I know little about economics nor do I pretend to. But I think I appreciate fair play, described by our ancestors as Cothrom na Feinne, the code of Fionn MacCumhal and his Merrie Men, and described amongst (the better sort of) Englishmen as “Cricket.”
So when a professed “Concerned Citizen” harangued Sinn Fein’s Mary-Lou MacDonald on her party’s economic policy and was exposed as a merchant banker, both in its literal and in its rhyming slang meanings, I’d have thought he would have been laughed to ridicule. Instead RTE, established by the State and supported by a licence fee levied on TV owners, showed footage of the incident and accepted the “merchant banker’s” deceptive “citizen’s” bona fides.
RTE was acting in bad faith. I don’t know what code of conduct the station is statutorily subject to during elections, but I’d be surprised if it wasn’t in breach of them. It certainly breached all concepts of fair play.
Enda Kenny seems to me such an empty-headed clown that he wouldn’t recognise a principle or a code of conduct if it bit him in the arse. So I wasn’t that surprised when he suggested that the AK47-toting assassins who murdered a young man in a Dublin hotel were associates of Gerry Adams. RTE’s posturing chancer Joe Duffy has described those assassins as republicans. They may well be citizens of Ireland, a republic, as I believe Dufffy may be.
So, do most of Ireland’s paid commentators subscribe to codes of fair play, the rules of vricket, the heritage of Cothrom na Feinne?
Ni Cheapaim!
(Unless you can suggest a better remedy!)
Perhaps in the interests of Cothrom na Feinne , RTE should be taken to book by a ” Concerned Citizen ” , ( although preferably ,not by a merchant banker ) and again , In the interest of fairness , perhaps this should be attested in ” The Special Criminal Court ” because RTE’s record of unbiased and impartial reporting is slightly tarnished to say the least and they have a tendency to bear false witness to suit their purpose !