Martin admits claim that RTÉ provided access to interview was wrong but renews criticism of SF

The Taoiseach has said he was wrong to suggest that RTÉ had provided Sinn Féin with advance access to an interview it conducted with Shane Ross regarding his book on Mary Lou McDonald but claimed there remains a wider issue with the party’s use of legal actions against the media and the “chilling effect” that has.

“I got that wrong, in terms of the prior access, Micheál Martin told the Pat Kenny show on Newstalk. “The key point I was making is that when political parties start suing the national broadcaster it does have a chilling effect.

“It’s a bit hard to look at the Shane Ross saga in isolation and say that there’s no connection with the fact that RTÉ are being sued and that there is a defamation case against them. It does have a chilling effect on media and on broadcasters.

“Sinn Féin are suing a lot, they’re suing politicians, they’re suing media and I think the agenda there is they don’t want people talking about what happened to Maria Cahill, they don’t want people talking about their past.

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“This is a co-ordinated strategy by Sinn Féin across the board. So Sinn Féin can attack other political parties about appointments and so on like that but if you attack Sinn Féin about appointments in Northern Ireland you’ll get a solicitor’s letter or you’ll get letters left, right and centre. There can’t be one rule for Sinn Féin and different rules for everybody else.

“It’s not a healthy development, the degree to which a political party, on an almost serial basis, at this stage a co-ordinated basis, seeks to shut down debate on legitimate issues in terms of how people who were raped within a particular movement were dealt with and these are legitimate issues that need to be discussed, not shut down,” Mr Martin said.