‘The Government are not actually capable of minding us’

The Morning Ireland interview with Emma Mhic Mhathúna was one of those arresting moments in broadcasting and Irish public life that was weighted with heartbreak and significance.

The mistakes that led to the 37-year-old mother of five developing terminal cancer - and facing the unimaginable prospect of her infant not remembering her - are almost unforgivable.

Audrey Carville’s sensitive interview added yet another tragic layer to this terrible scandal.

The interview was not without its political moments, and Minister for Health Simon Harris and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were not spared harsh criticism by Ms Mhic Mhathúna.

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Her assessment that the “Government needs to go” will have resonance with the public in a far more powerful way than any Opposition party’s criticisms.

Here is an extract from the unsparing interview: “When it first broke out, I was like ‘okay, well, the head of the HSE is surely going to do something’, and he didn’t.

“And then I looked to Simon Harris. I was thinking: ‘well, surely the Minister for Health is going to step in and do something’. That’s why we give these people powers, and he didn’t do anything.

“So then I was like ‘surely the Taoiseach is going to do something’. And he just seems to be sticking up for them . . . they’re all hiding there in the Dáil, and they don’t see what I see.

“The Government need to go. They’re not actually - and I’m not being insulting, it’s genuine - they’re not actually capable of minding us, and that is their job, to make sure that we’re okay.”

Those final words carry such weight.

Google goes beyond Facebook over ads

It was inevitable that after Facebook decided it would not carry referendum ads sourced outside Ireland, fellow tech giant Google would act.

However, Google’s response surprised many in that it was far more wide in its reach and implications. The company essentially decided all advertisements would be withdrawn from its platforms, and that includes highly watched YouTube.

There have been ads from both sides, but the feedback from those who closely follow social media is that they have been stacked toward the No side, especially from abroad.

Google gave no rationale for its blanket ban. As Pat Leahy explains in his analysis today, the Google move is more a blow to the No side.

He writes No campaigners had planned an “intensification of an already heavy online advertising campaign in the closing weeks of the campaign before polling day on May 25th”.

Leahy quoted Save the Eighth campaign spokesman John McGuirk who complained of “foreign interference” by big multinationals depriving the retain campaign of an important platform.

Of course, the Yes side had also complained of foreign interference, claiming that a lot of the No ads were paid for by interests outside Ireland.

There is, as Leahy points out, a huge lacuna here in Irish law. Lawmakers have failed to regulate in this area, making it a free-for-all (metaphorically!).

As Gavin Sheridan and TJ McIntyre both pointed out on RTE this morning, the Government essentially delegated the legislative function in this regard to multinational companies.

And these companies, of course, are trying to protect their reputations after the hammering they took over the Trump election victory and Brexit. If there was a No vote on May 25th, some fingers would have pointed in their direction.