Two items jump out of the general election news today.
One is the Fine Gael/Fianna Fail claim that Sinn Féin would operate one of the biggest ‘heists’ in history (see what they did there? A darlin’ word, ‘heist’) and raid the reserve fund, money put away for the rainy day that’ll come sooner or later and probably sooner. The other is Sinn Féin’s commitment to investigate the balance of RTÉ, particularly in reporting violence in Gaza.
Let’s take the ‘heist’ charge. No, Virginia, Sinn Féin definitely won’t break into the coffers and make off with bags marked ‘SWAG’. Fine Gael’s Paschal Donohoe says they’re going to “raid…carefully saved funds and throw caution to the winds” by raiding the 16 million euro in the Future Ireland Fund and the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature fund. Sinn Féin’s finance man Pearse Doherty says they will do no such thing and In fact they will add a further 15 billion euro: “Our manifesto makes it clear that not only will this money not be touched but we will increase the funds to a total of 31 billion euro”.
Well, it’s either in the SF manifesto or it isn’t. Has Paschal checked?
Then there’s the investigation of RTÉ’s fairness and accuracy in reporting international events, particularly those from the Middle East. The Sinn Féin manifesto says it’ll set up an “independent human rights and journalist expert review into the objectivity of coverage by RTÉ of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and other international conflicts.”
Sounds like something worthwhile: the state’s broadcaster must have the trust of the public. After all, it has their money. Simon Harris,though, says it’d be “extraordinarily concerning” He talks about journalists putting themselves “in harm’s way”, although he doesn’t make clear what that has to do with fairness and accuracy of reporting. RTÉ, unsurprisingly, doesn’t like the idea of an investigation. A spokeswoman for RTÉ said: “Impartiality and objectivity are among the cornerstone principles of RTÉ and the organisation’s own journalism guidelines.” In which case you’d think investigation by an objective outside body would be welcomed. After all, there has been a good bit of brouhaha of late about how RTÉ operates and who gets paid what. An outside review would add lustre to the shining qualities of the national broadcaster.
The handling of the state’s money and the probity of the state’s broadcaster are surely two of the most important matters for any political party. And yet Simon Harris claims Sinn Féin are going to run mad with the state’s piggy-bank and will, he hints, encroach on press freedom.
No,no, Simon. It’s to stop people in RTÉ from – one small example – asking one and only one presidential candidate “When did you last go to confession?”
Is it just me or are Simon and Micheál beginning to get seriously worried about Sinn Féin doing some safety checks on how things have been run for the last 5/13/100 years?
Some thing tells Jude, that maybe FF/FG internal party polls are providing the Terrible Twins with some unpleasant news.
So what can they do about it? well, as weve already seen, its operation club SF to death with all they can throw at them.
It will be interesting to see if the Terrible Twin Bullies will go for the same approach during next Tuesdays TV debate when they will have Mary Lou all to themselves?
Something tells me though, that its the two Bullies who will be leaving the school yard with bloodied noses!
But sure Mary Lou can tell all later that it was only an ou’l scuffle!
Great last line, Kieran!