RTÉ backs appointment of PR consultant

RTÉ today said it had complete faith in the integrity of newly appointed chairperson Mary Finan.

This follows a claim by the Labour Party that Ms Finan, a successful PR consultant, may have a conflict of interest given her role as chairman of Wilson Hartnell Public Relations, one of the biggest companies in the sector.

A spokesman for RTÉ told ireland.comthat "over the last 45 years there have been occasions where members of the board have declared current or previous interests and have simply absented themselves from certain decisions."

He said it was natural that Ms Finan, as a PR person, would have had clients that from time to time had issues with RTÉ.

But that situation was not unique to the RTÉ board, and the organisation had no reason not to rely on Ms Finan's integrity, the spokesman said.

Ms Finan will replace Fintan Drury, another public relations executive, who resigned from the authority in January after potential conflicts of interest arose over his involvement in the Ryder Cup.

Yesterday, Labour's Tommy Broughan said: "Given the range of clients represented by Wilson Harnell, there must a strong possibility that Ms Finan may find herself in a similar potential conflict of interest situation."

Mr Broughan said: "Given the problems that arose for Fintan Drury, the Government might have been well advised to appoint another outstanding woman from some different area of Irish life to chair the RTü/span>? Authority."