The performance of the Government is watched very closely in the North as is recorded in the just published Media in Ireland, the Search for Diversity. Former SDLP councillor Brian Feeney writes of Dublin having been mugged, in public relations terms mind you, by the Northern Ireland Office. All governments, says Feeney, try to have every story defined by themselves and he gives three examples where he believes Dublin, under the last administration, fell down:
In September 1995, Dublin called off an Anglo-Irish conference overnight; the British knew in advance and immediately launched a huge attack on two Iveagh House officials whom they said had acted on IRA propaganda that there would be blood on the streets unless the meeting was cancelled; the day-long British rubbishing of the Mitchell Report while Dublin remained silent and the British attitude to the Bill Clinton summit. They are strong words for a department used to nothing but praise.
Edited by Damien Kiberd, one of our three new media millionaires, subject to the sanction of the Minister for Enterprise, Employment and Trade, Mary Harney, the book was launched on Tuesday by the new Minister for Education, Micheal Martin. Basically an appeal for journalistic openness and pluralism, it includes contributions from former senator Joe Lee and Bob Collins, director general of RTE.