Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 19 November 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport
Coimisiún na Meán’s Code of Fairness, Impartiality and Objectivity in News and Current Affairs: Discussion
2:00 am
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We received no apologies from TDs. We have an apology from Senator Rónán Mullen.
Before we begin, I welcome our visitors from the Chinese delegation. They are very welcome to our committee. I thank them for being with us. They include Mr. Luo Shugang, a member of the standing committee of the National People's Congress and Chair of the education, science, culture and public health committee of the National People's Congress; His Excellency, Ambassador Zhao Xiyuan; Mr. Li Wei, a member of the standing committee of the National People's Congress and member of the education, science, culture and public health committee of the National People's Congress; and Mr. Yang Jiancheng, director of the general office of the education, science, culture and public health committee of the National People's Congress. This delegation, along with the ambassador are very welcome today. We had a good engagement earlier on as a committee. We thank them for their invitation to reciprocate the visit in the coming year. We hope they have a very enjoyable and fruitful trip. I know they have been here since yesterday. We hope they have a very enjoyable trip over the coming days. It has been a pleasure to meet them all. We look forward to engaging with them again in the future through their ambassador.
Today's meeting has been convened with officials from the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport and representatives from Coimisiún na Meán to discuss challenges in the implementation of Coimisiún na Meán's Code of Fairness, Impartiality and Objectivity in News and Current Affairs. I welcome the following witnesses to committee room 1. From the communications division of the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, I welcome Ms Tríona Quill, assistant secretary at the media and broadcasting division; and Mr. Adam Larragy, principal officer. From Coimisiún na Meán, I welcome Ms Aoife MacEvilly, broadcasting and video-on-demand commissioner; Ms Louise McLoughlin, director of broadcasting and video-on-demand compliance; and Mr. Declan McLoughlin, director of codes and rules. They are all very welcome. I thank them for taking the time to come today.
The format of today's meeting is such that I will invite the witnesses to deliver an opening statement, which is limited to five minutes. Statements will then be followed by questions from members of the committee. As the witnesses are probably aware, the committee may publish the opening statements on the website. Is that agreed? Agreed.
Before we move to today's discussions, I wish to clarify some limitations relating to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to this committee. This means they have an absolute defence against defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and is my duty as Chair to ensure they do not abuse this. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I invite Ms Quill to make her opening statement.
Ms Tríona Quill:
I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to attend today. It is the role of the Department to assist the Minister in putting in place a robust legislative framework supporting a well-resourced and effective regulator. This provides the foundation to support a free, editorially independent, professional and plural media sector that is trusted by the public. The legislative framework comprises several elements: broadcasting, video-on-demand and online services regulated under the Broadcasting Act 2009, as amended; other online content is regulated under various legislation, notably the Digital Services Act. Finally, the Press Council is an independent body established under the Defamation Act 2009, and it regulates member organisations from the print media.
I will give a brief overview of the main provisions of the regulatory framework that come within the Department’s remit. Part 3B of the Broadcasting Act 2009 was recast under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 to provide for the regulation of video-on-demand services as well as broadcasting. It imposes duties and codes on sound broadcasters, in other words, licensed radio stations, and relevant media service providers, that is, licensed television and certain video-on-demand providers. Podcasts that are solely audio in nature are not covered under the current legislation. In section 46L under Part 3B of the Act, broadcasters and relevant media service providers are required to ensure in programmes they make available, that news is reported and presented in an objective and impartial manner and without expression of the broadcaster’s own views. In addition, they must ensure that the treatment of current affairs, including matters which are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate, is fair to all interests concerned, and that the matter is presented in an objective and impartial manner and without expression of the broadcaster’s or provider’s own views.
Coimisiún na Meán has in place a media service code of fairness, objectivity and impartiality in news and current affairs in respect of radio and television broadcasters, the purpose of which is to ensure that, inter alia, broadcasters under the jurisdiction of the State comply with the provisions of section 46L of the Act. The code includes obligations on broadcasters to have and implement appropriate policies and procedures to address any conflicts of interest that may exist or arise with anyone with an editorial involvement in any news or current affairs content.
Complaints may be made to the broadcaster or relevant media service provider, and ultimately to Coimisiún na Meán, regarding any breach of those duties or codes. The general scheme of the broadcasting (amendment) Bill proposes to extend the duties of impartiality and objectivity set out in section 46L of the Broadcasting Act to all content published by RTÉ and TG4, for example podcasts and website material. The detailed application of those duties will be set out in public service media specific codes made by Coimisiún na Meán.
Since 2023, the State has provided funding through Coimisiún na Meán for a number of competitive schemes to support the production of news and current affairs. The general scheme of the broadcasting (amendment) Bill proposes to put in place detailed legislative scaffolding around the schemes and provide an enduring legislative basis to fund public service content on a platform-neutral basis.
Head 23 of the general scheme requires Coimisiún na Meán to have regard to the need "to ensure the provision of objective, accurate and independent coverage of news and current affairs" when making any scheme.
It is clear that the media landscape has in recent years undergone and continues to undergo significant change and upheaval. New providers have entered the market in terms of both content provision and hosting of services. These changes are reflected in the frequency and breadth of new legislative and regulatory provisions at EU and national level to keep up with the changes in the market and ensure a media sector that can continue to meet public expectations for impartial and objective information on news and current affairs. One significant legislative review that has commenced at EU level is the evaluation of the audiovisual media services directive, AVMSD, on which much of the regulation of the media market in Ireland is based. The Department and Coimisiún na Meán are engaging with the European Commission on this review, which must be finalised before the end of 2026. The outcome of this is likely to include amendments to the directive to respond to an ever-changing media landscape.
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
I thank the Cathaoirleach and committee for the invitation to attend today. I oversee the licensing and regulation of broadcasters and video-on-demand service providers, broadcast complaints, compliance process, our work in relation to public service media as well as our corporate affairs function. I am joined by my colleagues Ms Louise McLoughlin, who is director of broadcasting and video-on-demand compliance and complaints, and by Mr. Declan McLoughlin, who is director of codes and rules. Some of our colleagues will attend a committee meeting next week to discuss other matters across the media landscape.
Coimisiún na Meán’s vision is to ensure a thriving, diverse, creative, safe and trusted media landscape. Since our establishment in March 2023, we have grown rapidly to meet our expanded remit. We now have 260 staff and expect to have 300 early next year. We published our first three-year strategy in March of this year, which is focused on six key outcome areas: children, democracy, trust, public safety, diversity and Irish culture and media. Our strategy reflects the important role of the media landscape in underpinning an open, democratic and inclusive society that upholds fundamental rights, including freedom of expression. An coimisiún regulates the broadcast and on-demand sector in Ireland, with a view to ensuring a sustainable, pluralistic and participative media sector. We recognise that audience consumption habits are changing as new services emerge and become more popular. We have a dedicated research function that seeks to understand developments in the media sector. This supports our future policy development, such as the new public service media framework, the broadcasting services strategy, the media pluralism policy and the implementation of the European Media Freedom Act.
Upholding freedom of expression is at the heart of our work across our entire remit – online safety, broadcasting and on-demand regulation and media development. Freedom of expression is essential to a functioning democratic society and goes hand-in-hand with the protection of editorial freedom of our media service providers. We are mindful that the regulatory obligations placed on broadcasters are balanced in order to protect freedom of speech, ensure pluralism and the independence of editorial decision-making. These are requirements that are further underpinned by the European Media Freedom Act and the recently published EU democracy shield.
We are committed to ensuring that Irish audiences have access to a wide range of high-quality services, content and perspectives that meet their needs and reflect their diversity. Our funding schemes support the production of culturally valuable content, enhance the provision of high-quality, diverse and innovative news and current affairs and support media development and training initiatives. Our journalism schemes play an important role in sustaining Ireland’s vibrant democracy by informing and engaging citizens on issues of importance to them. They ensure that people across Ireland get the news stories that matter to them. To date, we have awarded over €5.7 million funding through our local democracy and courts reporting schemes. This year, we will award a further €10 million to journalism schemes and to new digital transformation and news reporting schemes. The annual Reuters digital news report, which is supported by Coimisiún na Meán, tells us that Irish people retain high levels of trust in news compared with other countries. Effective regulation and compliance underpin that trust and support both the media sector and the public.
Last year, we completed an initial update of our media service codes and rules, including our code of fairness, objectivity and impartiality. This code places obligations on broadcasters regulated in Ireland regarding news and current affairs content. It also provides the basis for the guidelines on coverage of electoral events that come into effect during election and referendum campaign periods. The code requires broadcasters to have systems in place to manage conflicts of interest so that their content is fair and impartial. This is reinforced in our contracting and licensing regime. We take complaints from members of the public in relation to broadcasters that they believe have fallen short of these codes and rules and we are continuing to implement our compliance framework. The complaints mechanism is a significant lever to ensure broadcasters are accountable for compliance with codes and rules, while ensuring that they remain editorially independent.
We work to ensure that audiences and the public can benefit from the positive aspects of media, while also being protected from harm by the content they engage with online or offline. We have a contact centre available for members of the public to contact us by emailing usersupport@cnam.ie or by phone on 01 963 7755. Our website, cnam.ie, is also a valuable resource with helpful advice for parents, children and educational materials for schools. We are grateful to the members of this committee and to the Oireachtas as a whole for the support they have shown to us since our establishment. We look forward to answering questions from members.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I thank Ms MacEvilly very much. We will now proceed with a questions and answers session with members. There is approximately seven minutes speaking time for both questions and answers. On the basis of the rota, the first speaker is Deputy Malcolm Byrne.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for attending. Let us cut straight to the chase: the reason the witnesses are here is a small controversy involving Ivan Yates. Being blunt, the question is around transparency. Coimisiún na Meán did not do anything unlawful or illegal, but should Ivan Yates have clearly declared that he was providing media training to one of the presidential candidates before he appeared on broadcast media or indeed on a podcast? I am happy for the Department or Coimisiún na Meán to answer.
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
I very much appreciate that this is the focus and interest of the committee today. When the issues emerged, we were sufficiently concerned that we immediately wrote to the broadcasters in question to understand more about what happened. I hope the Deputy will understand that we are not going to comment specifically on that case in hand. We can certainly talk about the application of the codes and rules. We can talk about our processes and so on. It is important that we operate on an evidence basis. We have to be proportional, consistent and fair. We will not comment specifically.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate that. What about in general terms?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Let me talk in general terms then. If I or anybody appears on a radio programme or television and we have particular interests, we should declare those to the public. If they are financial interests or we have been involved in a political party or we have trained, it is good practice. I was not trained by Ivan Yates or anybody else.
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
I appreciate the strong experience of committee members in this sector because they are often asked to contribute to media. The expectation for the audience is that the broadcaster would indicate if there is an interest or the reason that somebody has been brought on to comment on a particular topic and the background that is relevant to that.
In respect of the options for the broadcaster, if there is a particular interest declared, either it should provide the transparency, as the Deputy said, which is incredibly important for trust in media coverage, or it should take the decision as to whether that person, due to the interest, should participate or potentially be withdrawn.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Does Coimisiún na Meán monitor? When we are looking at RTÉ, Virgin Media or local media, does it monitor adherence to the codes, rather than acting on foot of a complaint?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
Complaints are an important part of our monitoring, to be honest. Since we were established in early 2023, we have had 187 complaints, the majority of which are in relation to the code of fairness, objectivity and impartiality. Matters being brought to our attention is an important method for us to assess compliance. We have had three valid complaints that might fall into the area of a conflict of interest. In the main, those were to do with commercial conflicts for radio stations. We can talk more about the effectiveness of our code.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, that is in terms of commercial conflicts. When it comes to political connections, we all exist in the bubble and when we listen to radio, we know that certain individuals are connected to certain things, but the wider public may not know that. To what extent should a broadcaster make the listening public aware of that?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, a contributor, someone on a panel, for instance.
Mr. Declan McLoughlin:
It is context specific. There is a distinction between declaring all interests generally, which the code does not provide for, and the declaration of conflicts where they are material to the content being covered. That is a distinction between the two declarations. There might be a wider discussion about the audience's awareness of everyone's interests and whether that is necessary and proportionate, etc., versus a clear issue where someone is a member of a political party or has a business interest and, therefore, that declaration assists the audience in understanding where the person is coming from and what their perspective might be informed by. That is often given on a simple basis where it is known who the contributor works for and it is relevant, or it may well be that the contributor says, “I work for a newspaper and, therefore, this is relevant".
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I listened to the Brendan O'Connor radio show on RTÉ when he was interviewing somebody from Progress Ireland. Brendan O'Connor asked what Progress Ireland was and I thought that was very useful. Those of us in the political stream may know it. By the way, I am conscious that a member of the Labour Party has been on 30% of the radio panels on that programme between 2024 and 2025. That is not always declared to be the case.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, it was not the Cathaoirleach. The individuals have normally been unsuccessful in elections and that is why they tend to be on the panel. The question is whether a radio programme should declare if someone has been a member of a political party. I am not suggesting it must ask, "Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the communist party?", but it is important that it be made known. Do the witnesses think it is appropriate for radio programmes to do that?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
It depends on the context. If there was a discussion in which that information was relevant to the understanding of the audience of the perspective that the individual was bringing, then that could be provided as part of the transparency, but that might not always be the case, depending on the topic at hand. It is important to say this concerns news and current affairs, which can cover such a wide range of issues. People’s interests can change throughout their lives or there can be an interest that might not previously have been apparent but is relevant to that case.
From our point of view, we look at how broadcasters put in place the appropriate systems we ask of them to ensure that the conflicts are managed effectively. The things we look at include whether the journalists are well trained, whether they understand the codes, and whether there is enough resourcing within the newsrooms so that they can have the kinds of editorial discussions that would inform a decision as to which contributors to bring on, and perhaps which not to bring on, and how to disclose and provide transparency to the public. We look at whether broadcasters have the systems, staffing, training and proper separation of management functions and roles in place. Because of the requirement for editorial independence, we do not see ourselves as stepping into the shoes of broadcasters and making those decisions for them. What is important, however, is that we can hold them to account for the outcomes of those decisions. If someone brings a programme to our attention, by way of a compliant or otherwise, feeling that it had not been fair, objective or impartial in the discussion of the particular issue that was at hand, then that is what we hold broadcasters to account for, that is, whether the outcome was in line with the requirement of the code.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Deputy Byrne might be able to supply the clerk with that 30% figure he referenced.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I would not be able to collate that and I am a member of that party, so I do not know how the Deputy did. I would not know whether contributors were actually members.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Or whether they have been members. On 30% of the programmes, a member of the Labour Party, or someone who has been associated with the Labour Party, was on the panel.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, that is what I said. I did not say 30% of the panellists but 30% of the programmes.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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That is amazing. The Deputy has a lot of time on his hands to put those figures together. He might send me on a note as to how he collate that because it would be interesting.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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I thank all the witnesses for coming in today. There is nothing wrong with media training. It is very important in some instances and it would be naive to put yourself forward for a huge public office job without some level of training, particularly when you are not accustomed to speaking publicly or in public life. The issue here, however, is not only that is there nothing wrong with that, but there might also be nothing technically wrong with training a presidential election candidate and simultaneously co-hosting or contributing to a commercial audio podcast about the candidate during the presidential election campaign in which he or she is running. Can the witnesses concede that there is a legislative gap in this regard? What have they put in place since this has come to light? I know it is a distraction but it has highlighted something that perhaps needs to be addressed in legislation to deal with podcasts.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Maybe the Department will answer that question first.
Ms Tríona Quill:
I thank the Senator for the question. Changes were made to the legislation under the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022. That Act brought in provisions around the application of duties for fairness, objectivity and impartiality, not just on broadcasters but also on what are described as relevant media service providers. That does not include audiocasts, however, because audio was not dealt with under the Act, but it includes videocasts, for example. If a content service provider that is doing a videocast meets certain tests in the Act, such as if it generates revenue from news and current affairs over €2 million, it would come within the scope of the Act. There are some provisions there-----
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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There is a gap because if it is an audio-only podcast, it is not covered by legislation.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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I understand the witnesses do not wish to talk about specifics or about Ivan Yates today, but we have to talk about the specifics because it was a presidential campaign. It was not a local election being covered on local radio. We were dealing with a situation where media was being transmitted into people's homes and influencing their decision on who the next President would be. It is important to address what happened here. Regardless of whether video clips were put up online, it was an audio podcast and it is not technically covered by the legislation. What plans does Coimisiún na Meán have to bridge that gap and take this into account? I am sure it is getting complaints. How is it dealing with those and how is it going to make sure this does not happen again?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
In terms of podcasts and audio, we will be working towards implementation of the new broadcasting (amendment) Bill as it comes through. That will involve, first, looking at the new provisions for public service media. We will be taking a look at that once the Bill is passed.
In terms of the relevant media service providers, the duty is on video-on-demand providers to register with us. None of the relevant media service providers as defined there have registered with us at this point. We have started engaging with some of the group we think might be in that-----
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Sorry, does Ms MacEvilly mean some of the commercial radio stations and podcasts have not registered-----
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Are there penalties if they are not registered or is just a case of wait and see?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I will give Senator Ní Chuilinn back time but just to clarify this. This is important information because the public are watching here. Coimisiún na Meán goes across all of the various media formats, bar the gaps we now know exist. Now that the coimisiún has been set up, is it not obligatory for the media service providers to register with it?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Why does Coimisiún na Meán have to reach out to them at all?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
We do because it is a complex area which requires a technical and legal analysis and many of the providers we reached out to that we thought initially might fall within that category actually do not. That was our decision - they do not fall within it. Now we will start the process with another group of providers but a number of criteria have to be met, including, for instance, that they have a searchable catalogue and so on. There are a couple of different pieces of analysis that need to be done, as well the €2 million. It is not necessarily as clear as, for example, the case where we have licensed and contracted broadcasters, which is really clear. This requires a bit more analysis and engagement. We will probably be looking at highlighting this more to some of those categories as well.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Is any of this tiered, in terms of the importance of having those registers of interest or any of that information, such as if relates to broadcasting in the lead-up to an election? There are obviously lots of rules around broadcasting during elections. Ms MacEvilly is speaking about reaching out to commercial stations. Is any of it tiered in terms of absolutely having to comply, regardless of whether a provider is public service media or commercial media? The lines are kind of blurred. We are all influenced by various parts of the media, not just RTÉ and TG4. Other commercial radio, television and social media outlets will influence people's decision-making. It sounds like there is no extra rule or extra layer of compliance around influencing people in elections.
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
Committee members will probably be aware that at the beginning of every election or referendum we introduce the electoral guidelines. We brought in new changes in the last two elections. We provided webinars for the broadcasters to update them on the requirements and on what they need to and can do. There is good engagement on what the requirements are. I completely agree with the Senator. This is becoming a more complex space. There are far more hybrid services available now. That is the reality and it is changing all the time. There is provision in the code whereby, if someone is making statements on podcasts, we might take that into account in regard to a complaint. Ms McLoughlin may be able to identify others.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Podcasts are obviously not new. There was some sort of narrative that podcasts are new and we are catching up with the media landscape. Podcasts are not new. They have been around for a decade. I know they were harder to find back in the day. They are everywhere here. They pop up on social media and there are little video clips as well. Ivan Yates has said he has done nothing wrong. Is Coimisiún na Meán happy, given the current legislative landscape around podcasting during presidential elections on commercial stations and media broadcasters, that he has done nothing wrong?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
We had sufficient concerns when the issues came to light as to write to the broadcasters in question. The issues were as to whether the broadcaster, Newstalk, for example, that had him presenting news and current affairs programming during that period, followed the code and was compliant with the code in that respect. That is the question we are asking, rather than the activity on the podcast, unless the activity on the podcast becomes directly relevant to that question.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Can I ask just one follow-up question?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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You can because I interrupted you.
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
Deputy Byrne also mentioned registers of interest. Given what has come to light in the past few weeks, obviously RTÉ is held to very high standards and it is held to account in respect of registers of interest. That is an ongoing process but it is affecting - in the right way - presenters and journalists in RTÉ. Is there any intention to extend that to other broadcasters in the space?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
We operate on an evidence-based basis. We would certainly be open to looking at whether there are improvements. We will be consulting on the code of fairness, subjectivity and impartiality in the coming year. It is an opportunity to look at whether additional guidance or requirements should be put in place. We want to do that on an evidence basis of understanding what occurred and what would improve that situation. Registers can be a useful tool but they are not the only answer to this. It is really important that we have good journalists, good editorial decision-making, well-resourced broadcasters who can put in place the measures and that in a complex, dynamic environment like news and current affairs they are able to look at this not only on a yearly basis but on a daily basis so that they are really on top of ensuring the requirements are met. The other thing we need to have regard to is the need to ensure editorial independence and the need to consider the variety of services that are out there. What might be absolutely appropriate for a very large organisation focused on news and current affairs might be more difficult for a community broadcaster-----
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for being here today. Many of my queries have been addressed. Before I begin my questions, I will say I come to this issue not only as a legislator but as someone who spent three decades working as a journalist and a broadcaster in Ireland and across the globe, and as a media trainer. Last year, I was required to immediately leave my job the moment I became an election candidate because any perception of partiality would have undermined my own work, never mind the organisation I represented. That is where the line is becoming very blurred. Ireland is a very small country and the line between political life and journalism and broadcasting is becoming very blurred. I want to clarify one thing. I know Ms MacEvilly mentioned about who would be to blame if something like this happens. Does she believe the onus is on the individual who may be subject to partiality or is it down to the broadcaster or to the platform to address any conflict of interest?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
We regulate the broadcasters and the video-on-demand providers. The onus is on them to put in place the arrangements with their staff or contributors. Any of these conflict provisions always rely on the individuals providing the information but the providers have to put the arrangements in place to ensure they are in a position to know and be aware of those interests. Ms McLoughlin may want to add to that.
Ms Louise McLoughlin:
The duties in relation to fairness, objectivity and impartiality rest with the broadcaster - in statute and in our codes. Our codes set out the standards and practices that ought to apply. One of those is on the management of conflicts of interest and having appropriate policies and procedures in place. The onus is on the broadcaster to make sure it has them and is following them.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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So the broadcaster is almost vetting the guests that it has on but what if the person does not want to disclose, as has been mentioned, who they might be training?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
The onus remains on the broadcaster, though, to have in place systems to ensure that it is in a position to be aware of the issues at hand. Obviously, we are asking questions so if there is information or learnings from this, we are happy to consider those.
However, the point remains that under the legislation and the codes, our regulation is to the broadcasters. They have the primary responsibility - the editorial responsibility - for what is broadcast and to the level of transparency that is provided, so the onus will ultimately remain with them.
Ms Louise McLoughlin:
If they have the appropriate policies and procedures in place and follow them diligently and a bad actor maybe does not declare something, having been asked or where those practices and polices have been followed, then that is a factor that would be considered were we to consider the issue by means of a complaint or monitoring. That is something to take into account in terms of what action or otherwise we may or may not wish to take.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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Politics is a precarious business to be in. I am just concerned that there may be a scenario where someone with any kind of political life or political leaning who is not re-elected and goes on to other activity could come on to speak about business but, because they had a political background, it may be seen as impartial or biased.
Mr. Declan McLoughlin:
It is important to highlight the reality that people have interests and they will bring those interests to any discussion. They may be invited on to a programme because of their current or previous interests or they may bring their interests and experiences to the debate and discussion. That is the reality. That is partially the benefit, in that when we interview good guests on a radio or television show, it is because of their interests, expertise and background. What is salient here is whether those interests conflict with the achievement of fairness, objectivity and impartiality in a particular instance, as opposed to whether someone has or has not any interests.
It is probably important to re-emphasise that there are existing rules in the code that allow for the adequate management of those interests, where they are relevant. There are complaint-handling procedures and investigatory procedures and they are undertaken against the provisions that require the declaration of interests, where necessary. If there is a failure to declare those interests in a given circumstance, that can be investigated and the broadcaster can be sanctioned for failure to meet its obligations. There is a specific instance, which as Ms MacEvilly has mentioned we are not going to discuss in any detail, but there is an existing strong legal framework in the code, in the Act and via the sanctions that allow us to deal with it already. There are broader questions to be asked about registers of interests and interests in society, but interests are there and they are often legitimate. It is what people bring to programming that audiences enjoy.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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We are all now almost using a code. We know what we are speaking about here. There was a particular individual who, as we have established, has done nothing wrong and will tell us later on, I am quite certain, when he appears this afternoon that he has done something wrong.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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Without a shadow of a doubt, there is a perception among the public of a breaking of trust. How can we reconcile that? How can we tell the public or reassure them that we are across that breaking of trust?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
Again, I point to the fact that we have started a process of requesting information from the broadcaster to understand better what happened. We will follow that up. There are a number of steps we can take pursuant to that. Obviously, we are not prejudging any of what we might get from the broadcaster, what our analysis might be or what our findings are, but we can look at this in the round and see whether there are improvements that can be made or enhancements, or better guidance or whether better training can be provided. It is really important to us that this does not undermine trust. We have high levels of trust in news media and news brands in Ireland, and that is something that is really valuable. We will certainly look at the learnings from this in any follow-up that comes from it because it is important to us.
It is also important the public have a good understanding of what they are getting from well-regulated broadcasters versus what they might be seeing online, where there is a different set of regulations. In the publication last week of the EU democracy shield, it was really emphasised how important free and independent media are in the battle against disinformation, information manipulation and intervention in political systems. It is really important to us as a society that we continue to uphold trust in broadcasters.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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For fear of going around the houses and repeating a lot of the questions that have already been answered, I will highlight something exceptionally positive that goes on in my constituency, namely, the local democracy and courts reporting scheme funded by Coimisiún na Mean. As politicians and elected representatives go, I am very lucky there is a strong legacy and history in my area of journalists taking a keen interest in what goes on in local and national politics. Journalists, past and present, in the area have been very committed to highlighting the good, bad and indifferent of what is going on locally and nationally on the political platform. However, not every area has the same input and output. Is it a priority for Coimisiún na Mean to expand that scheme to ensure local democracy is properly covered and available to local people nationwide? Does it measure it? Are there metrics for how it measures the benefits and successes, or even the downsides, of a programme like that?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
I thank the Deputy so much for that. We also see this as incredibly important. While we sometimes think about enforcement issues and complaints, a hugely important part of our work is supporting compliance and providing high-quality journalism. We are really proud to be part of this scheme. It is designed to provide coverage on a geographical basis. We use that as part of our assessment of the scheme. When we get the applications in we try to ensure there is coverage of local democracy across all counties. Obviously, that depends in some ways on the applications that come through. We have had huge interest again in the latest round, so I hope we can ensure we have that coverage. We would be happy to come back in and provide an update on the success or outcomes of that scheme. It is early days yet, but one of the things we are really proud of is the fact that 100 journalism posts have been funded by this scheme. That is 100 additional people who are now working in high-quality reporting of local democracy and local issues. To us, that is a real win in itself.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is a great success story. Just for clarity and transparency, I am based in Louth and Drogheda is my area. The scheme is working especially well for us. If a report could come to the committee about where the uptake is and where it has been successful, I would be interested. For areas where it has not been successful, perhaps we have a role, as people on the ground, to amplify that and make our journalists aware it is there and can be taken up. I thank Ms MacEvilly for her response.
To move on from that, in her opening statement Ms MacEvilly stated: "Upholding freedom of expression is at the heart of our work across our entire remit [including] online safety, broadcasting and on-demand regulation, and media development". To get into that a little more, have any of an coimisiún's rules or protocols been challenged under freedom of expression at any stage?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
Some of the challenges to freedom of expression that are highlighted under the European Media Freedom Act are things like concentration of ownership in media and the concern that media organisations are under pressure financially and commercially and facing significant competition from online. Obviously, some of the requirements around public service media are to ensure there is freedom from political intervention and clarity about the funding and that funding is sustainable, predictable and adequate to what they are doing. We are also aware from our work that there are attacks on journalists online. This is an area we are concerned with. In advance of the elections, we usually provide an election candidate information pack. We recently introduced a journalist information pack to help journalists understand what they can do if they are subject to abuse and threats online. There are, therefore, quite a range of concerns about freedom of media expression.
One of the other areas we are quite active in is ensuring pluralism in the media. We have just finished a consultation on a new media pluralism policy. We think this is really important in terms of ensuring there is a diversity of ownership, as I mentioned; diversity of services, so that we have a wide range of services available, that the content on them is diverse and we are not seeing the same thing all the time across those various services; and diversity of engagement so that people would discover new material as well. There is a whole series of areas where we are looking at what more can be done to ensure that there is a pluralism, that people feel represented and we are using all the tools and levers at our disposal to support that area.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is completely understandable that there would be concerns, particularly as society evolves and the world we all live in evolves. I acknowledge that. In particular, the question I was asking was if there have been any challenges to that. Have there been any legal cases or official complaints in relation to people feeling stifled in how they express themselves, where they can express themselves or where they may have expressed themselves but it has been closed in on?
Ms Louise McLoughlin:
In terms of broadcasting we have not had any complaints of that nature. The statutory standards and the codes and rules are themselves guardrails around expression, in some way limiting it but allowing enough editorial independence within that for the broadcasters. The complaint handling and deciding where something has infringed on that is a balancing test for our commission to decide. When something comes in, it is about balancing freedom of expression against the need to protect the interests of the audience, seeing where we come out and whether it is actually a breach of those standards. Those considerations come into play in respect of every complaint but we have not had a complaint of the nature I think the Deputy is talking about, if I am understanding correctly.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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No, it is just a general understanding from our perspective as we feed into legislation and stuff like that, if there are gaps or areas we need to be aware of.
Mr. Declan McLoughlin:
As a concluding remark, it is worth emphasising that, as an organisation, we are very lucky that the Act that is the foundation for Coimisiún na Meán has a very strong emphasis on freedom of expression. It is written into it. As an organisation we must have regard to the right to liberty of expression. What we have done in the code of fairness and impartiality in news and current affairs, which is binding on us, is provided that in the interpretation of the code, the commission will have due regard to the freedom of expression conferred by the Constitution, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights. We have committed publicly in this document that when we interpret the code, we will have due regard to these essential protections for liberty and freedom of expression. That informs how we approach the code. It is a test against which we will make decisions and against which we look at the rules when we develop them and review them. There is a very strong foundation to protect liberty of expression in the Act that founds us but also threaded through the actual code that deals with the regulation of news and current affairs.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses for being here today and for their contributions so far. I have some questions first for Coimisiún na Meán and then some broader ones for both organisations. Does the coimisiún as a matter of course use a communications or PR firm to prepare, for example, for appearances like today's committee appearance?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Did it do so ahead of today's appearance?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
We use the Communications Clinic. We procured its services through an open public procurement process. I think it is really important as public officials that we are able to communicate effectively and clearly, and answer questions properly. In this instance, when we received the invitation from the committee and we were aware that it had invited members of the Communications Clinic to the evening session - I do not actually know if they are going to attend - we just decided it would not be appropriate to use them to prepare for this committee and we just stopped talking to them.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I fully acknowledge that it is a perfectly legitimate thing to do in preparation for an event like this and that lots of people do it. The reason I ask it is that a lot of people tuning in would probably be surprised to hear that. The point I am trying to illuminate is that kind of disclosure and influence is really at the heart of what we are trying to discuss today. We have one instance which has arisen but I think we have a much broader issue in terms of how those influences or interests, as we have discussed already today, are made available to the public. We have such a trust in media here in this country, which is very hard won but unfortunately very easily lost. We are in an extremely delicate moment in this era of misinformation that we now have. My questions are asked in that context. I am not trying for a gotcha moment. I am fully acknowledging that these things happen but the lines are increasingly blurry.
I will start somewhere that is possibly a bit surprising, but for me one of the issues is that it is so hard now to be a journalist or broadcaster. It does not pay enough so people have to get into other areas, and they do. Maybe that is a starting point. Where are the policy gaps in terms of making it easier for journalists to just be journalists? It was a long time ago that journalists and broadcasters started to occupy other roles in their lives to supplement their income and find ways to survive. In my opinion, that has just polluted further and further into it. People in good faith declared them, and in bad faith failed to do so. We do not have the regulatory framework yet to impose it. How can we make journalism and broadcasting an easier place for people to survive?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
It is a really good question. I would say as well, as my colleague said earlier, it is not the existence of an interest that is at issue, it is how it is handled. We do of course know that many journalists work part-time and this is the norm now. It is really about how that is managed professionally and properly, and the transparency around it. It is not intended to make it more difficult for journalists to do their jobs. It is intended to support them, in fact, by upholding the trust that exists in media, as the Deputy said. Good compliance with this code completely underpins the trust that is there and the importance of public service media or commercial media in Ireland. These rules are not there to make it more difficult but to provide support. I do think there is a lot more that is required to support public service and commercial media in Ireland at the moment. The reason I emphasised things like the European Media Freedom Act and the EU democracy shield is that they are really calling out the importance of free and independent media in upholding our democracy. It really is that important.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I would push back a little on that, though, because I do think the democracy shield is more of what I would describe as the rhetoric but actually not the teeth. I hear all of the messages that we want this trust, we want these principles, but they are not being enforced. Maybe we could drill into one of those specifically, which is the RTÉ register. The director general of RTÉ has said he believes there needs to be legislation if we want more information. What we get at the moment is the statistical summary. There are no details, visible to the public, I mean. The institution itself collects that data but all we can access as viewers is that there are X amounts of engagements, corporate connections or whatever, and we do not get any details. Does Ms MacEvilly think that needs to be fixed and that we need to find a way to get around the data limitations on that? Are there any other efforts to apply any such register of interests to other broadcasters?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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So it is a dead end. We cannot ever know what broadcaster has what connections.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Would they face the same roadblock where it would just be statistical information?
Ms Tríona Quill:
We are doing some policy work at the moment and we are engaging with the Data Protection Commission to see if it is possible to introduce something that is proportionate. It is a tricky area because of the balance of interests.
There may be a case for disclosure to a broadcaster, but whether everything published is proportionate is a separate question. We are doing some work on it at the moment and if it is possible to agree something in line with data protection law, I think the Minister would be minded to bring something forward on Committee Stage of the broadcasting (amendment) Bill in relation to those two broadcasters. I suppose that would be a basis to build on.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Does Mr. McLoughlin want to add anything to that?
Mr. Declan McLoughlin:
By way of background, the predecessor to Coimisiún na Meán, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI, when it was developing the code in 2011, 2012 and 2013, did invite views on a public register of interests. It set out a proposal regarding whether this should be something the code should include. We did some surveying. That was a long time ago, but I doubt some of the results will have changed much insofar as when the public were asked if they favoured a public register of interests, they were overwhelmingly in favour of having such a register. I think about 70% said "Yes", although I would have to double-check the figure. Those who opposed it did so for reasons around privacy and a legitimate balance. In 2011, therefore, when the code was developed, there was certainly a public appetite for a public register. When we looked at it, though, issues around legislation, privacy and the need for legislation were there at that time. Therefore, I think the work being explored by the Department will be a valuable move towards progressing this discussion to see what is legitimate, appropriate and possible.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I urge that this would be the case. There are exemptions within the GDPR and I do think this is an area that should be analysed as such. The issue for me is that, even with the complaints infrastructure described, everything seems to be very reactive. When we talk about trust, however, it is about principles being upheld. If we see examples like any individual incident, that always undermines that trust. If they are not saying it, there is a question as to who else is not saying it and what other interests are there. Those interests and influences, of course, impact how people treat issues. I did not have time to get to another area, the definition of news and current affairs, but perhaps I will be able to in the second round.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I thank the Deputy. I just have some observations because most of my questions have been asked. A regulatory gap has been identified through the presidential election. Some of the information coming through here clarifies a lot of things. We very much get the need for the continuance and importance of freedom of expression. That is something I fundamentally believe in, but there is definitely a legislative gap here. The Minister has said there is a legislative gap here. Those were not the exact words but it is more or less what he said. I do not believe that anyone can do this work of advising people and training in politics, etc., unless they are live in the field. It would be pointless for somebody to be doing it if they were only around 20 years ago. I do not actually have a huge issue with it. My issue is with how it is declared and the prism or lens through which the public knows that the contribution of those individuals is conditioned around the fact that they know this. This is what we have got to resolve here.
There are some obvious issues here. First, we have a regulatory gap. We have an opportunity now in this regard. This is the reason we brought this item in today and why we are doing it all in one day. We have already dealt with the next version of the broadcasting Act. The Department is working on it. This issue, however, was missed and we need to deal with it. The legislation needs to be tightened up in this regard. The code needs to be updated. There have been 14 years between 2011 and 2025 and the world has changed in that time. For example, podcasting is outside of it. It needs to be brought into it. I listen to podcasts nearly as much as I listen to the radio, although there is one show I might listen to less now. I do not know, I am not sure, but we will see. The other issue is that it is not clear what the consequences are for somebody who does not declare an interest or whether there have ever been consequences.
Another issue relates to the interaction between broadcasting and the Press Council. For instance, commentators who advise on politics can write columns that are referred to in the media and broadcasting. That is another layer on top. How is that going to be dealt with? These people are obviously working with politicians and writing articles that are being referred to in the newspapers and on the radio all the time. How is that going to be dealt with? It is another layer that needs to be dealt with.
We also have the issues my colleagues referred to in relation to RTÉ. If somebody from RTÉ is watching this, to be fair, they could be thinking that organisation is held to one standard. I know it is funded by the taxpayer. Some politicians have said politicians are held to a different standard. RTÉ is held to a standard, but there is then a different standard when it comes to other broadcasting. There are different tiers. It is a fair argument. How are we going to proportionately - I am not saying we are all at the same level, trust me - ensure this issue is dealt with through legislation? Coimisiún na Meán cannot deal with this unless it has a legislative basis to work through. It simply does not have that at the moment. Things have to change, because the world has changed. Through this broadcasting Bill, we have an opportunity to deal with this issue. Obviously, there are to be issues with the GDPR, proportionality and all of that. Freedom of expression is central to everything. We do, however, have a regulatory gap here. That is obvious and it needs to be dealt with.
Turning to the Department, and having listened to what the Minister said, is this whole issue going to be addressed as part of the new legislation being brought through?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Yes. It is in relation to the regulatory gap whereby Coimisiún na Meán will have different regulations and the legislative basis on which it works will change such that in these situations, people will have to declare their interests.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I know that. Even what is covered, however, probably needs to be looked at again.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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It was concerning for me to hear from Coimisiún na Meán that it was having to go out to broadcasters and tell them to come in and register. Effectively, that is what was said to them. Surely that should be mandatory.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We have just been told that is not happening.
Ms Tríona Quill:
As I said, we will discuss the detail of it. In relation to a register of interests, I think there are two things to be considered. There is the issue of what must be provided to a broadcaster or media service provider in terms of declaring an interest so that it can be shared with the public at the start of the programme, podcast or whatever it might be. A related but somewhat separate issue is whether there should be something that any contributor to a programme would have to do in advance and would be made public. I think that is a stronger test. It also raises quite serious privacy aspects. We are committed to looking at all that. The reason we were looking at it in relation to TG4 and RTÉ in the first instance is that the broadcasting (amendment) Bill deals with those bodies in relation to strengthening governance and so on. That made it an obvious place to start given what RTÉ has already done in relation to a register of interests. We are committed to looking at all of that. Whether everything can be done within the timelines of the broadcasting (amendment) Bill is another question.
The European Media Freedom Act is being implemented in Ireland through the Online Safety and Media Regulation Act 2022 and the broadcasting (amendment) Bill, so both are under strict timelines in terms of avoiding infringement.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I understand that. I get what Ms Quill is saying about stronger tests, freedom of expression, and GDPR and the balances. What is an issue for me is stronger testing. We are looking at RTÉ and TG4 in the broadcasting Bill. Being honest, I am more concerned that we should deal with things outside of RTÉ and TG4 first. RTÉ and TG4 must be dealt with and I understand that legitimate questions were being asked in the committee earlier on. We are talking about RTÉ being at a level that is not perfect in terms of declarations and the whole transparency issue, but every other media outlet is at a lower level from what we are hearing today. It is my view, as Cathaoirleach of the committee, that a rebalancing needs to happen to bring others up to a standard rather than focusing on pushing RTÉ up to higher standards, where it and TG4 probably need to get to. There needs to be a rebalancing upwards in relation to commercial broadcasting. Obviously, there is an issue in relation to podcasting. In my view, and it is probably the committee's view, if there is a time consideration, given what Ms Quill has just said, that is where the focus should be because we have a bigger issue, which members have outlined. We are at a critical juncture when it comes to trust in traditional media, whether that is public, commercial or whatever. We need to help to ensure that is protected. This legislation is critical now. I encourage the Department to go down that route.
Have there been meetings between Coimisiún na Meán and the Department since these issues came to the fore in the last few weeks?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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A conservative view on this is not what is required. We need to re-look at all of this within the framework that I just outlined of protecting people and freedom of expression, but there is an imbalance that needs to be dealt with, and podcasting has to be dealt with, 100%. There is an opportunity through this legislation. I do not believe that the Department and Coimisiún na Meán can wait another couple of years to deal with this issue.
We will move on to the next round. I call Deputy Carrigy. I can give him a few extra minutes.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Apologies I was late. I was at another meeting. I remember doing a lot of work in the previous committee on the Future of Media Commission report and we did a lot of work within our party. There were statistics showing over 75% trust in the mainstream news among Irish people compared to, I think, 30% with the online form. There is a lot of disinformation there. That trust is extremely important. There has been significant Government investment in supporting various types of news through the local democracy fund to make sure that proper information is going out there to support local radio stations. Maybe this question was asked at the beginning. Over the last number of weeks, there has been a lot of discussion. Do witnesses feel that the high percentage of trust is diminished or reduced by what has happened over the last number of weeks? Do they believe that we need to strengthen the rules and regulations?
Ms Tríona Quill:
Levels of trust are measured on an ongoing basis through the Reuters survey that Coimisiún na Meán engaged with. That will be a benchmark for whether trust has changed over recent times. That is done annually and will provide evidence one way or another in relation to matters that have arisen recently and others in the past year. There is no doubt that one of the greatest safeguards for preserving trust is greater transparency and that people feel that any relevant interests are disclosed to them as an audience or viewers when they arise. As we have said, both the Department and Coimisiún na Meán are open to looking at what changes are required to ensure that transparency and trust are maintained and strengthened.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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When is that report announced? Is it at year end or, for example, in early 2026 for 2025?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
From memory, the last publication of the Reuters report was this summer, so it will probably be the same again. Obviously, we will announce or publish all the information. We will be keeping a close eye on this. There is other work we can do. Trust in media is incredibly important. Media literacy is really important also, to support audience understanding of, in particular, the difference between broadcast and online media and the fact that, where they are listening to or watching broadcast content, there are higher standards, rules and so on in place.
We monitor a number of other metrics. People have high levels of trust, but it has probably fallen over time and people are more concerned now about misinformation and disinformation. Maybe there is more we can do to support broadcast media as an antidote to disinformation. In addition to addressing the findings and learnings from this particular incident, it is an ongoing area of concern for us as to how we can continue uphold that trust.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Ms MacEvilly said the Coimisiún na Meán had other ways of monitoring. What are they and what have they shown? Was there a spike in complaints versus the rest of the year over this period of time?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
I am trying to remember. I am afraid I do not have the numbers to hand, but from my recollection, the Reuters media report says that trust is high compared to other EU member states, although it is lower compared to ten years ago. There is just more of a sceptical environment now because people are more aware of the existence of misinformation and disinformation. General trust is eroding, probably more so with the online information space. It is something we really need to preserve in terms of the broadcast media through supporting broadcasters, ensuring we have good compliance with the codes and rules, continuing to support the funding schemes, the training that we promote for journalists and broadcasters so they can uphold and put in place arrangements around good governance, and the work we do when we are relicensing. We have just been through and are continuing through rounds of relicensing of commercial radio broadcasters, making sure they have all of the requirements in place to meet the licences and so on. It is not just this one issue. There is a whole range of important work we can do to continue to support that level of trust.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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There were some outlets in particular through the Covid-19 pandemic that people relied on, namely, local radio stations and local newspapers, for tried and trusted information.
A mechanism of declarations was mentioned. All of us as public representatives have to make returns to the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, and declare anything in our personal lives. It is there on the public record. Do the witnesses feel there should be a mechanism like that so that if there is a conflict of interest, it should be declared and accessible to the public? Conflicts of interest can affect people's careers. Is that the type of mechanism the witnesses are thinking about?
Ms Tríona Quill:
I will let Ms MacEvilly come in. In the broadcasting (amendment) Bill, we have been looking at whether it is possible to put a register of interests, external activities or other activities on a statutory basis in relation to RTÉ and TG4. There are some significant data protection issues that arise.
We are doing policy work at the moment and our engagement with the Data Protection Commission will be in the context of that particular legislation. That will throw up some of the issues and we will see if it is possible to put something through on a legislative basis which could then be built on for other areas of the media sector. I know the Cathaoirleach has mentioned the order of priority is an issue there but I am just explaining where we are at the moment with it.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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This is actually really positive because a lot has come out of it and there are probably learnings there for all of us about how media has changed. One of the key things that has emerged today is that media, and particularly current affairs media, really influences people. It does not really matter if it is RTÉ or Virgin Media you are watching. You are listening to very trusted commentary and punditry. One area to look at in the coming months and years with legislation is about monitoring political coverage of campaigns - general election and presidential election campaigns - because there was a gap there. We have established that today.
Obviously, the other things are podcasts and audio versions of podcasts. They do not fall into the legislation either. I urge caution with regulating podcasts. There are so many different types of podcasts. You have to hold a political podcast to a much higher standard than "How to best boil your broccoli". It is not the same playing field. There are young people starting podcasts and that is brilliant because it is an expression of a passion they have, whether it is for sport, lifestyle, cooking or gardening. We cannot hold those podcasts to the same level of scrutiny because then we will not have those podcasts. We will not have that varied selection of media.
There is that gap we need to look at and we need to look at it in this legislation. The other piece is about the granular level of how we actually monitor these podcasts into the future. I do not know if the witnesses want to comment on it but that has certainly been my takeaway from it.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The basis on which we are discussing this is political commentary rather than broccoli, in all fairness.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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However, if we are telling members of the Department and Coimisiún na Meán to regulate podcasts, we cannot say it is a blanket. It needs to be tiered, that is all.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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For the understanding of the public who are watching, the baseline we are talking about relates to what happened in the presidential election, which relates to the overlap between politics and media. It is not about broccoli.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We definitely do not want to regulate the broccoli podcasts.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Just to be clear again, the basis upon which the witnesses were invited here was in relation to the code and the issues that came up from a regulatory point of view in relation to the overlap between politics and the media. Any commentary is all based around that.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I would have taken that as being understood, particularly in Ms MacEvilly's office.
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
In developing a compliance framework for new areas of regulation, we are very focused on harms as well - where is the majority of potential harm likely to arise or where is the majority of risk likely to arise. We take a risk-based and harm-based approach. That is the kind of area we are dealing with. There may be others but that is the approach we take as well.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I would like a further explanation or clarification on the parameters of what the Department might need to express that could be a possible conflict and what would be the sanctions. If there was a public representative married to a journalist or they were in a relationship or were siblings or had a business together, would that have to be declared? Would that preclude someone from commentating or from taking part in a discussion? What kind of sanctions might there be for that?
Ms Aoife MacEvilly:
A lot of what we do is very context dependent, particularly from a compliance or complaint issue point of view. We would look at materiality. As the Senator knows, we have stepped back and put the requirement on the broadcaster to assess what are the relevant potential areas of interest or conflict it thinks either should be declared or are potential grounds for not having somebody on the programme. We are not trying to make those decisions for them. If we were then looking at a complaint or what was the outcome, it would be so context dependent it is very difficult to say there are hard and fast rules that apply in every single scenario. My colleagues might come in.
Ms Louise McLoughlin:
Having blanket or absolute definitions set by ourselves rather than the people on the ground who are actually working with the programming and making it every day could end up being far too restrictive in terms of facilitating people coming on air and contributing. We want that diversity of contributions. This is why our code puts the onus on the broadcasters to have those practices and policies in place and operate them diligently because they are best placed to make those decisions when they understand what programme they are trying to make, what story they are covering, what angle they are coming at it from and how many views they need to include in this in order to meet the requirements of fairness, objectivity and impartiality.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I have a million other questions but that is my lot on this particular subject. I hope we get to question the witnesses again on other topics.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses. Apologies that I had to pop out but I am back-to-back today. I have absolutely become much better at eating fast between committee meetings for the timing of this. I was hoping to delve into a couple of definition areas, starting with news and current affairs. Obviously, if we rely on the fact there is a particular conflict of interest that presents itself in that context, we are then relying on a judgment call at some point in the whole regulatory framework of what is news and current affairs versus what is business, in particular. They are quite cosy at times and side by side. When does that happens, where does that happen and what are the witnesses' general take on the strength of that particular feature of the procedure?
Mr. Declan McLoughlin:
Obviously, news and current affairs is a very broad church. It goes from news about pop stars and the latest album being dropped at one end all the way up to something quite serious, which is currently under discussion at this committee. It is quite a broad church of information. The coimisiún currently does not define it. The BAI did not define it. It has said in codes that where it is not defined on a statutory basis, it is to be understood in its common meaning. People know news and current affairs when they hear it. It is well understood.
Part of the guidance we have is in the legislation itself, which talks about matters of current public debate or controversy. That is a very good definition of what news and current affairs is. News is something that is new and of interest to the public. Current affairs, generally speaking, can be described as something which is a matter of current public debate or controversy. The language in the Act and people's common understanding of what is news and what is current affairs has served the regulator well. It does not get into saying what it is and is not. Twenty-five years ago, pop news was not news. People said that was not news.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I take Mr. McLoughlin's point but to respond to that, I feel it has absolutely served us well to a degree but we are in a very different time now. We are in a time of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation. I believe that perhaps the methods and tools we have relied upon that rely, to a degree, on a general consensus have been tested and will be tested in greater ways in the coming years. That might be something we should consider in legislation and policy measures.
The second definition is on employment. Media and journalism is an increasingly precarious employment sector. How do the register of interests or any kind of obligations apply to permanent or full-time versus contract or occasional staff? Is that something that is treated within the regulatory framework?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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How would that change if they were in those two roles? Both of them would be considered to have obligations.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Are there roles that do not require the same level of rigour?
Ms McLoughlin was talking about reporters, panel hosts or whatever. I get what she is saying about how it is what they are doing rather than their employment status but if it is what they are doing, what roles do people that are not then subject to the same rigour?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Could it even be things like seat warmers, where there might be someone guest-hosting a show for a period of time?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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They are hosting.
Ms Louise McLoughlin:
Yes. They are taking on the role of presenting a programme so it is regardless of it being as a guest or otherwise. However, contributors would be slightly different from presenters and reporters who have that relationship with the broadcaster in some fashion, whereas contributors are more being called in to offer their opinion and provide their expertise on a particular subject matter.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Does Deputy Carrigy have any more questions?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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In her opening statement, Ms McLoughlin mentioned the three-year strategy and the six key outcomes. One is children. On the previous committee, I worked on the Online Safety and Media Regulation, OSMR, Bill. I know Ms Quill and Mr. Larragy from that. It was quite a concise Bill. One of the proposals put forward, and is still under discussion, was the introduction of a minimum age for children to have social media accounts. We are talking about it, we are discussing it and we are looking at it but we are not doing anything about it. We are talking about misinformation and we are allowing our children to look at this content openly with factually incorrect information and stuff but we are not doing anything about it. We are just talking about it. How far are we on this? Every time Coimisiún na Meán come in and I ask the question, we do not get an answer. It is still being looked at. When are we actually going to do something about it instead of waiting for something to happen?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We will be dealing with this next week.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I know. Sorry.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We are having four different sets of meetings in relation to this issue. Go on.
Ms Tríona Quill:
There are two things that are relevant. One is around age verification, to ensure that kids claiming a certain age are actually that age or that someone who is claiming to be over 18 years actually is. There are obligations on platforms in relation to that but we are also doing work internally within the system to see whether we can put something in place that would -----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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With no disrespect, we just need to put a minimum age and make a decision. The companies have the technology with AI for doing verification on accounts. I am speaking as a parent. I see what is on all of us. We just need to do it instead of -----
Ms Tríona Quill:
I take the Deputy's point absolutely but for whatever is agreed, it needs to be possible to have really trustworthy verification of it.
On the particular age, there is a lot of discussion going on in Europe at the moment. There are a lot of calls for Europe to do something centrally on it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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No disrespect but that is the exact answer we got three years ago in the Seanad when we were discussing the Bill, namely, that we were waiting on Europe. We have to look after our kids here. We just need to do it.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We will be spending a month on this so we will deal with it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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There is a simple answer.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Or not simple, but we just need to do it.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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In fairness, we will discuss all of that. That is the reason. It is a very important topic.
To get back to what we are here today to discuss, namely, the overlap between the media and politics and the whole issue that arose as a result of the presidential election, that is the core of what we are discussing today, even if we went a little off topic. There are no perfect answers here, obviously. We have to respect individuals and we also have to respect freedom of expression, but there is a regulatory gap. We will have Ivan Yates in here later. We are very thankful for him actually coming in here. He decided to come in here unlike others. I think that is a good thing and I appreciate him doing so because we have to hear from practitioners. In everything we do inside here, we have all sides. There are obviously multiple sides, or two sides, here and he is coming in. We will hear from him later. It is obvious there is a regulatory gap and there is a requirement to fill this gap. It is obvious we have a piece of legislation coming down the road. I think the key focus here is with the Department in relation to that legislation and how it can be implemented by Coimisiún na Meán. That is where our committee would focus in on as regards the Bill that will come forward. I respect the fact there are time pressures. I would re-emphasise the balancing issue in relation to public broadcasting versus those who are commercial and that balance that needs to be changed. The issue of politics and media in relation to podcasting needs to be a component of it. That is obviously what we got from today.
Are we going down the road where every single time someone is doing an interview will have to declare immediately and at every instance? I do not know if that is practical. I have no firm view on that. Politicians have to do declarations every year. Maybe there could be a format where it is done once a quarter for issues like this or there may be some other way that the witnesses can think of, but from a legislative point of view, it must be very clear this is dealt with so that Coimisiún na Meán has the basis on which it can do its work.
Another issue that has been very well explained and come across to us in detail is the issue of engagement with providers, that is, broadcasters. That has been an education for us on this committee. The process by which Coimisiún na Meán, which is quite a young organisation, engages with them and how we thought it engaged with them is not the same, and we are legislators. We would have understood it was basically mandatory and it should be mandatory. The idea that Coimisiún na Meán has to go out and chase them is alarming, to be honest. If we have to firm up legislation on that in some way to give Coimisiún na Meán more certainty about how broadcasters deal with it, then we need to do so.
As I said earlier, I know there is a fine balance but we cannot be just conservative. We have to deal with this issue in the interests of the public so the public knows the sieve through which it is consuming this sort of political commentary. It is an issue we need to deal with.
We will conclude this session. I thank everyone sincerely for their engagement. They have been very open, in fairness, and I thank them. I know it is a tricky period in regard to legislation coming through in the Department, time pressure and so on, so I appreciate that too.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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This is our second public session today. We will continue our consideration of challenges in the implementation of Coimisiún na Meán's code of fairness, impartiality and objectivity in news and current affairs.
I very much welcome Mr. Ivan Yates of Yewtree Infotainment Unlimited to committee room 3. Your are very welcome, Ivan, and thanks for coming in.
The format of today's meeting is that I will invite Mr. Yates to address the committee with his opening statement, which will be limited to three minutes or thereabouts. As he is probably aware, the committee may publish the opening statement on its website. Is that agreed? Agreed.
Before we move to today's presentation, I wish to clarify some limitations relating to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to this committee. This means they have an absolute defence against defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.
Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
Members will note that the stakeholder invited to this session represents a private entity and is, therefore, not accountable to the committee and attends on a voluntary basis to assist the committee in its deliberations. It will be my role as Cathaoirleach to ensure the meeting is conducted in a fair and respectful manner at all times. I ask that all members act responsibly in relation to utterances concerning those present and those not present at this meeting. I will intervene in any exchanges where I deem this not to be the case.
Before I invite Ivan to address the committee, I thank him for coming in. It is very much appreciated. Today, we have already met representatives of Coimisiún na Meán and officials from the Department to discuss regulatory issues as regards this whole sector and the overlap of media and politics. We also invited a number of other companies and individuals to attend but they chose not to. For clarity reasons, a number of those individuals or companies pointed out that they did not actually do work in this space and we must acknowledge that. In fairness to the committee members, it was a question of asking a number of people to get a flavour because we, as committee members, would not fully know. Others who do work in this space declined our invitation and so it is very much appreciated that Ivan came in and I ask him to address us with his opening statement.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Thank you, Chairman, and good evening to you all. I am very happy to be here with the committee this evening. I understand, as the Chairman has just alluded to, that the committee invited a number of people who train politicians for media engagements to come along but I am the only one who agreed to come along. That is a pity because we would all benefit from hearing various different perspectives on these issues.
I am still flabbergasted at the volume of attention that has focused on my media training activities over the past three weeks. Media training has actually been a small element of my commercial activities over the past number of years and media training for politicians has been even smaller but in the past few weeks it seems to have assumed an enormous importance. To be honest, I am surprised at the level of surprise that my work in this area has generated. I am only operating on one social media myself and that is LinkedIn. The second item under the my "Experience" entry is “Media Trainer” and as most people know that I am former politician, it hardly requires an enormous leap of imagination that I might have combined these interests at some point. While I have always kept the identity of my training clients confidential, my work with Fianna Fáil politicians has been written about before. In early 2022, for example, John Drennan of the Irish Daily Mail wrote about it, without any input from me I might add, and without much interest from anyone afterwards to be honest.
Media training is something that I have been doing for about four years, and I can elaborate on the circumstances of that, but I was not doing this work in any way when I was a full-time broadcaster between 2009 and 2020. I am no longer a full-time broadcaster. In July 2020, in the middle of Covid, I left Dublin of my volition, left "The Tonight Show", left "The Hard Shoulder" and left broadcasting.
My main activity now is working with clients across the economy on conferences and events. Typically, I either act as guest speaker or as an MC or, like tomorrow in Croke Park, chairing a conference. I am also a founding co-host of the "Path to Power" podcast alongside Matt Cooper. This ran, for my part, from December 2023 to October 2025. Podcasts hold a very important space in the media ecosystem. A major part of their attraction is that they take a looser, less cautious, more contrarian approach to issues and allow voices to be heard that are increasingly hard to hear in the so-called mainstream media. They are primarily opinion based. In the case of "Path to Power", I do not think anyone was tuning in to hear two versions of Matt Cooper. The contrast between the styles and approaches of Matt, on the one hand, and myself, on the other, was a major attraction for listeners or viewers. I approached issues from a very different perspective - with deep political experience and connections, with relationships across the parties and with a real-world experience of both the economy and politics. This is part of the attraction. A guaranteed mood killer of that environment would have been if we had been forced to preface every debate with a disclaimer or a declaration of interests. Thankfully, we did not and I hope that burden is never placed on podcasters.
Aside from my podcasting, controversy has arisen about my broadcasting roles and remarks during recent months of the presidential election. The committee will be aware, and only today, that Coimisiún na Meán is presently conducting a review into these matters with both Newstalk and RTÉ. Matters pertaining to the operation and implementation of their code are being properly processed there. I do not believe it is the function of this committee to carry out a parallel investigation or prejudice the outcome of that due process. I do not propose this evening to give further answers to my perspectives on these matters other than a lengthy interview I had with David McCullough, on RTÉ's "Today with David McCullough" programme on 10 November.
However, I want to make it clear that I am available to Coimisiún na Meán, if it desires it. As always, it is open to any member of the public and this happened throughout my broadcasting career, there were complaints all the time. If people said that I did not with fairness or objectivity, they can lodge an objection with the commission, and previously that was the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI. There were many complaints against me. None, I believe, were upheld. However, with five decades of personal experience in the media - asking and answering questions, and commentating - I am happy to relay any general insights into how programmes are made, with editorial-production teams, and the role of the presenter. Similarly, I am happy to explain the modus operandi of media training and coaching, and what it does and does not include. I am quite happy to discuss that.
In relation to my various roles, I feel I must assert my bona fides. I have always acted in good faith in discharging every and any role to the best of my ability. My commentary role is based on my genuine independent opinions. I have always sought to be legally compliant with all legislation, be it taxation, the Revenue Commissioners, Companies Registration Office, CRO, the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, etc. My stances on many issues have never been a secret. It is a bedrock of my pugnacious broadcasting style. I seek to operate in the equivalent of the op-ed section of a print newspaper, and I have written many columns in my day, in the style of a polemicist. I have never felt beholden to anyone for other work.
I want to say a few words on understanding conflicts. I believe my predictions and punditry in every one of the 43 constituencies during the elections were based solely on trying to be as accurate and informative as possible. I do not believe any training role altered the way I saw the election unfolding or the performance of various candidates. There are all sorts of conflicts across every walk of life, including relationships, family, friendships, political, shared experiences and financial. Can we police them all? Do we want to drown our legacy media in more and more onerous regulations, rules and protocols or do we want to trust people to manage reasonable situations reasonably and to trust their audiences to make up their own mind?
Finally, as regards this committee's consideration of future legislation, regulation and the policy of the media, I note it is deliberating the broadcasting Bill 2025 and, inter alia, the establishment of a register of interests. In all future roles, I will of course abide by prevailing regulations that apply. I understand, however, that there have been difficulties with the RTÉ register in the context of the Data Protection Commission and GDPR, to the extent that no personal details have been revealed. To extend this on a statutory basis to all broadcasters and podcasters would have severe consequences. Instead of controlling hate speech, it could limit free speech. The reality is that people who express strong opinions on topics such as migration, Donald Trump, the woke agenda and the nanny state do not conform to a mainstream media consensus. A sanitised, politically correct media limits the national conversation. It could widen the gap between ordinary people and the beltway. A national echo chamber is one of the greatest drivers of alternative media.
Thank you, a Chathaoirligh. I look forward to the committee's questions.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I thank Mr. Yates very much. I allowed a little bit more time for him to get through his presentation. Now, we will go to our committee members. Each member will have seven minutes. The first speaker is Senator Garret Ahearn.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I welcome Mr. Yates to the committee. I acknowledge that he agreed to come, which was not the case with all of those who were invited. Some do not have the remit, but some do and chose not to come. I thank him for that.
In the interests of transparency - I assume Mr. Yates will agree with me - our only connection is that my mother served in Parliament with him at the same time. I have never had training with him and I have only met him once since I have been a Senator and that was on "Prime Time" the night Simon Harris became Taoiseach.
Did Mr. Yates receive training for today?
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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If Mr. Yates's case for his profession is that people need training and to be advised on what questions might be asked, is it his view that he does not need it himself personally and that he is good enough to do it without any training?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I would hope so, but there would be people in this whole sphere that I would text and ask for any guidance or advice. In my days as Minister, I have been before an Oireachtas committee. I have not been in this format. I always take advice from everybody but as to whether I have had any formal training for today, no.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Yates touched on the fact in his interview with "Today with David McCullagh" that his golden rule was client confidentiality. Can he see the conflict in the public's perception that his adherence to client confidentiality has become an issue for them in terms of their confidence in what he says is his personal belief or a belief in people he represents?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
That is okay. I do not have to do it now, but I could do it whenever it is appropriate. I am not a member of any party. I am not part of any election team in any of the political training roles I have done. I am not a strategic adviser or a spin doctor. What I do is I take someone and ask what they want to say. We go through it and then I do a mock interview.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I understand that. Mr. Yates said at the start that the media training was only a small part of his businesses. On "Today with David McCullagh", he said he had hundreds of clients for media training, either private or public. Would that be considered small? How big are the other elements of his business?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Let me explain the numbers situation. What actually happened was I went home to Wexford in July and I had 35 events in my diary, but with Covid, every one was cancelled. I could not go to the pub. There was a 2 km restriction, and I thought about what I could do. I wrote 20,000 words on everything I ever learned in 22 years of answering questions and then 12 years of asking questions. I wrote it down and put it in a syllabus and I linked up with iQuest and we did a master class on this. Actually-----
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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The point I am making is that Mr. Yates said on the show that he had hundreds of clients.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Yates has other lines of work as well. He mentioned before that he had a keen interest in housing. He is perceived as a housing developer as well in a lot of ways. He has developments in Midleton and in other places. How many houses are being developed currently?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
The situation is that, on 7 November, Colm Keena did a full revelation of everything that was declared with SIPO and on lobbying.ie, which are two companies. There are companies that I own and I am a director of other companies. Senator Ahearn asks about the particular company that is building houses, but the companies I am involved in work right across the economy. There is a company called Mortimer, which has built 90 houses in Castlemartyr. It currently has planning permission for 400 houses in a new development. It is like the Adamstown of Cork.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Yes, but Mr. Yates said on his podcast that he gave advice to housing agencies and organisations, including Glenveagh.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
One of my biggest clients on the events side of things is the CIF. I chair the national housing summit and the annual conference of the CIF. The CIF has 1,500 members and is worth €55 billion to the economy. It is a massive operation, employing 175,000 people. I do a lot of work with the CIF.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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The point I am getting at is Mr. Yates is involved in building 500 houses-----
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. He is providing media training to organisations. It is also on the public record that he has trained the Minister for housing.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Can he not see how people would see a conflict with a property developer training people who work in property going into media, training the Minister for housing on media and then talking about housing on a podcast?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Is there a conflict with me having a coaching session with James Browne and other property interests? I will be quite frank about it: one of the sessions – I do not like to talk about anything to do with any client, but it is on the public record - would have been about rent pressure zones. I do not believe in rent pressure zones and I have a completely different view about the impact they are having on housing investment. We need €24 billion. I totally separate my view as expounded on "Path to Power" and my view in training. If Senator Ahearn, the Chair or anyone came to me, I would ask them to just tell me what their message was and I would tell them to do it in two sentences instead of six, and to be memorable and impactful, perhaps to be witty but also to connect with people. My job is not to deal with the content in any way. There are many cases with NGOs and public bodies where I totally disagree with what they are doing, but that is not my job.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I totally get that, but Mr. Yates is heavily involved in different sides of housing. He is involved in building houses and in organisations that build houses and he is involved with the Minister for housing.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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It is a modern version of the Galway tent.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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-----if there is client confidentiality.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Senator Ahearn should let him finish and then we have to move on.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
My perspective on housing is build, baby, build – supply, supply, supply. I have railed against judicial reviews and the planning system. My story on housing is very simple: I believe there are ways that we can build 60,000 houses a year and I am all in favour of them. I am quite happy for people to disagree with those views, but they are my views.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I have just one last question. Mr. Yates said to David McCullagh that, in his view, there was no other profession that had more conflicts of interest than media in terms of corporate freebies.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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That is essentially what we are talking about today – conflicts of interest.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Very quickly. We are running out of time.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will put it like this. I was making the point that I felt there were double standards. One standard is being applied to me. The truth of it is that the media are very poorly paid. I heard Deputy Gibney refer to this earlier today. The truth of it is that some people have more income from other sources outside of their media income.
In terms of the press, it is never revealed. In terms of a columnist, it is never revealed. That is the poverty of the thing. RTÉ got €725 million. Most media organisations are near broke. That is the truth of it.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Yates for coming in. It has been a long time since we met. At the time, we shared a co-host, or screen husband, as they were quite often known. In many ways, if there is a fence down the centre of politics and journalism, then Mr. Yates has jumped one way and I have jumped the other. I will have more on that in a moment.
Does Mr. Yates have any regrets about not informing his co-host, Matt Cooper, at the time that he had a dual role, particularly regarding the media training of a presidential candidate and being an impartial commentator?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I reflected on that. On the particular Saturday morning when this blew up, I said to Matt, “I deliberately did not tell you because I did not want you to be in any way conflicted.” In other words, he could say, “Oh, I never knew any of this”, and it was a statement of fact. If I had said, “Confidentially, Matt, this is something I do”, it would have put him in a very invidious position, so I did not put NKM or him in that situation. I felt that was fairer to them. I took it upon myself, I took full responsibility for myself and I took those decisions knowingly and in real time.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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In hindsight, it may have looked like Mr. Yates was hiding something because it is not something he should have said on the morning that this broke. This should have been something that was quite open, in plain view, and possibly in plain view of the public, never mind the people that he worked with or for.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
That sort of presupposes that the coaching work would influence what I would say on the podcast. I will say that I was so critical of Fianna Fáil in 2024 and again this year. I have criticised their migration policies. I have criticised their spending policies. I have criticised so many of their policies, such as their indecision on planning reform. I actually believe - this is the truth of it - that it may be the case that one head wears many hats, but I think I have the personal integrity to be able to say that, today, I am doing this job and, tomorrow, I am doing that job. I want to be quite honest with you. If I coached you yesterday, I would feel free to criticise you tomorrow.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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The public perception may be that Mr. Yates cannot manage those dual roles. Does he think he can ever get the public perception and the public trust back after this?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
It is quite funny. I have been at events since this story broke on Saturday week last, or whenever it was, with hundreds of people. I was doing a televised event for Virgin Media on the greyhounds, and I met thousands of people. Genuinely, I meet people, people text me and people are always there. They think this is an absolute media-political bubble. They absolutely understand all the interests that I have tried to manage, and they actually understand it. The hysteria, as I would call it in my flabbergasted nature, is all inside that bubble. I have always taken the view from the first controversy I was in at 18 years of age that, you know what, the public have to make up their own minds. I am quite happy to live or die by what the public think.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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Was there a day when Mr. Yates coached Jim Gavin and then also went on Newstalk? We have particular dates where he worked coaching Jim Gavin from 23 to 29 September and he also sat in the chair in Newstalk from 23 to 25 September. Was there a particular day where he did both on the one day?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
The situation is as I alluded to in my opening statement. That particular matter and all those matters of those three days, and my remarks from “Smear the bejaysus” right across, and my discussions on RTÉ as a pundit, are all subject to Coimisiún na Meán. Coimisiún na Meán is given the statutory responsibility to deal with that. I am quite happy to make whatever presentation it wants and to give evidence to it, and I will assist Newstalk and RTÉ in any way in clarifying any issues they are unsure of, but I am not going to litigate those issues here tonight because I believe-----
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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It is a very easy question: did Mr. Yates do the two jobs on the one day?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I am sorry, but that leads to other questions and so on. Therefore, I am making it clear where I am drawing the line in the sand, as someone who is not compelled to be here. I am absolutely open to scrutiny for that but there is a process already in place. Coimisiún na Meán, which was before the committee earlier, actually told this committee it is reviewing that very matter. I am quite happy to deal with its adjudication and accept its adjudication and whatever it may include about all of that, because there are so many other questions. The only thing I can say is that I have always believed that no matter what I did in the evening or in the morning in relation to the radio, I have always acted with fairness and objectivity. If anyone wants to make a complaint that something I said was unfair or lacking in objectivity, there is a due process to deal with that.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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In the quiet of his own kitchen or driving home in his own car, Mr. Yates never once thought there may be a conflict here, and that if this comes out, people are going to have mistrust, or that we may have to look at the entire situation.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I really cannot be responsible for public perceptions. I can only be responsible for my own actions. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing I did in any of the spheres that conflicted me in my mind on giving my honest opinions. Can I just make one point about how “The Pat Kenny Show” actually works? I would get up at 5 o’clock in the morning and I would be there at 7 o'clock. There would be nine briefs and three stories of the day. If you knew Eimear Bradley, the editor of that for 12 years - she is one of the most dominant editors I have ever come across. The content, the guests and the tone are all decided by her and her two producers. I actually feel that all of this, for those three days in question, has completely left their integrity exposed because, in my view, I was simply under orders and they controlled the editorial policy of those programmes. I can absolutely assure the Senator that they act impartially.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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As we have established this afternoon, it is the onus on the broadcaster to announce these or to make them plain to the public. Mr. Yates said that he is surprised and flabbergasted at the reaction to this, but there is a reaction. We are where we are now, and there may have to be changes to the regulations. If there are, would that put him off being a media trainer-commentator?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Let us be clear: I was 66 two weeks ago. I got my free travel pass. I am living in Enniscorthy. I would have to live full time. I took, of my own volition, a decision to leave broadcasting. I never expected I would be back. I go forward on the basis that whatever I do in the future, it will not be broadcasting. It might be podcasting but it will not be broadcasting, and I have no plans for a podcast. The point about it is this: I do not consider myself a broadcaster now. Let us again be fair about this. The situation is that Jonathan Healy and Anton Savage, if Pat Kenny is not available, would be one and two. It is only if they are really stuck, and I am available, that I will do it as a kind of busman's holiday.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I take it Mr. Yates will not be running again for election.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Yates for attending. As he and everyone else has said, he did not have to attend but he is here, so that is great. I happen to think that the crux of everything we are discussing here was essentially dealt with or exposed in the earlier session. It was a session that had less interest, possibly, less public interest and lower member attendance, but the regulatory gap was highlighted. That is where I stand on it. I would like to have a discussion with Mr. Yates on some of the nuances.
Politics is a bubble and so is the media, as he and I know. He describes himself as not being a full-time broadcaster anymore, and that is true, but the general public cannot make that distinction as easily as he or I can. I was 20 years a broadcaster. I was often called a pundit. The key difference between a pundit and a presenter is that I did not give an opinion. It was my job to not have an opinion and not give one. Sometimes, the general public do not know or understand fully the difference between a full-time broadcaster and somebody who is presenting a podcast.
My question to Mr. Yates is around the new regulatory framework that is going to have to come into play for podcasts, in particular audio podcasts. What advice would he give the regulator and Coimisiún na Meán on regulating political podcasts? Mr. Yates says that he trusts his impartiality. He said to David McCullagh that he would trust, for example, Miriam O'Callaghan’s impartiality in relation to her brother, who is a Minister. While I also trust that impartiality, I have the information on that relationship. The general public did not have the information on Mr. Yates's relationship or lack thereof, or whatever relationship he had, with Jim Gavin or Fianna Fáil. It is just around making sure the general public have the information that maybe he and I have inherently. That is the gap that I identify. I ask him to comment on that.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will answer the question about podcasting and the future regulation of podcasting. I heard Deputy Malcolm Byrne and the Chairman summing up the meeting this afternoon, although I was on the train and I could not hear all of the meeting.
I have to say that I want to agree to disagree here. When I started the podcast, I had never done one. I had done "Calling It", which was a specific thing for all the seats in the Dáil and so on, but this was new. It was a big commitment for me to do it. I checked out what the regulatory situation was and, basically, defamation law and incitement to hatred were the normal language. There were no regulations. Podcasts were not licensed or whatever. People said this was a gap and we needed to fill this gap. I could not disagree more from this point of view. I find, whether it is spoiled votes or anything, there is huge alienation from mainstream media and podcasts are filling this gap. To be honest with the Senator, one of the things I used to do was look at the Apple podcast charts every week. No. 1 was hugely Vogue Williams, we were No. 2., and in politics my main competitor was "The Rest is Politics".
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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What about "The 2 Johnnies"?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
"The 2 Johnnies" are in a different category. The point is that they are outside the jurisdiction. How will we control it? We have people listening to "Path to Power" in Australia. This is a global phenomenon. Joe Brolly does it from Derry. There is no way, in my view, that you could police "The Rest is Politics". It is done from London. "The Rest is Politics" in America will be done from New York. It is a fantasy to think that can be done. I will give an example. If I was presenting or even if I was on "Morning Ireland", I would speak in a certain way. Off the top of my head, we will take something to do with the Chairman. If I was speaking on the podcast about a row between, say, Catherine Connolly and Alan Kelly, I would call the Chairman AK-47, simply because it is colloquial, it is a different language-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I have not heard that before.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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The bells are ringing for a Seanad vote, so I am going to have to go upstairs. However, the point I was trying to make was actually around the specific case of a presidential or general election campaign. I am not talking about regulation. The regulatory framework for global podcasts is enormous. That is not really what I am getting at. What I am getting at here is a very specific incident, whereby somebody could train, potentially, the next President in relation to media and then, on the same day or week, essentially present or broadcast as a political journalist.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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It was about podcasting, but it is about presenting a segment. What I am saying to Mr. Yates is that not everyone understands the difference between being a broadcaster and being a podcaster. In a political sense, and during an election campaign, there should be a quite specific case of regulation.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
All I am saying is that the essence to me of podcasting - I do not have a podcast at the moment - is personal expression of opinion. It is done on Apple and Spotify. One of the things I took from Coimisiún na Meán, and I think it is true in EU law - it is certainly true - is that freedom of expression is the most important thing in Irish society. If we start to limit freedom of expression through putting podcasts on to the 2009 and subsequent Broadcasting Acts, it will be a disaster. For instance, how inappropriate is this? Let us say this committee or a group decided that Eddie Hobbs's "Counterpoint" podcast was outrageous because it was maybe anti-vaccine or whatever. This is one group of politicians deciding on another person's political opinions. It is outrageous, and it will not be accepted. It is beyond my pay grade, Chairman. It is a matter for the committee and the Oireachtas, and I respect that. If members want my tuppence worth on podcasts, it is leave well enough alone.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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I will leave well enough alone. I just wanted to express the opinion that informed decisions were very important in this specific incident. However, I really do feel like we dealt with it further.
Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Yates has, and it is important that he is here and that he is giving-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
The Senator raised a point earlier today about a podcast on broccoli. I could appear on a million podcasts. I have done guest appearances on podcasts that are not ostensibly about current affairs or politics, but when I am on it is about that, so it is very hard to regulate what is. Is "The 2 Johnnies" a current affairs podcast? It might be, if I was on it. Broccoli could turn into that too, so actually regulating what is current affairs is very difficult.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Yates for coming along. Being from Wexford, I have known him for quite some time. I did not receive any media training. I do not think the issue is around the work Mr. Yates does. I see the benefit of media training. Some people are not experienced at appearing before a committee. In a lot of cases, Mr. Yates has a very good reputation. In the case of Jim Gavin, we might look for our money back on that one.
I will follow Senator Ní Chuilinn's line of questioning. Mr. Yates used the phrase that people will make up their own minds, and that is correct. I enjoyed listening to Mr. Yates's podcast with Matt Cooper. I agreed with him sometimes and at other times, I was shouting in my head about what was being said. That is part of the importance of a debate. However, this is about people knowing exactly where someone is coming from, particularly if the person has received payments. In my case, in my work as a public servant and councillor, when it came to conflicts of interest I always said that if I asked the question in my head, I should declare it and at least then it is clear and people are informed. I do not accept - I say this respectfully - that Mr. Yates seems to have Chinese walls in his own head and that he can be working for and paid by a property developer, yet he can hold different views. That may very well be the case, but the public are entitled to know that. We put a lot of pressure on social media influencers to declare, so that if they are being paid by a particular company, they have to say "I am being paid to promote this product". Does Mr. Yates not feel that a similar requirement should be put in place? It is not about his views but if he is coming on and saying that today he is going to talk about property in Ireland, he should say that, by the way, he does not think it is a conflict but he has worked for the Construction Industry Federation or Glenveagh or whomever. Does Mr. Yates see it that way?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will tell the Deputy why I do not see it that way. With all my clients across every sphere, and even when I was a TD for 22 years, I operated on the basis that certain things I did and certain discussions I had were confidential. When I set up this business in late 2021 - this was actually quite funny - I went to Teneo Ireland because I thought that for all the 50 PR companies that are doing this full time, I would act as their coach. I would just come in to do the coaching role. Someone in Teneo said they were doing me a favour by saying that no PR company would let me near its CEO because I would get so friendly with them that I would cannibalise its clients. Therefore, I reconstructed. It is about client confidentiality. I can assure the Deputy, and I am saying this about all clients in terms of media training, that clients would always say to me, "This is confidential". I respect that. They are entitled to say that, in the same way that I would deal with my accountant or my solicitor, where I would say, "This is confidential".
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It is not to do with an individual business, but I would certainly expect, if, for instance, Mr. Yates was talking about the property industry, not necessarily a particular company or whatever, that he would be able to say, "Last year, I was paid X amount from property interests". The public will make up their mind, but at least they know where they are coming from.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We know that, but this applies across a range of interests. I think what Mr. Yates does is very good and it is engaging with the public. It is not just in his case but in the case of everybody who appears that if they have a potential conflict, I think it should be declared. Mr. Yates does have influence.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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No, but he does. How many listeners did he have on "Path to Power"?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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A lot of those would also be key influencers within local news. A lot of people were politically involved-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely, but, again, Mr. Yates was saying about it being informed. I might just come on to-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We will move on. We dealt with that in this committee with RTÉ. I want to move on to some of the other areas.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The predictions Mr. Yates makes have been mentioned and probably every politician in here would have listened to them. At the time, he would also have been paid by politicians, and even in his discussion, to do media training with them.
Mr. Yates would be familiar with how, in Wexford, he was associated with the launch of Verona Murphy's political party, which I understand was a paid gig.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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But it was a paid gig.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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By the way, has the Ceann Comhairle engaged Mr. Yates since that for any training?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We know that-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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We know that but does Mr. Yates not think that there is-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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As Mr. Yates will know, it is not my constituency now. Would it not have made sense then, however, when he was doing the Wexford piece to say that he got paid by Verona Murphy to do X? I suppose it is a similar case to getting paid by Fianna Fáil to coach Jim Gavin. The public would still make up their mind but at least we would know.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
In the new Wicklow-Wexford constituency, for example, I put my entire reputation on the Deputy getting a seat, Deputy Brian Brennan getting one and Deputy Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin getting one. Actually, I get more flak. We had an approximate 90% success rate. I live or die by my credibility. What relationship I have with anyone is-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There is not a conflict. I do not know from my colleagues but I suspect none of us paid Mr. Yates at any stage.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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If Mr. Yates has individuals that did paid him, for instance-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I know, but does Mr. Yates not believe that the listening public are entitled to know that? Mr. Yates is saying that it will not impact on him and he has Chinese walls in his own head on it, and I am not doubting that, but voters are entitled to know that they still hear Ivan Yates's view but he got paid by this politician.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates is avoiding the question.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates is avoiding the question. I want to come back on this. I am not accusing Mr. Yates of being a lackey but I am saying that, as somebody who enjoys listening to podcasts, I am entitled to know. I think the public would like to know - Mr. Yates said that the public made up their mind - if he has been paid by X, Y and Z politicians when it comes to political podcasts.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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That is not the question I asked.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Yates think that the public are entitled to know - it does not only apply to him - and if a panellist or a columnist goes on RTÉ and they have been paid by a politician to do a particular piece of work, that they should declare that?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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But if it is a regular or significant sum of money-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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In fairness, that was not the question.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We are running out of time. It is the third or fourth time.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I will use the example. Were the voters in Wexford entitled to know that Mr. Yates was paid a significant sum of money to MC-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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-----from Verona Murphy?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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If Mr. Yates does, why does he not declare it?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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But not to the listening public.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We will let the public decide on that one. I call Deputy Joanna Byrne.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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In his opening statement, Mr. Yates described the thought of having to declare a clear conflict of interest as being a guaranteed mood killer. I put it to him that instead of being impactful, memorable and witty, which he said earlier he trained people to be, such a flippant comment displays a breathtaking level of arrogance and entitlement. The fact is this: Mr. Yates is a former Fine Gael Minister coaching current Fianna Fáil Ministers. Politics is not an entertainment show. We represent real people and real lives. Whether it kills Mr. Yates's mood or not, does he not accept that the public deserve honesty and transparency when it comes to political coverage and conflicts of interest?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
One of the most popular features of "Path to Power" is the irreverence I have for politics and politicians. I regard the podcast as being in the entertainment business - I make no apology for it - and I do not take myself so seriously that my views are anything other than analysis and punditry, but also entertainment. Nobody is forced to listen. This is not like a public service broadcaster.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I am sorry, but before Mr. Yates goes off on a tangent here, I am not entirely sure that the Irish people who are affected by the political sphere would find politics an entertainment show.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I think Mr. Yates has answered that enough. I will move on to the next question.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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In his opening statement, Mr. Yates spoke a lot about trust and widening the gap between ordinary people. Does Mr. Yates understand that trust in media is slipping in this country and his actions are directly tied to the reasons that certain aspects of our society are becoming more distrustful?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will be quite frank with the Deputy. People say to me that they consider this whole controversy a huge deflection and distraction from the real issues of housing, migration, cost of living, etc., and that they cannot understand how so much focus is on it. That is the reaction I am getting from the public.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Has Mr. Yates no regrets about not being forthcoming with-----
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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What are Mr. Yates's regrets?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I have a real regret for Eimear Bradley and her team on "The Pat Kenny Show" and the situation they were put in. I have some regrets in relation to the "smear the bejaysus" comments and the way they were used by the Connolly campaign and the impact they had on Heather Humphreys. The context of that was, on 8 October, after Jim Gavin, I was discussing it on a "Calling It" podcast and I said that it was game over, Catherine Connolly was going to win and one of the options was to go negative, and I used a colourful phrase about that. The lie had gone the whole way around Ireland that I was actually involved in the Heather Humphreys campaign and then later Fine Gael accused me of being part of the Fianna Fáil campaign in saying that. I just made the comments in a punditry way of one of the options when you are losing. It is a Trumpian option. In 2016, I was in America for 16 weeks. You know, "Lock [Hillary] up." To go negative is always an option in a campaign. That was the context. It was nothing to do with anything else. I was never involved in the Fine Gael campaign. They actually dubbed a video and a tape of me giving a message to Fine Gael headquarters. It was all untrue.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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In all of Mr. Yates's regrets, he has no regrets about the damage to the public trust.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Okay. How many election campaigns has Mr. Yates been tutoring Government TDs for, including European, general and presidential?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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No. For how many has Mr. Yates been tutoring or training Government TDs in media?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I am just asking for a number.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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To be helpful, maybe set out a range of time.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Would it be fair to say that Mr. Yates has been delivering media training throughout, from 2022 to the present, in all national elections, presidential elections and European elections?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Returning to Mr. Yates's "smear the bejaysus" comment he himself brought up there, can he expand on that, where it came from or where his train of thought was in that moment? Did Mr. Yates suggest it as a tactic because it was a tactic he suggested to the Fianna Fáil candidate and perhaps Fianna Fáil Ministers that he was training at the time?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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What of the Fianna Fáil candidate that Mr. Yates was training in that debate?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
He left the campaign on 5 October. This was a completely separate "Calling It" podcast where I was analysing the election. The central point I made was there was a tag team that was really successful in the European, local and general elections between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil transfers at 40%. Now that Fianna Fáil were imploding, I said that this was over and, in that context, discussed what options they had. I was not actually advising them. I was just talking through analysis of the campaign.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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So it was not a tactic that Mr. Yates had gone through in previous media training sessions with the Fianna Fáil candidate.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It was not a tactic for Mr. Yates-----
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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That is essentially what transpired as a result of that comment.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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To get into the nature of strategy and-----
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Finally, if I may, because we are running out of time, Mr. Yates has been on the record since this all blew up in his face, saying there is an onus on the people he is providing training to declare themselves that they were receiving that training and that was not-----
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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What way did Mr. Yates say it then?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Does the witness feel it was right for them not to reveal it or would he have preferred they had and he would not be in the position he is in at present?
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is entirely a matter for them. Mr.Yates will not give any opinion.
Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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On his old clients, without naming names, could Mr. Yates confirm if current or previous taoisigh were clients of his who received media training?
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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I welcome Mr. Yates. Fair play to him for coming here because plenty refused.
First, I will dwell on the point that was brought up several times, which is conflict of interest, yet again. We do not understand. He is training someone in the media and then going in, maybe within the same day, as we heard earlier, to give political commentary on it. How is that not a conflict of interest? Is that not like Mr. Yates training Troy Parrott in the Irish team and then refereeing the game in the second half?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
What I would say is this: produce the evidence where I showed bias or lack of objectivity in any public comments. That is the real test of this for the public. Did I say something over a period which tried to move people in a certain direction because I had a connection with them? I am submitting there is no evidence of that but I am quite happy for Coimisiún na Meán to assess it.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Why is Mr. Yates putting the onus on the people and not on himself? He is the one who has many times - we can bring up it up on the record - taken the high moral ground. He is up there, whatever-----
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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It is for him to stand up and take the lead on it. Why is he asking the public to do so?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I am not asking the public to take any lead. I am asking the public to examine what I have said in a different role. The nature of coaching I have described as like a physio on a team. I am not the bainisteoir; I am not the selector. My job is to anticipate the questions. They come up with the answers to deal with the task in hand. It is an agnostic activity and I could do it for people who are C-level executives, people whose jobs are under threat in the public or private sector, or for NGOs. It is a simple task. I teach people about body language, breathing, phrases and so on. I regard that as a mechanical exercise and I do not think it conflicts with what I think or say.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Can we move on to the Newstalk podcast?
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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The "smear the bejaysus" comment was absolutely disgusting and it was totally disrespectful of the presidential process. Mr. Yates has a position here this evening to make an official apology to each of those candidates. Mr. Yates was a Minister. He sat here as a Minister and a TD. He knows exactly what every candidate went through - Jim Gavin, Catherine Connolly and Heather Humphreys - and what they put themselves through. When they look at someone using the word "smear", the definition of smear is to purposely try to damage someone's reputation by false accusations. Why would somebody put themselves forward at political level if a commentator such as him is coming out with comments like that?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
To be honest, Deputy Brennan is being excessively precious. I have dealt in politics over eight general elections. Politics is a knock-down drag-out business. That is what it is. Power politics is about that. I have looked at it in many jurisdictions and have been a student of politics. Obviously, I had no idea it would be replayed on national broadcasters out of context and that Catherine Connolly herself, for five days in a row, would speak about the violence of the language and so on. It was all out of context. I was not literally advising anyone to do it. I was saying this was an option. Was the language too colourful? Perhaps so.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Using the word "colourful" is making a joke of what Mr. Yates said. He was asking someone to-----
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Yates was personally attacking somebody, asking somebody else to attack somebody.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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The word "smear"-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
The Deputy is taking a literal interpretation of a general point I was making, which was negative campaigning. That is the way I intended it. It was in a context of, as I have described, more colloquial language. It is different from broadcasting. I would not say something like that on a mainstream broadcast. The nature of podcasts is different. People tune in to "Path to Power" because there is something they will not hear on the Claire Byrne show or "The Pat Kenny Show". That is my starting point.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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This was on the Newstalk podcast.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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It was on a Newstalk podcast.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Podcasts are separate, in my opinion. Let us be clear: in the general election, I would have told stories about negative campaigning, smearing and false rumours. I would have told anecdotes over the years about that in a quite regaling way and it did not get anything like the attention. The reason it did not was the Connolly campaign deliberately manipulated this was real, that this was me advising Fine Gael and was an actual memo. It is all nonsense.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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How can the witness say that when he was literally asking people to make false allegations about somebody? That is what smearing is. Does Mr. Yates not think he was pouring fuel----
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Sorry, can I finish, please?
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Can the witness not say he was pouring fuel on the fire of people on social media? He was stoking the fire and encouraging a reaction from them by using language like that.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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He is encouraging it and bringing it on. If Ivan Yates can say it is okay-----
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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That is what we want to hear.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Is Mr. Yates apologising?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
No, I am not apologising for it. What I am saying is that I am sorry it happened and the way it was weaponised. I do not know how important it was in the overall scheme of things. Given the result, it was going to be a clear winner anyway. At that time, that first week of October after the Gavin implosion, that was the direction of travel.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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That is another question.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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To build on what Deputy Brennan has said, it will be no surprise to Mr. Yates but I do not think the Deputy is being at all precious. Many people during that election were truly shocked with the use of that language, in whatever context. Mr. Yates can say it was taken out of context and he can say that it was theoretical but the fact is that it was made by a person of influence, which is what Mr. Yates is. He may display modesty around people saying that, as he did earlier, but that is the reality. He has a platform, so to use a phrase like that was shocking for many people. Deputy Brennan is right to call this out.
Regarding that comment, in connection with the revelations which then came out about the witness's connection to a candidate within the race, I can tell him objectively, as a candidate in two separate elections last year who was pretty much dismissed by him as a candidate in both, this made me question if there were any candidates in any of those races who were paying Mr. Yates during that election for media training.
He has talked a lot about how he has the ability to parse things in his head and be objective and impartial, but we do not if we do not have the information. These revelations that have come out have certainly prompted me to question Mr. Yates's objectivity and impartiality. That is feedback on what he has said so far.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Sure, but just briefly.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I remember.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Mr. Yates described me as a worthy candidate. He spent more time talking about the candidate who did not show up to that event, both at the event and on the podcast afterwards.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Let us not go through every constituency in Ireland.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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No problem, but my point is that I get to judge objectivity and impartiality as a listener and as a candidate.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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The point is that Mr. Yates cannot do that for me just because he believes he can separate it in his head. That is what made me question it.
Let me ask some more direct questions. Has any newspaper or radio station ever asked Mr. Yates for a list of clients to ensure he is engaging with adequate independence?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Has any radio station or newspaper ever asked Mr. Yates for a list of clients?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Not that Mr. Yates is aware of?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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How many media organisations, print and broadcast, has Mr. Yates invoiced for his services over, say, the past 12 months? I am talking about media organisations and also their subsidiary organisations. Would he have a rough estimate?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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So, Mr. Yates will not even tell my how many organisations he has invoiced.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I am trying to get that information based on the fact that we are not to delve into the specific incidents. I am trying to get the broader picture.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I guess I will get the same answer to the question on how many political parties he has invoiced.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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That is fine.
For me what it boils down to is quite a conflict in what Mr. Yates is saying. As Deputy Byrne said, Mr. Yates has referred to the idea of disclosing his work or interests as a potential mood killer in a broadcasting situation-----
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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He is also saying it has no impact on his independence as a commentator or broadcaster. Which is it? Do people know he does other work and make up their minds to trust him or is knowing the work broadcasters do off air – I am not just talking about Mr. Yates but about everybody – would be a mood killer, as he said? I presume that is what he means by a mood killer.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Now I am asking about it more broadly.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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For the broadcasting he does, I ask the same question.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Does he still believe it is a mood killer to make disclosures about his interests as a broadcaster?
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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He cannot answer that question.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
My reliance on it is as follows. If presenting at Curraheen Park, my job is to do what the producer says I should do, to get through the event. On live TV or a radio programme, there is a production team and an editorial team, and the presenter is a mere servant of those. I have no editorial role. In podcasting, I have absolutely got an editorial role. The whole point is that you are getting my opinions exclusively. I actually think the public has no difficulty. The one question I feel is valid is this: when I give an opinion, is it authentic or paid for by somebody else? The truth, which the Deputy may not believe, is that it is always fearlessly my own opinion.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Mr. Yates is editing here as well. He is suggesting the questions we can put to him. We are putting questions to him and he is not giving us the answers we are looking for.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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He did not answer any of the questions I asked about his client base, simply to give us a picture. I asked him about the matter and he said it related only to podcasts, and I then asked about broadcasting-----
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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He evaded again. The issue is that he is saying he has the personal integrity to say he is doing one job today and another tomorrow. That is absurd. A person is either a transparent, objective presenter of a news and current affairs programme or not. The public, the listeners, do not have the information Mr. Yates has. They cannot. Mr. Yates is saying it is up to people to decide and that listeners can decide, but they cannot decide if they do not have the information. The committee discussed this earlier today. It goes way beyond training; it is about the many commercial interests. Mr. Yates referenced my comments earlier. I do believe there are challenges within the broadcasting and journalism industry that mean people do have to seek information. This has grown and grown over recent decades. It has to do with the precarity of work as well, but nonetheless we are now at a point where broadcasters, journalists and op-ed writers have a multitude of interests, information on which is simply not available to readers and viewers. We do not have a regulatory framework as of yet to enforce anything around that.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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Please-----
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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He is not going to answer, so it does not matter.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I am going to make it very brief. When I was a Minister, I brought the agri-journalists around the world on trips. When a Minister leaks a story, it is with a view to currying favour with journalists. There are all these complex relationships. Is that a conflict of interest? If a spouse is working on something, is that a conflict of interest? You have to rely on someone’s personal integrity. It is a question of whether you are getting the authentic person.
Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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I, as a consumer of media, want to rely on principles, and I do not believe Mr. Yates's personal integrity has displayed that those principles are being upheld in his broadcasts.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates is very welcome. I thank him for showing up. It is appreciated. Others were asked but did not show up, which must be acknowledged. I declare that I have absolutely no conflicts of interest. I have never met Mr. Yates. He did predict I would win a seat in Carlow-Kilkenny against the grain, so I thank him for giving me the bit of a boost, but I have absolutely no connection with him and have never met him. I have never been trained by him either, although he has done a bit of work with Fianna Fáil in the past, which I am sure we will get to as we are going along.
Let me start with Mr. Yates's podcast, "Path to Power". I confess that I do listen to it. I know most politicians do. Mr. Yates said in his opening remarks regarding the podcast, and I think it was mentioned earlier, that it would have been a guaranteed mood killer in that environment if the presenters had been forced to preface every debate with a disclaimer or declaration of interest. Those are his words from his opening statement. If he has a "pugnacious broadcasting style", as he mentioned later, does that mean Matt Cooper was the mood killer?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
No. I am not going to comment about Matt Cooper at all this evening. I have actually been thinking about this over the past 48 hours. If every interest is declared, I would say people who declare interests will not be on "Morning Ireland"; they will be excluded. That is going to be the consequence of declaration. It relates to a lot of people with insights and knowledge. That is fine. If that is going to be the regime going forward, it will be journalists talking to journalists; it will be a monoculture. Good luck with that. I think the public will not be well served.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates said in previous remarks that he purposely did not inform Matt Cooper or NK Management of his involvement, but he also says on his LinkedIn profile, in the second point down, that he is a media trainer. Was it the case that they did not want to know? Surely to God they would have known he was involved – as per the article in the Irish Daily Mail two years ago – in coaching Fianna Fáil Ministers in the past.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Did NK Management or Matt Cooper know of Mr. Yates's involvement?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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So, Mr. Yates did not declare it, nor did they ask.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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They never asked Mr. Yates at any stage.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I understand.
Mr. Yates says media training revenue has been a small element of his commercial revenue. Obviously, the training of political individuals or parties is an element of that. I do not want to get into any specifics on any people, because I know and absolutely respect that Mr. Yates is very protective of his clients, but it is public knowledge that he has been involved with Fianna Fáil in the past. Who approaches whom in a situation like that?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Did Fianna Fáil approach Ivan Yates or did Ivan Yates approach Fianna Fáil?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Let me be very clear on my question.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I do about 80 events per year, including awards ceremonies, conferences, guest speaking events and after-dinner speaking. That is my primary activity. If someone asks me to do a bit of coaching, I will do that, but I am not the number one coach.
I will put one question to members. How come, in all of this controversy over two or three weeks, not one other party has come forward with one coach? There are no coaches or they are just all hiding in the undergrowth - is that credible?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Could you just answer my question, if that is okay? Who approached who? Did Fianna Fáil approach you?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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When Mr. Yates is doing training with a public representative, or a Minister or the Taoiseach, and he goes through the bits and pieces, which he outlined, once that is completed, what happens in terms of the feedback? He does a session with a Minister on X, Y or Z. I presume he gives feedback to the said Minister.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
No. The situation is I tell them in advance. I say to write down the three key points they wanted to get across and as for success or failure; did those words come out of their mouth? They do not need me to tell them and they do not need me to look back at the tape; that is the advice I give to them. If those words did not come out of their mouth, they did not control the interview. That is the yardstick I tell everyone. I have no post hoc event. That is it.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates meets a client, he does his work with them and goes on his merry way.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Does Mr. Yates give any feedback then, for example, to his employer?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I am just trying to get clear my head that Mr. Yates does a session with an individual. On that day, whatever he covers he covers, he gives the feedback and that day is done with that session. Does he not have any conversation with the person or entity that employed him to give feedback at all?
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Has Mr. Yates ever lobbied any Ministers, or the Taoiseach or leaders, he was training or had trained in the past?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
The situation is quite separate to those activities. I also act as an adviser for two companies, which Colm Keena wrote about on 7 November. One is UTS Technologies and the other is Regnum Renewables. Would you believe, I have been asked by dozens of people to act as a public affairs thing? I was not interested in that work but there are two things I feel very passionately about. If we are to have 80% electricity from renewables, more resilience in our security and supply and less carbon emissions, we need all the wind farms and solar farms we can get; I would write 1,000 words for free about that. The other thing is the parking issue. In the UK and Europe, there is one app where you can have all the providers, whether it is Payzone or EasyPark, on that one app and I have been trying to lobby to get that done. I took it on for a finite period because I believe it is in the consumer interest. I have been asked to do things about gambling and the beverage industry and so on, but I just said I am not interested in that.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Has Mr. Yates done any work for any State bodies, local authorities or semi-State bodies?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I have. That is not in public affairs. I will just say in regard to the Deputy's question on who I have met and who I have lobbied, all of those are done on three returns a year with lobbying.ie, so it will be absolutely clear who I met, what I discussed and why I met them. I tried to be compliant in relation to all laws.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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To be absolutely clear on Mr. Yates's fee situation, does he charge on an hourly basis as opposed to being on a retainer? He is not on a retainer from Fianna Fáil.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I do not want to know your fee-----
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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You are not on a retainer.
Peter Cleere (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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That is fine. I am not looking specifically for a name, but has Mr. Yates coached any other public representatives from other political parties?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Mr. Yates answered that.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Yates is welcome to the meeting. Prior to the 2024 general election, he did reviews of every constituency. Will he put on the record whether he was doing any work with any of the candidates in that general election prior to giving his views on the podcast?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
On Longford-Westmeath and all of that, the situation is my prediction that the Deputy might not get elected on that occasion, and that Fianna Fáil would hold that seat, was wrong, but it had nothing to do with any relationship I had of a training nature with anyone. I called that. The nature of it is I would talk to a lot of people. I talk to former TDs. In fact, if I am guilty of anything, I am the best back-channeller in the business. I like politicians - I do not really like journalists - and I empathise with them and understand how insecure their situation is. The reason "Path to Power"-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I much prefer politicians from the point of view that the reason "Path to Power" outstripped all the mainline podcasts, from Irish Independent and The Irish Times and that, was I was able to back-channel people because they trusted me that if they told me something I would say it was my opinion, not like a journalist where it would be unattributed or whatever. That is something I believe I have a real talent for.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I was not asking specifically, but I will thank Mr. Yates-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I kept that podcast and I listened to it every single night in the lead-up to the general election.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We want questions, Deputy.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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First of all, I thank Mr. Yates for coming. Others who were asked did not come. He has been refreshingly honest. His introductory statement is very thought-provoking and honest. I have always had a view that he shoots from the hip and gives his opinions as he sees it. That is refreshing in commentary that you hear on the radio. It is positive that now we have had our discussion with Coimisiún na Meán, it is reviewing the whole area. This has highlighted the fact that podcasts were not technically covered under certain legislation, or whatever you may put. It has turned out to be timely, with the broadcasting Bill, that we can significantly tighten up areas that might have been considered loose.
I have been on this committee for the previous five years and have done a lot of work, including reviews on the future of media, and was very supportive of, particularly, local journalists in our regional newspapers and regional radio stations and making sure we support them. Significant funding came through the local democracy scheme. The reality is a significantly high percentage of Irish people trust our mainstream media. It is important that continues and that the Government supports those radio stations, television stations, regional newspapers and regional radio stations, which give us that true commentary and not a lot of the negative commentary we get online.
In relation to the presidential campaign, and Deputy Brennan mentioned-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will make one point about local radio. The biggest impact of the regulatory regime and a register being imposed is it will destroy local radio. We have seen this in the UK where the BBC withdrew. The reality is people are getting paid €200 where they would be getting paid €500 on national radio. They cannot live on that. There are more conflicts and more difficulties with part-timers in local radio. To put an onerous regulatory regime on local radio will close it down because it is depending on voluntary contributors.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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That is an important point that we continue to support-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Deputy will have to restrict it. We have two and a half minutes because we have to go to vote.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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On the presidential campaign, I welcome the comments Mr. Yates made with regard to that "smear the bejaysus" comment. The reality was, and he was correct to say this, that was seized on by the Catherine Connolly campaign. It was used, blown up and amplified to ultimately damage the Fine Gael candidate, Heather Humphreys. It was out there across all platforms, in the space of minutes, and hundreds of thousands of pages, shares or whatever it was, for certain political parties to make it out that this was something Fine Gael were behind. He might have said this earlier, but will Mr. Yates put on the record that was not the case? It was not anything that was coming from Fine Gael.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I want to be absolutely clear. It was a real difficulty, when I started on radio, to introduce a former Minister. I had to interview people who were friends and colleagues of mine and I had to be even harder on them. I resigned my membership of Fine Gael in April 2009. I have had no contact with the party since. In fact, we have been giving out about each other ever since.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Yates for his honesty.
His opening statement is refreshingly honest. In terms of any opinion he has given, he can be controversial in his comments but what we need is thought-provoking comments when it comes to politics. They are all my questions.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We are going to suspend for the votes with the indulgence of Mr. Yates.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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It depends on the votes as to however long that will be.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Deputy Gould is substituting for Deputy Ó Snodaigh. I invite him to commence please.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Yates for coming in. As other speakers said previously, he did not have to come in. I appreciate that. I have listened to his opinions and commentary today and a few times since the events we are discussing. In one way, he is an entertainer and businessman with a history and knowledge of politics. At times he can be very witty and he has a good insight into issues. That is okay up to a point. When it came to the presidential election, he had a conflict of interest that should have been stated, which is that he provided training to one of the three candidates. Mr. Yates might describe himself as a presenter and a podcaster and that is fair enough, but he is also seen as a political commentator. There was a definite conflict of interest.
He made a point about a mood killer. It does not have to be said every time or every day but it has to be said if a person has other interests in politics and he or she is commenting on politics. That needs to be declared. Mr. Yates made a point earlier. Does he agree or disagree?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
In this forum, I totally accept that people can make an assertion, as the Deputy just has. He is perfectly entitled to his opinion. It is the prerogative of the committee to disagree with my views in its consideration of amendments to the broadcasting Act, but he can appreciate that it is not really a question; it is an assertion and we can agree to disagree.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will take that on board. I have listened to Mr. Yates's podcasts. A point was made earlier about him commenting on local elections and general elections. Without going into who he carried out training for, there is obviously a conflict of interest if he provided media training to candidates of some political parties and did not divulge it. I listened to him give his opinions on Cork North-Central, where I am from. Some people respect his opinion. I disagree with a lot of things he stands for, but I also listen to his opinion to find out what he is thinking. I believe it is wrong if people who respect his opinion and listen to his opinion do not know that he has other interests in politics. He made the point earlier that he disagrees with that.
In England and America a lot of publications come out in advance and say they are backing Labour, the Tories, Republicans or Democrats. Newspapers and some programmes come out and state their support in advance. That needs to happen here.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will answer it this way. When I started on Newstalk, we were stuck on 58,000 listeners and I trebled it, with David McWilliams, Eamon Dunphy and some really good people. They said to me: "Ivan, your job is not to be a journalist. Your job is to start the programme with an opinion." I was going to do a podcast, which RTÉ organised, with Sean O'Rourke. He said: "I have done a whole career without having an opinion."
My particular product and my brand is right wing. It is for free enterprise. It is a lot of things that the Sinn Féin Party does not agree with. I have had views on the Irish language. I have had people loathing me and disagreeing with me, but that is my product. Therefore, I submit to the Deputy that when they hear Ivan Yates, they are not getting an impartial view or someone who is moderating something, they are getting an opinion. It is the same when you pick up a newspaper, you have news and then you have an opinion. I am in the opinion business, so therefore, that people do not expect anything from me other than being anti-woke, pro-Trump or whatever it might be – things that the Deputy would find totally obnoxious. I respect that. That is where we agree to differ, but please do not say I am this impartial guy and because I did this now people are upset about my impartiality. I was never impartial. I was opinion-driven.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I accept that. Mr. Yates has always had his own opinions going back to his political days. When Ivan Yates is speaking, I know what I am getting. I know what opinions he will have but he broke a trust because he never told people. People might agree or disagree with his opinions but they expect them to be solely his. I am not saying they are not solely his, but if he is providing training to other political parties, the public deserves to know that. That is a breach of trust. He can still have all the opinions in the world that he wants. I have no problem with him having them. We will agree to disagree. We might debate it back and forth. He had a position of privilege and by not declaring it-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
It was written in January 2020, that the producer of the "Tonight Show" – a particular lady, became the Fianna Fáil press officer. She was a personal friend of mine. She had seen this training work and she asked me about it. All of that was written about. There were group sessions at that time and without getting into any detail, I do not accept what the Deputy said about there never being any mention of me being involved in media training and with Fianna Fáil. The record does not show that.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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However, specifically for the presidential election, which is why all of this came out, Mr. Yates was commentating on it and the public did not know he was training one of the candidates or giving him support.
That should have been declared.
As I am nearly out of time, I will go back to Mr. Yates's comment "to smear the bejaysus" out of them. In some ways, I was happy he said it because it showed what was going to happen and what happens in elections. Sinn Féin has been at the back of it itself. Mr. Yates said what we knew for years. People tried to deny what was happening and Mr. Yates put it into words and people then knew, because he is a former politician, Minister and broadcaster.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Yates made the comment about smearing the bejaysus out of Catherine Connolly and that is certainly a policy that was attempted in the last month of the election.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Yates only gave words to what we all knew was happening.
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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First, I have to declare that I received training from Mr. Yates in 2022 as part of a group session he did with the party. I cannot say we got to put it into use because I have not been given the opportunity to go on TV or anything to use it. Therefore , I cannot say whether it worked, but I wanted to put it on the record.
I have listened to Mr. Yates bat away a number of questions over the past few hours. I will still ask them because I think I might get even a nugget of an answer from Mr. Yates and I probably will not from my party.
Who initially contracted his services or made contact with him? Was it the same person he just referred to working formerly on a TV show with in his response to Deputy Gould?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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No. I have to tighten up on things a little.
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Has Mr. Yates worked for the party since the Jim Gavin episode? Has he been paid?
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will read a quote from Mr. Yates's podcast. He referenced earlier a colleague who spoke about giving an example of bias.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Will the Deputy give a date?
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It was on 6 September of this year. This is the title paragraph on the subscription edition of the "Path to Power" podcast on 6 September, just two days before the Fianna Fáil presidential selection convention.
Bertie Ahern cannot escape his past and crashes out of presidential race. Jim Gavin's advantage over Billy Kelleher for the Fianna Fáil nomination [assessed].
Mr. Yates went on to say there was a view within Fianna Fáil that Billy Kelleher is likeable and all that, but that he would not be President, that he would not be elected, that he is not a winner and that that was the problem he had. Mr. Yates said that on the podcast of 6 September. The selection convention was a few days later, on 9 September. Is that not inherently biased?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Put it like this: I had no contact with the Gavin campaign until around 23 September. I did not know I was going to be involved in it. Leaving aside the distraction and deflection about why this is getting such prominence, there is an internal Fianna Fáil story and some people thought my story would damage Micheál Martin. There is a Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil story, that Fine Gael was upset about the presidential campaign and that it wanted to dump on it, and there is the genuine Opposition on the left who hate me anyway.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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We do not hate Mr. Yates.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I meant that in a political sense. It is mutual. We battle. I am ideological. It is not personal. I have good friends and sources in all parties, including Sinn Féin. I meet the directors of election of all parties to get a handle on who is the strongest on a ticket. I can assure Deputy O'Sullivan that I had no inside track on Gavin, other than that I knew there was that the leadership, no day, no way, was going to support Bertie. I knew that-----
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Would Mr. Yates have said the same-----
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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With his backchannels and so on, would Mr. Yates have been led to the same belief about Billy Kelleher's potential candidacy?
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates has said that three times.
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I find it difficult because the party was using Mr. Yates regularly, although we do not know how regularly-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Let us be clear. Anything I had to say on the internal Fianna Fáil thing and the selection convention was purely from my sources. I predicted that it would be about 40 votes to 20 or whatever the figure was. I actually underestimated it. The 29 votes were a surprise to me. I have said all this publicly. It is my job to give my best guess. What I do not do is say it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. I put my neck on the block and say what I think will happen. People like that and they know I am often wrong.
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Whether Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Social Democrats or anyone else in the room may have used Mr. Yates's services in the past, does he not still feel that in the lead-up to an election, at a particularly sensitive time, given what happens in other jurisdictions, as was referenced, particularly in the United States, with media and the influence it can have, that there is an extra onus on him?
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I suppose that is why people listen to Mr. Yates. A lot of people have conceded they listen to his podcast and are interested in his opinions. I have listened to it in the past. However, I still believe-----
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am just trying to establish it. I quoted directly from the podcast. I wanted to establish-----
Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates has answered that. I have 40 seconds left to I will ask an open question. He has said he we cannot police everything in the media. He said we are going to drown our legacy media in more and more onerous regulations. How does he envisage we should deal with the problem this was created, if not with a register? What should we be looking at?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
In the first instance, I would look at international experience, what is done in the UK and Europe to regulate podcasts and how the US does it. However, I separate podcasts. I do not claim to be an expert on broadcasting codes. I defer. One of the reasons I am here is that I respect the Cathaoirleach and the committee. At my age and stage - I consider my broadcasting career to be over - it is beyond my pay grade to say what regulations there should be. However, I will abide in whatever role I have by whatever the regulations are. When the lobbying regulations with the Standards in Public Office, SIPO, Commission came in, I obliged. I try to be as lawful as I can.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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It is my slot and then we will have a quick runaround with visitors to the committee and members. I am conscious Mr. Yates has been here for a considerable period.
In his statement, Mr. Yates said, "I do not believe it is the function of this committee to carry out a parallel investigation or prejudice the outcome of this due process". This is not a parallel investigation. The committee sets it own agenda. This issue arose. We had gone through the broadcasting Bill and this issue seemed to have been missed, for want of a better word, and we wanted to deal with it.
I appreciate Mr. Yates coming in because we are getting a different flavour. What was said in the earlier session about the regulatory process was probably more revealing. However, having someone who practises in the field was critical to counterbalance that. Dare I say it, it is particularly so with a contrarian like Mr. Yates in many ways. I say that affectionately.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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That is fine.
I want to say this quite publicly as no one else has said it. I do not believe that any political entity, party or individual would want to hire someone who was not live in the field of media for media training when it comes to the political side of things.
It would be pointless hiring somebody from 20 years ago to give media training now. That is not the issue. The issue here is the transparency of the opinions of the person who is also doing this other work. That is the issue that has arisen here. Dare I say it, things became ebullient or loud in recent weeks, probably because of Mr. Yates. This has obviously happened previously but has never been dealt with. We have a changing media landscape and this is an issue that needs to be dealt with.
I will clarify one or two points. Mr. Yates never did any coaching while he was working full time for Newstalk.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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That is perfect. Mr. Yates does not need to go through it. I just wanted to clarify.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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When he was talking for Newstalk subsequently and was doing the coaching, there would have been an obligation from the station for all of its presenters to be upfront and impartial. Mr. Yates would accept that.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Does Mr. Yates think there is any conflict, in spite of what he said about being the third substitute, that he still did this work without declaring that he was doing this coaching?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Mr. Yates was a stand-in or substitute.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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He was doing coaching and, to be fair to him, will always be talking about politics.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I listened to his podcasts and enjoy them. What the future holds, I do not know. I travel a lot so I listen to podcasts quite a bit. Was there any conflict? There is an issue here, Ivan. I am sorry for calling the witness "Ivan" but we all feel we know him so well. The issue is that he keeps repeating that within his head, he can decipher between one job and another, that there are Chinese walls and that he can parcel one side and the other. To a point, I believe he probably can. Mr. Yates talked about the bubble. I am conscious of the bubble and am conscious of taking opinions from outside the bubble. I do not like being a person who is perceived as being a part of the bubble. I hope I am not. However, the reality is that this bubble legislates. This bubble decides. We, along with the Government, have to decide whether it is okay. Podcasts are very influential and drag through other media. They are referenced all the time. We must decide whether for Mr. Yates and others, perhaps some of whom would not come before the committee, to be fair to Mr. Yates, and this is an open question and I am not saying I have the answers, it is okay to leave the public in a scenario where for individuals who do work like that done by Mr. Yates, it is open to their internal regulation as to whether they are transparent in relation to work they are doing politically while commenting in the media. That is the central question here.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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It is the central question.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I appreciate that Mr. Yates said he will abide by whatever comes in thereafter.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I understand what Mr. Yates said about podcasts and American podcasts. He made the very valid point that if he went on the "The 2 Johnnies", he would be talking politics. He asked how that could be regulated. I understand all of these things. I am not saying full answers to those will be provided immediately. However, there is certainly an issue here that does need regulatory change. Frankly speaking, while we can have a code when it comes to individuals doing political training, political PR or whatever else and then commenting in the media, and there were, to be fair, others beside Mr. Yates, it cannot just be left to Mr. Yates who will in his head separate one thing from the other. It will not always be Mr. Yates involved. It could anyone else who is out there and doing the same work. How is the public meant to know that this is fair and there are no hidden agendas?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
The committee will have to make a deliberation on that point. The only point I would make in that regard is as follows. Once you go down that road, you are not going to be able to stop at coaching. You are going to look at spouses and siblings. You are going to look at a whole series of people. You are also going to find that people who have business experience outside politics will basically be excluded from the media. It will only be for people who have a sanitised life and have never worked outside journalism.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I do not believe that anybody fits into the perfectly sanitised life. That is utopian and impossible.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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People might think they do but they do not. That is the reality. This is a small country. We have to get measurability. I accept in principle, by the way, what Mr. Yates says. This is tricky territory and one can overreach. However, I asked the question of the representatives of Coimisiún na Meán at the earlier session as to what is the penalty and what happens if someone does not declare a conflict of interest. There was no answer. The reality is that it is the damage to the brand of the company or person involved. That is probably the reality rather than anything monetary in any way, shape or form. How do we get to a point where we can ensure insofar as possible, without transgressing into freedom of expression, within broadcasting, including podcasting, which is a huge component of things and travels across the media, that there is a format for declarations? As politicians, we rightly must make a declaration. Mr. Yates has referenced the issues in RTÉ. There are almost different standards now. RTÉ is at one level and commercial media are at a totally different level. There needs to be fairness about that too. How do we get to that point in the near future? As Mr. Yates has said already, he is at a different stage of his career. That allows him, by the way, to be a bit more open-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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-----and flippant about it, which I respect. How do we get to that point in the future? We must get to that measurability to allow a scenario whereby people understand that they have to make declarations where it is obviously a conflict and there is obviously an issue.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I would go a fair distance with Mr. Yates on that point. The alternative, however, is that we basically we do nothing.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Wait a second. The alternative is that we do nothing and allow the different Ivan Yateses of this world to make the division in their heads to allow them to take on two roles. To be frank, trust in broadcasting and podcasting, and transparency around what people are saying, whether it is in this bubble or outside it, will die. What is the happy medium?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I ask Mr. Yates to help us here-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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-----because he has been good enough to come in.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I do not want Mr. Yates to name any clients or anything like that, but I ask for an example in general terms.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Mr. Yates might first answer the question I asked.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Mr. Yates still has not answered the question.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I asked for an example. Mr. Yates said he had turned down in general-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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No, again that is not the question.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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One second. That was not the question I asked. Mr. Yates said that as a regulatory process, he himself would turn things down.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I am not asking who or what they are.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Deputy James Browne was the Minister and I knew him and all the rest of it. I said I would not act as a consultant. The Minister was very strong in his view.
I decided I was staying out of this and that I just did not want to be involved in this. That is one example.
I do a lot of work with the drinks industry but I did not get involved with the issue of the labelling of alcohol and I turned away work in that regard but I do an awful lot of gigs for the vintners and so on.
Can I make one serious point?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Yes, but we have to allow in some visitors.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I will not be long. The truth of it is that Bauer and Newstalk would not exist, in my view, profitably without the Cash Machine. They cannot afford what RTÉ can afford in terms of presenter pay, holiday relief pay and so on because this committee and this Government decided to give RTÉ €725 million. I believe a different standard should apply to publically owned, public service broadcasters, and commercial ones, and local radio more especially.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We have two visitors to the committee. We are short on time so we will allow them one question each, and for the rest there will probably be two minutes between questions and answers. Deputy Quaide was here first, then Deputy Ó Súilleabháin.
Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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Thanks for allowing me in, Chair, and I thank Mr. Yates for attending this evening. The ending of his time on the podcast seems to be an awful waste and it is a loss to the airwaves. Mr. Yates might be surprised to hear me say that but I did enjoy listening to it. I do not agree at all with his views on issues like migration or climate. I think some of his comments, at times, including about some of my colleagues can be unnecessarily crass but I do find Mr. Yates entertaining and insightful, consistently.
To get back to that idea of it being a waste, I was struck by a comment Matt Cooper made shortly after this controversy blew up, when he said there seems to be a psychological tendency in Mr. Yates to kind of sabotage things when they are going well. Rather than this being an issue of Mr. Yates being a buccaneering, amoral, alpha male who does not give a damn about these issues, maybe there is something self-defeating going on here because the trade-off has not been good for Mr. Yates. He had a good thing with the podcast. I know he was intending to leave it early next year but it has ended very badly. Mr. Yates had a good dynamic with Matt Cooper. I attended their show in Cork and it was very entertaining. It also seems that Mr. Yates has incurred quite a degree of reputational damage. At the risk of turning this into a psychotherapy session, was there anything about-----
Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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Was there anything about that comment from Matt Cooper that resonated?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
First of all, the situation is, I will be 40 years' married in December. I decided to take January and February off, way before this, and I was looking to get off the podcast because I actually found I was becoming part of the story in the internal Fianna Fáil thing, and I found that stressful and did not want to be in that space. To be quite frank with the Deputy, I found the whole thing of every Friday having to come up with 100 minutes of insights and things one would not hear quite stressful. I simply had enough of politics in that regard. Does that answer the question? It is nothing to do with my psychological state. I left "The Hard Shoulder"; they were in a desperate state. I left the "Tonight Show"; they could not believe it. I sometimes get bored easily.
Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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It does seem, though, that what we are talking about is a fairly clear conflict of interest. I will not browbeat Mr. Yates about it here. There has been a lot of discussion on it. For whatever money Mr. Yates got for that media training, the trade-off has been very poor. I am just struck by that.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Deputy Ó Súilleabháin is next.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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First, I thank Mr. Yates for coming in. I always enjoyed his podcast. I enjoy the fact he is an advocate for free speech, going back to the old Voltaire statement of totally disagreeing with what you say but fighting to the death for your right to be able to say it. So, I really appreciate that whether, I agree or disagree with Mr. Yate's views. It would also be remiss of me for not thanking him for putting a very pioneering President in the park, so go raibh maith agat.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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On the issue of language, I know the President is certainly very pioneering in terms of the Irish language because she wants to make Irish the working language of Áras an Uachtaráin. Does Mr. Yates regret his comments describing Irish language campaigners as "cultural terrorists"?
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Is it something Mr. Yates regrets and would he maybe accept he has a bias against Sinn Féin? I know his punditry coming up to it, and I followed all of his "calling it" ones very eagerly. I know he was somewhat mournful he was not advising the independent candidate in Wicklow-Wexford, that he would have got her elected. He has admitted he is not partial, and I admire his honesty in saying that. It is a bit of a shock jock approach. Does Mr. Yates accept he might have an anti-Sinn Féin bias in his punditry?
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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That is taken as a given. That is good, by the way. Thanks.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh was on "The Tonight Show" one night. I compared Conradh na Gaeilge to ISIS, who at that time were beheading people. She lodged a complaint with the BAI that it was outrageous that I equated Conradh na Gaeilge with these criminals beheading people. She lodged a complaint with the BAI but I said that I was only joking and this is what I do - hyperbole. The BAI found in my favour, this is what Ivan does.
Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin (Wicklow-Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. Yates has been straight about it.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Okay, Senator Comyn. Sorry, Senator Ahearn, apologies.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Just before my time starts, can I get clarity on something that was asked? It might be helpful to Deputy O'Sullivan. When he asked a question in relation to who approached him from Fianna Fáil and he would not answer, but in an answer to Deputy Gould, while Mr. Yates was speaking about a friendship he had with a former producer of TV3 he said, "she contacted me".
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Just in case there was a mistake that happened.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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No, she is not, she still works for Fianna Fáil.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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She was the contact then, obviously.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Yates said to Deputy Gould she contacted you.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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No, but she was the first contact. Just on that as well, because there was a friendship there, were there favourable rates, mates' rates or any kind of discounted rates?
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I have two questions. When Mr. Yates was answering my questions previously in terms of the Minister for housing, he spoke about rent pressure zones, RPZs, and how his view would differ from those of the Minister. When Mr. Yates was doing training with the Minister, was that before the RPZs went to Cabinet or after?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I really cannot comment on that but if the Senator looks at the payments he can draw his own conclusions on that. The Minister has alluded to that it involved more than one session but I really do not want to get into that. What I was really saying is that because I coach someone and they have a particular view, be they a Minister or an NGO, does not mean I share that view. My job is to make them articulate it as successfully as possible. I am agnostic like that.
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I know, but if Mr. Yates is in a room with the Minister and has a different view to him on RPZs and he is with training him for an hour and is the type of person who has a casual conversation before and after a meeting-----
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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That is why I go back to the point that Mr. Yates is a property developer working for property organisations, meeting the Minister, having views on decisions the Minister makes. Mr. Yates is meeting the Minister and training him and having a casual conversation before and after those meetings happen. That happens all of the time. My second question-----
Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I have only 30 seconds left. Mr. Yates has said numerous times in public that he thinks this is not a story at all, and that is not the view. Have any of Mr. Yates's clients from his corporate speaking or MC events that he has worked with dropped him or asked him not to appear at their events since it was revealed he worked for Fianna Fáil or Jim Gavin?
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I think that is not really our business. Senator Comyn is next.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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To clarify something Mr. Yates mentioned earlier, does he consider himself a journalist or has he ever been a member of the National Union of Journalists, NUJ?
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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Okay, so Mr. Yates considers himself a pugnacious opinion commentator?
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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So, Mr. Yates was saying earlier on-----
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I am short on time. If there is a fence, then I jumped from being a journalist to a politician, Mr. Yates was the other way around; a politician to broadcasting.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I was three decades a journalist.
When I decided to run for general election last year, I had to resign from my position. There was no pay for six months-----
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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There was-absolutely nothing. The perception of partiality would have been too much for where I was working and would have cast a shadow over anything that I would ever write again. However, it does not seem to work the other way around. Does Mr. Yates feel that he is above them because is not a journalist and that he is outside of any code of ethics or any kind of regulation?
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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As a broadcaster then, did Mr. Yates feel it was absolutely appropriate to have dual roles of being a commentator and not having to disclose to anybody-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
No, I had no dual role because I did not start it until I had left the media. I did not write the syllabus until I left in July 2020. I uprooted myself from Dún Laoghaire to go live in Enniscorthy. I had a post-bankruptcy issue and my house became my own again. My wife said to me that she was going to live in the house and I thought who was going to dress me and feed me, so I had to follow suit. That changed my entire life.
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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I do not want to pick apart Jim Gavin's performance but does Mr. Yates feel that the training went well? Did he have any feedback to the contrary?
Alison Comyn (Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Yates is going to profit I presume then from everything that has happened.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I wish Ivan and Deirdre well.
I am surprised that Deputy Ó Súilleabháin is only discovering some of his views now because I think they have been well known for quite some time and it is part of-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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It is part of what Mr. Yates is and I do not have an issue with that. This is just a broader question for us around the declaring of interests. I thank Mr. Yates for spending all the time here but I put it to him that obviously he did not reveal it to Matt Cooper and he clearly did not reveal it to Noel Kelly. With all due respect, Noel Kelly spent a lot longer in this committee room around other issues with regard to RTÉ, so clearly he had concerns there. Were they wrong in the concerns that they would have had about Mr. Yates being able to continue with the programme? I know he was on the way out, so to speak, anyway but they have expressed particular views. Would Mr. Yates apologise to them in terms of not making it-----
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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They felt that what Mr. Yates did was wrong. Is that correct?
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, but Matt Cooper has certainly said that he believes that there was conflict.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I am assuming that was a difficult conversation.
Malcolm Byrne (Wicklow-Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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I have one final question, and it is a very valid one. Everyone is getting media training, so who does Mr. Yates think is training the other political parties? We know who Mr. Yates has been involved with.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
One point Micheál Martin made - and I know it is not right to defend Micheál Martin in the current environment - was that he said this is more than about one person. Once one goes digging into this area and asking parties who is doing their training, the reality is that this whole debate is taking place in a vacuum. On one level, I am asked to explain myself, justify myself, disagree with the committee or whatever. Nobody else has been put in this situation.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We acknowledge that. To be fair, I think collectively-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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-----we would compliment you on that because you have had the grace to come here when others-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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That is a matter for other people but others refused. Some people were asked not to do the work and we have to acknowledge that too but others did refuse.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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That was a very important comment the Chair made when he said that Mr. Yates did come in and stand up, and it is very much appreciated. I want to go back to the "smear the bejaysus" comment. How did that comment go down with Noel Kelly and Matt Cooper, considering Mr. Yates made the comment about the oppostion's-----
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I refer to what really upset them. I did not want to do that. Before the general election, I had to process 687 candidates. The amount of work I put into it was incredible. I said to the people in Newstalk there was no need for a presidential "Calling It". I begged it not to do it, I said I was too busy and so on. The most cause of upset about all that was that I did not say that on the "Path to Power" podcast and they felt I was cheating on them. I let all this fly by my left ear because if I was to get upset about everyone who criticises Ivan Yates, I would not get out of bed in the morning. I just have to be robust about these things.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Is Mr. Yates saying that it was an off-the-cuff comment?
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Was it a pre-empted?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
I had actually done two gigs that day and I was exhausted. I had to hire a driver to come to Dublin. My wife was in Tuscany. I was exhausted. Maybe it was not the best choice of words, and maybe I was giving it a level of energy that the topic did not deserve. However, the reality is I cannot change the past. I cannot deny I said it and I cannot deny what subsequently happened. I think it has been exaggerated but I felt very sorry for the Heather Humphreys campaign that it had to defend it as if I was involved in its strategy, which I was not.
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Is sorry an apology? Is Mr. Yates apologising for it?
Brian Brennan (Wicklow-Wexford, Fine Gael)
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Right, and just a final point. Is Mr. Yates doing any further media training?
Mr. Ivan Yates:
It represents about 5% to 10% of what I do. People have got in touch with me, mostly at corporate level and the NGO level. To be honest, politicians are not worth it for this level of grief that it is brought on me for a very minor sector. People who are doing all the training will say that regarding politicians, the market is not there and for all this hassle it is certainly not worth it.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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In conclusion, just one quick question for clarity. Once you concluded with Newstalk and started doing the training, which I acknowledge is only a tiny part of what you do, did you ever interview people you had trained? I do not want names.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I presume it would have happened.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I know, of course. I would have been surprised if you did not, to be honest.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Fine Gael has had this problem from 2009 on. It is like the referee not turning up to an under-14 junior B match. The home club has to provide the referee and you are even harder on your own. My actual training method is a boot camp. I am ruthless with people and I am very harsh on them. Therefore, on air I tend to be less forgiving of them.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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From the two sessions today, I think there has been an awful lot of food for thought. I believe that there was a counterbalance by you coming in. In a way, you have done an awful lot of service by coming in because you have given that counterbalance in relation to the issues we were speaking about earlier today with Coimisiúin na Meán and the Department. If you had not come in, that seat would have been empty and we would not have had this engagement.
Mr. Ivan Yates:
Can I make one final comment? I thank the Chairman because he said that it would not be a confrontation. I did not know what to expect. I am familiar with what happened in the cases of Angela Kerins and Ryan Tubridy. This territory is the wild west as far as I am concerned. I advise people to avoid Oireachtas committees if they can. In the situation, I felt a respect to the Chairman personally and to the committee. As a former member of this House between 1981 and 2002, I felt it would be totally disrespectful not to turn up. However, I just want to make it absolutely clear, having stated that respect, that I have no expectation that my opinion will carry any particular weight. I am just giving my insights and the committee is free as far as I am concerned. I am very much a has-been in this whole area.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I think you underestimate that because has-been or not you had the grace to come in here. By giving your opinions, they actually will formulate part of everything we have thought about and they have given us a lot of food for thought. They have delved into areas and perspectives that I did not know we were going to get into today, to be fair about it.
From that perspective, we do thank Mr. Yates and acknowledge that he had the gumption to come in here while others did not. Personally speaking, I hope that Mr. Yates resumes podcasting.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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We would probably agree too much. Thanks very much. I also thank Mr. Yates for agreeing to stay for an extended time and apologies for the delay.