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INDEPENDENT SENATOR Rónán Mullen has criticised his Oireachtas colleagues who have called on RTÉ’s chairman Tom Savage and director-general Noel Curran to step down in the wake of the Fr Kevin Reynolds affair.
Savage and Curran yesterday faced renewed calls to quit from three members of the Oireachtas’ all-party communications committee, as they attended to answer questions relating to the BAI’s investigation which saw the broadcaster fined €200,000.
Mullen’s Seanad colleague John Whelan of Labour, as well as Fine Gael TD Tom Barry and independent deputy Mattie McGrath, all called for the pair to leave their posts following the editorial failures outlined in the BAI’s inquiry.
Today Mullen said calls to purge RTÉ’s upper management showed “a PR approach to politics at a time of institutional crisis”.
The NUI senator said calls for the duo to quit “serve to deflect attention away from the real issues involved” – which were, he said, the extent to which RTÉ was prepared to combat the “groupthink” identified by the BAI in the national broadcaster.
“Part of this commitment must be to investigate what constituted the groupthink highlighted and whether a culture of bias against Catholicism played a role,” Mullen said.
“Resignations will do nothing to assure the public of such a commitment, they will only serve to perpetuate a PR circus empty of any concern for the quality of public service broadcasting, including investigative journalism.”
Communications minister Pat Rabbitte last night insisted he had full confidence in Curran and in the entire RTÉ board, despite having previously expressed surprise at the litany of editorial failures underlined in the BAI report compiled by former BBC executive Anna Carragher.
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Who let this spanner loose again?
He’s desperately trying to shore up a public profile, no doubt for a shot at the Dáil.
I hate Ronan Mullen.
He makes me cringe everytime i see him. where did they get him and who voted for him and more to the point why?
No one voted for him Aine, that’s the beauty of the seanad.
No body voted for him, he lobbied to get into the Senate to free load of us the tax payer.
So when are we going to see some bankers or ex bankers being exposed to the same scrutiny?
There’d be more sense asking Sean Brady to quit!
Wouldn’t you think red neck Mullens would show “leadership” and do that!
Anyway I thought abolishing the seaned was in the cards …. Get these clowns out
Abolish the Senate and get rid of this subsidised, far-right bigot.
Comment of the week above.
I salute you Willy Bush.
Shouldnt ronan be off sneering at women who’ve had abortions? He comes across as a bit of a pompous self- aggrandising windbag.
He looks likee Will from the inbetweeners
i thought they had moved all the programme makers onto new parishes
Today Mullen said calls to purge RTÉ’s upper management showed “a PR approach to politics at a time of institutional crisis”.
given mullens recent exploitation of every available opportunity to publicise himself in the wake of the report on rte (this very article an example of one) this is all a bit rich. but nothing unusual from a man with all the charisma and integrity of a bishops crozier abandoned in a skip
Penfold and Brian Cowan’s mutant lovechild appears to be a smug little creature with a hideously poor PR approach to other people’s opinions. As a Senate freeloader, the less negative attention this creature draws upon himself the better.
He is some ass clown this fella
and, yes that is me behind him in the kangaroo outfit ready to pounce
An anti catholic bias in RTE? I suspect Mr Mullen is more concerned with preserving what pro catholic bias remains.
As for his talk about avoiding a PR circus maybe he should get advice from the wife of the current chairman.
The phrase head like a melted welly springs to mind when I look at him
Let’s all play a game together. Let’s completely ignore the actual point of the article and let’s instead engage in yet another ad hominem bitchfest…
Yeah – but bitchfests are fun, and besides mawla face doesnt deserve to be treated with anything resembling respect or dignity.
@ Almar, Waaaah! Let’s all play a game. Let’s try to sound ‘clever’ whilst really achieving little more than being a pretentius pseudo intellectual muppet by using some antiquated Latin to prove little more than the fact that you like using antiquated Latin terminology . You sound like a solicitior from the 40′s pal.
Caveat…… Is binn béal ina thoist.
Maybe he’s just defending them so they might give him a job because he’ll have none come the abolition of the seanad
He was elected by graduates of the nui who voted for him. I’m not a fan of senator Mullen. He was also elected su leader in ucg in the past.
have your say