GEORGE HOOK TOOK a deft side-swipe at Labour senator Ivana Bacik this week, as he dropped by TheJournal.ie’s offices for an interview.
Our wide-ranging chat touched on all manner of subjects – from his nascent fiction-writing career to his now all-but-abandoned Dáil bid.
We also asked the Right Hook host about criticism of his approach to some issues.
His views on women, for instance, have landed the current affairs presenter in the headlines more than a few times over the years. Case in point, his run-in with Collette Fitzpatrick on TV3 last summer. That came just a few weeks after this contentious interview with Bacik, which prompted a clarification from the presenter the following day.
The initial clash with the Labour politician happened, you’ll recall, in the context of a conversation about the high-profile case of woman who was raped as she slept by her then-boyfriend.
The interview took an abrupt left turn after Hook asked this question:
Hypothetically… you go into a relationship with somebody, be it marriage or be it you’re living with someone. So now you’re sharing a bed with somebody, yes, and obviously sexual congress takes place on a regular basis because you’re living with someone. Is there not an implied consent therefore that you consent to sexual congress?
Bacik replied: “George, that’s an outrageous suggestion… really, honestly I am surprised at you”. The presenter, in turn, told Bacik “that’s not my suggestion”, and the two discussed how up until 1990, marital rape was not a crime in Ireland.
“Even for you, that is a terribly dated and unbelievable assertion to make,” the senator insisted.
In a strongly-worded follow-up the next day, Hook said he was appalled by the crime calling it “a betrayal of trust of the worst kind”.
‘Abhorrent’
He repeated his assertion this week that the man’s actions had been “abhorrent”.
But he also had a few things to say about Bacik’s response to his question – suggesting it was based on “pretend outrage”:
“I don’t like interviewing Ivana Bacik, you know? It doesn’t stop me interviewing her but I don’t like interviewing her,” Hook said.
In that case Ivana Bacik assumed the question was one question and then attacked me and the result of why there was reaction was about what Ivana Bacik said rather than what I had said.
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