Flogging Molly - Irish American News

January 2012 Irish American News “We’ve Always Been Green!” 3
A Problem for RTE
It has not been a good few weeks for
RTE, the state-owned national television
station. The station is financed by revenue
from the (compulsory) television license,
currently costing around $200 annually,
as well as from advertising. It is, therefore,
subject to the type of public scrutiny
and criticism that a purely commercial
station would not. Though not without
its critics, RTE TV and Radio, has, with
limited resources, consistently provided
programming of a high standard, even
measured against the yardstick set by the
next–door BBC. In the area of news and
current affairs RTE has a proud record
of investigative journalism, including
exposing incidences of institutionalised
neglect and abuse of children in their care
by some of Ireland’s religious orders as
well as the separate abuse of children in
the Dublin archdiocese.
This record has now suffered a serious
blemish with a large (reputedly seven
figure) award against it over a false allegation
made in its current affairs flagship
programme that an Irish missionary
priest, Fr. Kevin Reynolds, had raped a
minor and fathered a girl by her in Kenya.
The way the whole programme was
conducted and screened, on the face of it
beggars belief, and several investigations,
both internal and external, are under way
into the whole circumstances surrounding
the programme and its aftermath.
The incident has been a field day for
RTE’s critics and comes just after the annual
publication by RTE of the salaries
paid to its top employees. This event has
traditionally met with widespread public
criticism but the howls have been louder
than ever this year, given the economic
climate and the latest imminent tax increases
and welfare cuts. RTE did not
help itself in this regard by persisting
in its curious practice of publishing top
Joe Monahan
salary details
two years in arrears,
i.e., the
latest details
published are
for 2009. This
may have had
the effect formerly
of camouflaging
rising
salaries to
deflect criticism, but this is now working
in reverse.
The revelation that RTE’s top four
highest paid each received over €500,000
($650,000 plus) in 2009, even though
these amounts were less than in 2008,
did not sit well with the public which
pays them. Nor have the somewhat
feeble attempts by some of the individuals
themselves to justify the amounts.
RTE has pointed out that most of the
highest paid are on contract rather than
employed as salaried staff and that
their contracts are set to be negotiated
down substantially as they come up for
renewal. We shall see on that one; there
is a school of thought that questions
why a publicly funded body employing
many talented people should have to hire
anyone on contract, let alone pay them
the amounts involved.
But pay is a minor matter compared to
the defining issue for RTE in 2011—the
Reynolds Affair. The saga became
public with the Primetime Investigates
programme Mission to Prey, broadcast
in May, which looked at allegations of
sexual abuse by Irish religious working
in Africa. The last few years have been
open season for attacks on the Catholic
Church in Ireland. The growing secularisation
of Irish society, the decline in
religious observance and an influx of immigrants
from different cultures denting
what had been a fairly monolithic society
provided the context; the shameful revelations
of the many instances of betrayal
of trust by the Church the content.
The sad litany of sexual abuse by
priests, of institutional physical and
emotional ill-treatment and neglect of
children entrusted to the care of various
religious orders and the existence
of unsavoury institutions such as the
Magdalene laundries, have received
wide media coverage in recent years. An
Irish government fell in 1994 over a paedophile
priest. The role of the Catholic
authorities, in both Ireland and Rome, in
dissembling or indeed covering up for
guilty priests did not help, was the cause
of an outburst from the Taoiseach against
Rome several months ago and is surely
at the root of the recently announced
decision to close Ireland’s embassy to
the Vatican.
It was inevitable that, sooner or later,
attention would turn to the remaining
jewel in the crown of Irish Catholicism—
the Missionary Church. During the 20th
Century and up to the present, thousands
of Irish priests, brothers, nuns and lay
people worked as Missionaries worldwide.
Their influence on the ground was
considerable, particularly in education.
Interestingly, the first great generation
of Kenyan Olympic athletes were educated
by Irish Christian Brothers. And,
as a consequence of their experiences of
abject poverty on the ground in Africa,
Irish religious have founded development
aid organisations (example: Concern)
and been prominent in fundraising and
lobbying for increased official Irish development
assistance.
The RTE programme fastened on the
“nudge, nudge, wink, wink” climate of
prevalent Irish anti-clericalism. It apparently
relied on a specific anonymous
allegation naming a former missionary,
Fr. Kevin Reynolds, retired, my age, and
currently parish priest of Ahascragh, Co.
Galway, as the father of a Kenyan girl,
whose mother had been a minor when
allegedly known to Fr. Reynolds. In a
classic of tabloid “journalism,” Fr. Reynolds
was confronted on camera with the
allegation just after conducting a First
Communion ceremony in his parish.
He was at first bemused, then amused
and then shocked as he vigorously denied
the accusation. When it dawned on him
that the allegation would be broadcast
he protested his innocence and offered
a blood test. Despite this and despite a
number of exchanges between Fr. Reynolds
and RTE, the programme went ahead,
even including in it reference to his offer
of the paternity test.
Fr. Reynolds was stood down from his
ministry. He was devastated. Imagine, if
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Funeral Homes
you will, as I have, the effects on him
of these false charges. He sought legal
support, offered on a pro bono basis.
The paternity test, conducted on behalf
of RTE, duly took place and proved he
could not have fathered the child. The
alleged victim withdrew the allegation.
RTE delayed releasing the blood test
results to him, though at this stage, apparently,
the RTE Director General offered
to resign.
Fr. Reynolds eventually had his day in
court. He won, hands down, handsomely,
and with a confidential massive settlement
in his favour. Here we enter the
theatre of the bizarre. An RTE spokesman,
asked whether heads would roll, retorted
that severed heads learned nothing. An
official on-the-air apology, ordered by
the Court, was gabbled on air in a near
indecipherable monotone. The Director
General was not available for comment. It
appeared that an attempt was being made
to brazen the affair out.
The public was gobsmacked. Then
the reaction set in. There were questions
in the Dail and on air. Enquiries were
ordered, by RTE, by the Broadcasting
Authority. These are on-going. Those
involved in the programme have stepped
aside. Fr. Reynolds has been restored to
his ministry. The RTE Director General
eventually went on air. The apology was
repeated—this time with feeling! Yet the
long term effects on him are unquantifiable
and hardly something money alone
can redress. There are hard questions to
be answered before a justice hard earned
is seen to be done.
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