Madam, - Recent events have shown that something is changing for the worse in the relationship between the Government and RTÉ.
The first rumbling was earlier in the year when, during a radio interview about an apparently extravagant foreign fact-finding trip by politicians, Fianna Fil TD Noel O'Flynn took the opportunity to warn his interviewer that he and his colleagues were the paymasters of RTÉ. The point was not made very subtly, and its meaning was perfectly clear.
Since then the Government has been rocked by Eddie Hobbs's TV series, which had the virtue of setting out factual information in starkly effective audiovisual terms. The Government dissolved into fury because ordinary citizens could now clearly see what economists have known for years, but been unable to communicate to us.
Judging by its reaction, the Government was appalled that RTÉ was engaging with serious issues in a manner which could cause it political damage. Subsequent actions suggest that, as a result, a more robust approach is now being taken with the uppity public service broadcaster.
In their attitude to the Late Late Show the Government's advisers give every impression of having expected to be able to mould and form the television programme. This seems to have extended almost to the level of expecting a form of "script clearance". The last time such dress rehearsals of political programming were seen in Europe was probably in the dying days of the Honecker regime in East Germany. It is deeply ironic to see the PDs expecting to avail themselves of the comforts of late Stalinist forms of media control.
And now, even more seriously, Michael McDowell has taken issue with the integrity of RTÉ factual programming. Even the manner in which he has done so is troubling. The broadcasting legislation provides for a complaints mechanism via the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, yet the Minister for Justice has taken the unorthodox and slightly chilling path of complaining in writing separately to each member of the RTÉ Authority. This approach seems heavy-handed and peremptory. Moreover, the advisability of a Minister, other perhaps than the Minister for Communications, writing individually to board members appointed by this Government must at the very least be questioned.
As a consequence of this and other recent government actions, RTÉ this week is in a crisis of confidence. Not for the first time the RTÉ Authority has been placed in an impossible situation between the political demands of government and the journalistic demands of independence.
The last time the present Taoiseach was in cabinet at a time of great strain between RTÉ and the government was in the late 1980s. At that time RTÉ was causing anguish in the coterie surrounding CJ Haughey, for well-founded reasons that are only too clear today. That government, through the actions of Ray Burke, set about trying to control, neutralise and destroy RTÉ as an effective public sector broadcaster. Great and long-lasting damage was done to its self-confidence and abilities in the area of political and current affairs broadcasting. This must be clear to the Taoiseach.
With this appalling example in mind, can we hope that Bertie Ahern will on this occasion call his colleagues and their advisers to order and allay public fears that RTÉ is going to be muzzled? - Yours, etc,
HUGO BRADY BROWN, Stratford on Slaney, Co Wicklow.
Madam, - Is it wise for a member of the Cabinet to complain directly to each member of the RTÉ Authority, thereby appearing to ignore the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, an independent statutory body? Surely not the best example for a citizen who may wish to complain about lack of balance in a programme. - Yours, etc,
DIARMUID BREATHNACH, Sidmonton Gardens, Bray, Co Wicklow.