RTE man was 'surprised' colleague named Carthy

RTÉ's crime correspondent Paul Reynolds was "surprised" his colleague Niall O'Flynn decided to name John Carthy during the Abbeylara siege, but he had no authority to stop him, he told the tribunal.

Mr Reynolds said he discovered, without being told by his colleague, that Mr Carthy's name was going to be broadcast. He said he told Mr O'Flynn that RTÉ news was not naming the 27-year-old.

Mr O'Flynn has given evidence that he had a conversation with Mr Reynolds in a car at about 4.50 p.m. on the second day of the siege. He had made Mr Reynolds aware of the general content of interviews he had conducted, which would have included the information that Mr Carthy was going to be named.

"I have a different recollection to Mr O'Flynn of the sequence of events," Mr Reynolds said.

He said that shortly before 5 p.m. he had been passing the RTÉ satellite van when he overheard Mr Carthy's name mentioned in an interview which was being transmitted to the RTÉ broadcast centre in Dublin.

"That surprised me; it was the first time I realised that John Carthy's name was going to be broadcast."

He said he had no recollection of having a conversation or "comparing notes" with Mr O'Flynn in his car, but that he approached the journalist and asked, "you're not going to name him are you?"

Mr O'Flynn said yes and asked why not. Mr Reynolds told him Mr Carthy was not being named in news bulletins. Mr O'Flynn said he would still be named on the Five Seven Live programme.

Mr Reynolds was approaching his deadline for the 5 p.m. news and had no time to discuss the matter with Mr O'Flynn, he said.

"If there was more time I certainly would have discussed it further. I would have been interested to know how they had come to that editorial decision."

He said he was not in a position to ask Mr O'Flynn to delay the broadcast. "I didn't have a role in that programme. I had no editorial authority or responsibility to intervene."

Even after Mr Carthy was shot at around 5.45 p.m., Mr Reynolds decided it was still not appropriate to name him on the news. But he thought the audience might wonder why, when he had already been named on Five Seven Live and a subsequent TV3 broadcast, that his name was not used on the RTÉ television news at 6 p.m. For that reason, he broadcast: "We are not naming him because the gardaí have asked us not to name him." He added, "the man has access to TV and radio, but not the newspapers", by way of further explanation, he said.

In light of the fact he did not recollect being asked not to name Mr Carthy, Mr Reynolds said he perhaps should have said that the gardaí "did not want" Mr Carthy to be named, but in the circumstances of the sudden "tragic loss of life" that was the way he phrased his report.

"I couldn't say he was named on Five Seven Live and the gardaí are unhappy and are effing and blinding. I couldn't say that," Mr Reynolds told the tribunal.