Sir, - Your editorial (June 6th) misrepresents your political correspondent's original interpretation of a letter from the former Minister Ray Burke to the Independent Group and is unfair to critics of that interpretation who wrote in good faith. I believe The Irish Times misunderstood the correspondence in question and so I wrote an unsolicited article in the Sunday Independent (May 31st). Your snide reference to journalists being paid for what they write at other newspapers in unworthy and reflects on the integrity of your own paid correspondents,
As someone who has been commenting on the Irish media for two decades, I guard my independence as much as any of your employees and have, for example, desisted for a period from writing for one national title because of the way my copy was treated. I sympathise with Bruce Arnold if his recent story was spiked, as reported.
Your editorial of last Saturday was quite misleading in that it states in relation to your original story (May 30th) that: "the thrust of that report was that Mr Hayes (of the Independent) received undertakings from the Minister in respect of Independent's television relay company and that the minister had departed, in some respects, from the advice of his officials in his response."
As a matter of fact that front page story had actually stated that the "main terms sought by Hayes were met in full," that Burke "agreed to all of the main terms sought," that he "overrode official advice to give Independent Newspapers most of the written reassurances sought" (all this by the second paragraph). There is a very big difference between claiming that "most" of the "main" terms were met and that only "some" of the lesser ones were agreed. My article showed that the main terms sought were actually rejected and that only in one particular case does Burke appear to have gone against official advice and then only partly. In your paper of last Saturday even your political correspondent appears to concede now that Burke did not go against official advice on seven of the 10 "terms" sought. I still find the detail of her argument in relation to the other three points unconvincing.
I wrote that, on the basis of the documents which you published and which were presumably leaked to you for political reasons, you had not established that the Minister went against his official advice. An Assistant Secretary of his department appears to have given evidence under oath that he agreed a draft of the letter which, I understand, contained all of the ten points of the final version.
You clearly suggest now that the Secretary of the department was unhappy with the letter and so signed it in a particular fashion. Perhaps you have other information, which you have not published, to the effect that officials disagreed with their Minister.
In the final days of the last Government, Alan Dukes sought to dig Fine Gael out of a hole into which it had dug itself on the MMDS issue. They had run with the hare and hunted with the hounds, purporting to support good business practice and the rule of law, while promising deflector operators to see them right.
It was in this context that Mr Dukes sought the legal opinion which you report (June 6th) as suggesting that Burke had acted ultra vires in the matter of his letter to the Independent Group. In that case, why did Mr Dukes not proceed to issue licences for deflectors? An odd aspect of your latest report is that you do not explain why the Burke letter was ultra vires, or how senior and conscientious civil servants could have agree to drafting such a letter. - Yours etc., Colum Kenny
Bray, Co. Wicklow.