “in designing the process” as the inquiry represented what he described as "new territory" for the authority.
He said it was important that statutorily independent inquiry determines “the true facts of what happened and why it happened in this way”.
