Journalist says he was unaware of illness

RTÉ journalist Niall O'Flynn has told the tribunal that he would not have named Mr John Carthy and broadcast personal details about him had he known the 27-year-old was mentally ill.

Mr O'Flynn said he had not been told and made no inquiries about Mr Carthy's medical condition when he made the decision to broadcast his name and information about his relationship with a former girlfriend on Five Seven Live. However, he said his broadcast was not "libelous, unreasonable or scandalous", but was factual and well-rounded. "RTÉ sets the bar very high on a daily basis. I think that this broadcast cleared that bar by quite a margin."

Mr Carthy, who suffered from manic depression, left his house around 30 minutes after the Five Seven Live broadcast on April 20th, 2000, and was shot dead by gardaí.

Mr O'Flynn said he had not heard any broadcasts or read in any publications during the siege that Mr Carthy suffered from a psychiatric illness, or that the gardaí had asked for the man not to be named. The Garda did not make him personally aware of this information either.

Mr O'Flynn said he would have complied with the Garda request "if it had been explained to me that John Carthy was suffering from a mental illness, or if it had been suggested that the situation was so delicate that naming the man would affect the situation".

The chairman of the tribunal, Mr Justice Barr, put it to Mr O'Flynn that he had given evidence of interviewing up to 15 people at the scene.

"None of these people said it to you that he had this medical condition?"

Mr O'Flynn said that nobody he spoke to mentioned it. Local opinion was that Mr Carthy's behaviour was due to a difficulty he had with the Garda.

Mr Justice Barr asked did he not think what Mr Carthy was doing was very strange. "Did it not cross your mind that mental illness might be the source of his difficulties?"

"Not once," Mr O'Flynn replied. "I had information that there was a domestic row, and that gardaí had come to the house, and that shots were fired at the Garda patrol car. I not unnaturally assumed that the situation had escalated. That was sufficient to know."

However, Mr O'Flynn said he did not want the chairman to think that he had not tried to get as much information as possible. He had spoken to the Garda press officer, Supt John Farrelly, on three occasions, and mental illness was never mentioned. "I think I am entitled to expect when I'm talking to the head of the Garda press office that any matters of concern he had... such information would come to me."

Yesterday was Mr O'Flynn's first appearance before the tribunal since his evidence was suspended last month following a submission from council for RTÉ, Mr Patrick Hanratty.

Mr Hanratty had objected to questions asked of Mr O'Flynn by counsel for the Garda Commissioner, Mr Diarmuid McGuinness, in relation to the journalist's adherence to broadcasting acts and guidelines.