RTÉ NEWS managing director Ed Mulhall and current affairs editor Ken O'Shea have agreed to step aside from their roles during an inquiry into the Prime Time Investigatesprogramme which defamed a Co Galway priest.
In addition, two others involved in the programme, reporter Aoife Kavanagh and executive producer Brian Páircéir, will not be involved in any on-air programming for the duration of the inquiry, RTÉ has confirmed.
The announcement came yesterday as the broadcaster’s governing body warned there could be “no cover-up and no rush to self-protection”.
The RTÉ Authority broke its silence following a board meeting to say it had a legal duty to establish for licence-payers why Fr Kevin Reynolds was falsely accused of raping a minor and having a child by her while working as a missionary in Kenya.
It has emerged that the libel settlement and court costs could amount to €2 million for RTÉ.
The authority, which is chaired by former priest Tom Savage, described the libel as posing the “most serious editorial question that has arisen since the late 1960s” in RTÉ broadcasting.
Mulhall and O'Shea, who is also the editor of the Prime Time Investigatesprogramme, have both stepped aside from their posts pending the outcome of the independent inquiry being conducted by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland's (BAI) compliance committee. Both executives have done so by agreement with RTÉ director-general Noel Curran.
A statement from RTÉ said Mulhall and O’Shea have 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 the decision was agreed to “without prejudice to any party”.
On Tuesday evening the Cabinet agreed that the BAI’s compliance committee should hold the first inquiry of its kind under the provisions of the new Defamation Act 2009. Legislation allows the authority’s compliance committee to appoint an investigator to inquire into how a programme was made.
Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said he could not recall “a lapse of this magnitude before in the history of RTÉ”.
RTÉ has suspended the Prime Time Investigatesseries for the rest of the year pending the outcome of the inquiry.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Irelandprogramme yesterday, Mr Rabbitte said it was in RTÉ's interest that the case be independently investigated.
Meanwhile, the priest who supported Fr Reynolds in his libel action against RTÉ has said the out-of-court settlement may be in the region of €2 million when legal costs are included.
Fr Seán McDonagh, of the Association of Catholic Priests, who attended the court hearing with Fr Reynolds, said he was not sure what the final figure was, but €5 million was “way off the mark”.
Fr McDonagh told Shannonside FM's Joe Finnegan Showit was a "substantial amount . . . you may be talking in the very low millions". Later he told The Irish Timeshe was basing his final figure on having been involved in the negotiations with RTÉ for three days and he had been privy to the "talk over and back".
Fr McDonagh said Fr Reynolds had to be persuaded to take money and that it was “nowhere near his motivation for taking the action. Money was the last thing on his mind. He wanted his good name to be cleared.”
Fr McDonagh said the point was pressed home to Fr Reynolds that a damages award would be a measure of the seriousness of the libel against him.
They cited the case of Albert Reynolds who won a famous libel judgment but was awarded just a single penny by a judge.
The broadcaster Mike Murphy said last night if people were “dishing it out” as journalists tend to do they had to “take it when it comes your way when you do make a mistake”. He said resignations were called for when ministers made a mistake so it was “not unfair” when a similar approach was made when it was reversed.
Four stand down while investigation proceeds
ED MULHALL
A year ago, Mulhall was being spoken of as the possible next director general of RTÉ; yesterday, he was the most senior of the four staff to step aside because of the controversy over the Mission to Preyprogramme.
Though his name is unfamiliar to the public, Mulhall has been a seminal force in television news and current affairs programming for more than 20 years, credited with introducing a sharper focus and new talent to the State broadcaster’s output in these areas.
He studied economics and politics at Trinity College Dublin and joined RTÉ in 1979 as a radio producer in current affairs. He was promoted in 1985 to assistant head of features and current affairs, radio but switched to television as a producer/director in 1988. Later in the same year he was appointed programme editor of TV news and was responsible for editing the Six Oneand 9 O'Clock television news programmes.
In 1994 he became managing editor in the newsroom division and he was appointed director of news in 1997. In this post he is responsible for the editorial direction of “all news output”, has managerial control of news resources and contributes to corporate decision-making, according to RTÉ.
KEN O’SHEA
Editor of current affairs, O’Shea (40) is an award-winning former newspaper journalist who was appointed to the role in 2008.
From Cork city, he was educated at Sullivan’s Quay national school and the Deerpark CBS secondary school, Cork, followed by the DIT School of Journalism in Dublin.
Since 1989, O'Shea worked for the Dublin Tribuneand Sunday Tribunenewspapers, the Irish Daily Star,Setanta Media, the Sunday Worldand various magazines.
In 1993/94 he was named AT Cross Young Journalist of the Year.
He joined RTÉ as a reporter in the current affairs area in 1997 and has since held the positions of producer and executive producer, working mainly on RTÉ's flagship current affairs programme , Prime Time.
In 2003, he won a Justice Media Award for Sue Nation, a Prime Timespecial on fraudulent and exaggerated personal injury claims which made extensive use of hidden camera footage.
His brother Joe also works in journalism.
BRIAN PÁIRCÉIR
From Dundrum in South Dublin, Páircéir has worked on many Prime Time Investigatesprogrammes over the past six years.
His programmes include a one-hour special on tax avoidance in 2005, and an investigation of the tyre-recycling business which was short-listed at the Prix Europa competition last year.
He is the son of Séamus Páircéir, the former head of the Revenue Commissioners who had numerous business involvements after his retirement.
Séamus Páircéir, who died last January, featured in the Telecom Affair in 1991 after the old Telecom Éireann site in Ballsbridge was sold by a company of which he was a director.
Then Taoiseach Charles Haughey asked him to step aside while an investigation was being carried out.
AOIFE KAVANAGH
From Enniscorthy, Co Wexford, Kavanagh joined RTÉ in 1996 as a reporter on Morning Ireland,which she still works on.
Previously, she worked as a news and sports journalist with the Irish Examiner.
While based in Ireland, she has worked as a foreign correspondent for RTÉ since 1999, when she covered the post-referendum violence in Timor-Leste.
Other major foreign stories she has reported on include the Indian Ocean tsunami and the riots in Kenya following a general election in January 2008.
She has reported extensively from various African countries, including Sudan and Zimbabwe.
She also presented the overseas development series Far Away Up Closefrom Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and South Africa.
She has worked on Prime Timesince 2009 but also started presenting Morning Irelandon radio in the last year.
