Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I share the views of Deputy Martin, as does everyone else here, that the national broadcaster should be absolutely impartial, fair and objective in carrying out its statutory functions under the Act that established it. Deputy Martin is aware that the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland has completely independent and statutory responsibility for the regulation of broadcasting in the country. Its compliance committee has its independent functions in that regard.

It is important to note that when it investigated the release of the tweet, the compliance committee said the broadcast of the tweet incorrectly attributed to the official Martin McGuinness twitter account was unfair, in the context of the requirements of the Act. The arguments made by RTE did not, in the view of the committee, validate the inclusion of what amounted to unverified information in the debate from a source that was wrongly accredited by the programme presenter. There were no apparent efforts to verify the source or accuracy of the content of the tweet. Furthermore, the committee felt the presenter did not take the opportunity to verify the content with Mr. McGuinness. Failure to provide clarification on the provenance of the tweet was unfair.

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