RTÉ faces potential investigation over GAA Allianz programme

RTÉ faces a potential investigation over failing to tell Prime Time viewers a guest defending the GAA’s Allianz deal – in a segment presented by Miriam O’Callaghan – runs a business network that counts the insurer as a key commercial partner and member. 

Media regulator Coimisiún na Meán decided last month that the complaint was serious enough to require formal referral to an authorised officer for possible investigation. 

RTÉ recently edited this story without a note – known as stealth editing – to acknowledge Allianz is a member of the business group. The original didn’t identify this. 

The complaint alleged the programme breached statutory standards of fairness, objectivity and impartiality on the basis the non-disclosure of the guest’s relationship with Allianz was misleading.

The segment, broadcast on 22 January, covered a campaign to end the GAA’s three-decade sponsorship deal with Allianz over the insurer’s links to Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians.

It featured Sport for Business chief executive Rob Hartnett who argued the GAA risked losing income if it dropped the insurer. ”Where do we draw the line? The Allianz sponsorship delivers good for the GAA,” he told Prime Time.

Allianz is a member of Sport for Business and one of its “principal commercial partners”. 

Sport for Business describes itself as a network of more than 300 member companies and sporting organisations – including RTÉ and Dublin GAA.

Writing on the Sport for Business website the following morning, Hartnett said his role in the debate “was not to… act as a spokesperson for Allianz”.

Hartnett is not accused of any wrongdoing whatsoever in relation to the complaint or at all.

Allianz’s German parent company was among dozens of companies named last June in a report by the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories as “embedded in an economy of genocide”. 

The GAA rejected motions calling for an end to the deal in December, citing a legal and ethical obligation to honour its contract.