Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

For the past couple of weeks, some Members have felt they were living in a parallel universe. A huge debate has been taking place online through sites such as TheJournal.ie, Broadsheet.ie, as well as on Twitter and Facebook, with the mainstream print media largely being absent from that debate. Yesterday, the head of television in RTE explained to staff the reason the broadcaster apologised and paid €85,000. This screams to me of discontent within RTE. It is obvious that many of the station's personnel know there are times when defending the principles behind public service broadcasting ranks higher than the fear of litigation. John Waters, Breda O'Brien and the Iona Institute all can be described as opinion formers. They have made themselves part of the public discourse - I stress public discourse - on such issues as same-sex marriage and frequently present gay people's relationships, as a starting point, as being lesser. For this to go unchallenged is about setting the parameters of the debate to their advantage and as a referendum will be held next year, that is of critical importance timewise. Why the rush by RTE to apologise and pay? Was it because it was aware those complaining had deep pockets and the ability to amount a credible legal challenge? If so, one must ask how those pockets came to be so filled. The second issue is that one of the complaints came from John Waters, who then was a board member of RTE's regulatory body, the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI. Is it not a massive conflict of interest and was RTE under additional duress? Why did the BAI suddenly change its code of conduct on 22 January, the same day on which RTE agreed the payout? Is this the reason John Waters resigned from the BAI on 24 January or did the Minister ask him to resign? Given the massive payout and the obvious conflict of interest, does the Minister believe, as do I, that he should return that money to RTE?

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