TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has said that contact his party made with RTÉ surrounding footage of him interacting with a carer in Cork was “entirely appropriate and normal”.
When asked by The Journal at an event yesterday if any member of his team or Fine Gael’s team were in contact with RTÉ about the footage and whether there was any suggestion that the broadcaster wouldn’t air it, Harris responded: “I don’t believe so”.
After this comment by the Taoiseach, The Journal had numerous exchanges with the Fine Gael camp yesterday in a bid to clarify the matter and the nature of the contact with the national broadcaster over the clip.
It was established that contact had been made more than once with RTÉ.
In the now viral clip, carer Charlotte Fallon approached Harris while he was on a canvass in a supermarket in Kanturk in northwest Cork and criticised a lack of supports for the care sector.
The Taoiseach walked away from Fallon mid-conversation.
The woman identified herself as a worker in a Section 39 organisation, which are groups that have service legal agreements with the HSE to provide health and social care within communities.
In the interaction, filmed by RTÉ, she said of the Budget: “We’ve fought for our money … but we are ignored.”
Harris responded: “No, no, not at all.”
Fine Gael leader Simon Harris was approached during a canvass this evening by a woman who says she is a carer, and who said she believes the Government has "done nothing for us" | follow live: https://t.co/eUoCK3Qb5Y pic.twitter.com/MXiN9b60Ke
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 22, 2024
Harris publicly apologised on Saturday morning for how he responded to Fallon and yesterday said that he “let myself down” with the interaction.
A spokesperson for RTÉ said yesterday that the broadcaster had no comment on the matter.
Sources at RTÉ said the broadcaster has conversations with all the political parties on a regular basis and that it had strong editorial processes in its newsroom.
The Fine Gael leader today confirmed that contact had been made between his party and RTÉ regarding the footage.
On The Joe Finnegan Show on Shannonside Northern Sound, Harris was asked about a report in the Irish Daily Mail that Fine Gael had “frantically” contacted RTÉ over how it planned to use the clip.
Harris said there is “constant contact between political parties and RTÉ and journalists during the course of an election campaign”.
He said he understood that contact had been made “in terms of offering RTÉ a statement or further detail around what my party intended to do around carers and disability services.”
“But let’s be honest, RTÉ is fully independent,” said Harris, who added that it was “entirely appropriate for that clip to be shown”.
When asked if this was confirmation that contact was made with RTÉ about how the clip “might be handled”, Harris replied that he didn’t “accept that characterisation of it at all”.
“My understanding is that my party would have offered a statement in relation to further details, which is exactly what would happen when RTÉ is covering any story.
“We’d obviously offer information and that’s an entirely appropriate and normal thing to do in any sort of political media coverage.”
Meanwhile, Fine Gael party colleague Paschal Donohoe said any contact that has happened “has been appropriate” and is the “kind of exchange that happens normally”.
“My party and I have never threatened to sue any journalist, we’ve never threatened to review the impartiality of any journalist or broadcaster,” said Donohoe.
Sinn Féin’s general election manifesto contained a pledge to commission an independent review into the objectivity of RTÉ’s coverage of Gaza.
When it was put to Donohoe that Fine Gael had tried to “influence” how the clip would be used and that the “optics” were bad given his criticism of Sinn Féin’s plans for an independent review of RTÉ, he replied: “We have exchanges of views all the time.
“I want to emphasise again that any contact that would have happened would be entirely appropriate.
“It’s the kind of contact that happens, not only in election campaigns, but outside of them.”
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said it was “chilling” that Fine Gael had contacted RTÉ over the footage.
Meanwhile, Gary Gannon of the Social Democrats said the clip was an “insight into Fine Gael as a nasty party”.
“The Taoiseach can’t have his cake and eat it,” said Gannon.
“There were all sorts of videos put out of him dancing at the start of the campaign. We hear him talking a lot about a new energy but what was clearly lacking was a new empathy.
“You cannot stage manage being able to shake a person’s hand, look them in the eye and tell them not only do you feel their pain, but you’re willing to legislate and allocate budgets in accordance with it.”
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