Patrick O’Donovan’s departmental records of his meeting with Coimisiún na Meán don’t disclose the secret phone call he’d made to a commissioner where the media minister sought to initiate a state examination of RTÉ’s fuel protest coverage.
The Department of Culture, Communications and Sport minutes released to The Ditch under freedom of information legislation don’t mention media minister O’Donovan’s call to Coimisiún na Meán’s Rónán Ó Domhnaill – first reported by The Ditch earlier today.
The minutes of the 14 April record how O'Donovan wanted to “better understand” the media regulator’s “approach to the legislative framework for fairness, objectivity and impartiality in news and current affairs”.
National Union of Journalists Irish secretary Séamus Dooley told The Ditch O’Donovan “crossed a line by phoning the commissioner”, adding, “individually and collectively commissioners should not be subject to political pressure of any type”.
“This gives the lie to the impression O’Donovan sought to create, that he had merely misspoken or badly expressed his views in media interviews,” said Dooley,
‘A matter for Coimisiún na Meán as independent regulator’
Present at the meeting were Patrick O’Donovan, Coimisiún na Meán executive chairperson Jeremy Godfrey, broadcasting commissioner Aoife MacEvilly, department assistant secretary Tríona Quill, principal officer Adam Larragy and two special advisers to the minister, Michael O’Connor and Theresa Newman.
Aoife MacEvilly had told assistant secretary Tríona Quill about O’Donovan’s Saturday call to the Coimisiún na Meán commissioner, according to Coimisiún na Meán’s own internal note of the events.
The note records that the Tuesday meeting resulted in two concessions from the regulator.
Coimisiún na Meán “will examine the issue of broadcasters producing an anonymised schedule of complaints on an annual basis” and “will provide a briefing to the minister on their work on protecting democracy”, according to the note.
O’Donovan, according to the minutes, “asked Coimisiún na Meán how best to guarantee that different voices are heard and fairness ensured, particularly at societal flashpoints”.
A briefing document prepared by O'Donovan's own department for the Tuesday meeting was also released.
It stated explicitly that it was "a matter for Coimisiún na Meán as independent regulator" whether to open a formal investigation into broadcasts – the question he had already put to commissioner Ó Domhnaill through an unofficial channel the previous Saturday.
This same note cited European Media Freedom Act provisions requiring member states to protect public service broadcasters from political interference. O'Donovan is the minister responsible for implementing that legislation.
The department’s meeting note records that O’Donovan opened the Tuesday meeting by thanking Coimisiún na Meán.
On Saturday he had asked Ó Domhnaill to canvass his fellow commissioners about “whether there was a mechanism in the legislation that allowed the minister to seek an examination about the broadcasts”.
O’Donovan closed the Tuesday meeting by “setting out the importance of the work of Coimisiún na Meán to the protection of children and to the protection of democracy, and in particular the importance of trust in broadcast media”.
Three days later, on RTÉ’s News at One, he said, “In hindsight, I should have used the word engage, chat to, talk to, which is exactly what I did on Tuesday”.
He did not mention the Saturday call – which is similarly absent from the official minutes of the meeting.
Patrick O’Donovan and the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport have been contacted for comment.
