'Mission to Prey' report to be released

The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s major investigation into RTÉ’s A Mission to Prey is expected to be published soon.

The board of the authority met yesterday in Dublin to again examine the findings of the investigation by former BBC executive Anna Carragher into the Prime Time Investigates programme.

The programme defamed a Co Galway parish priest, Fr Kevin Reynolds, by wrongly accusing him of rape and of fathering a child while a missionary in Africa in the early 1980s. The broadcaster has subsequently apologised to the priest and conceded there was no basis for the allegations when he took defamation proceedings against RTÉ in the High Court.

Ms Carragher’s findings on how the programme maker had complied with broadcasting rules and standards were accepted by the authority’s compliance committee in March.

They have been discussed on several occasions by the full board of the broadcasting watchdog since then.