The Workers’ Party have described the gagging of media coverage of the Dáil speech of Catherine Murphy TD in relation to the finances of Denis O’Brien as a national outrage and the party has accused the mainstream media of cowering in the face of a rich and powerful media mogul
Workers’ Party President Michael Donnelly said that the citizens of the Irish Republic were entitled to hear what was being discussed in the national parliament and were perplexed at being bombarded with wall to wall commentary about the affairs of FIFA’s Sepp Blatter but unable to hear the full details of a story of major national interest.
Mr. Donnelly accused RTE, TV3 and the Irish Times of being totally lily-livered in their failure to fight Denis O’Brien’s High Court case for a gagging order against them, saying they had been utterly submissive and unprepared to challenge the ruling. “Of course we never expected to hear any criticism or damaging information from any of the myriad media outlets which O’Brien either owns or effectively controls”.
Mr. Donnelly said, “Some months ago after a water protest in Jobstown, RTE were quite happy to broadcast all kinds of calumny against an elected member of the Óireachtas. A Dáil report was shown in which a government backbencher likened anti-water charge protesters to ISIS. There were no cries of unfair from leading journalists or deep concerns about whether this sort of report should be broadcast.”
“In stark contrast today”, said Mr. Donnelly, “the same broadcaster is running terrified from Mr. Denis O’Brien. This raises deep and troubling questions about the state of democracy in this country. It is entirely unacceptable that oneman can use the High Court and legal threats to silence virtually the entire national media and a discussion in the national parliament about his tax affairs cannot be broadcast or quoted“