asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will state who is the writer of Letter from Rome, read periodically over Radio Éireann.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Rome Letter.
I regret that I am not always in a position to give the name of our correspondent owing to the fact that we have not got their permission to do so.
The Deputy will appreciate that it has been a long standing custom in the editorial policy of many distinguished journals not to give the names of their correspondents and this practice carries certain advantages with it.
Does the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs consider it a suitable thing that our correspondent in the Italian capital should be unknown or an anonymous person? Is it not from every point of view desirable that a person acting on behalf of a State institution in this country should be known and identifiable by the authorities of the country from which he is communicating to a State institution in this country?
I do not think so at all. I think there are very great advantages and much greater freedom to be objective in the sending of news if the person who is sending it is following the well recognised practice amongst international journalists, namely, the practice of anonymity.
It is a practice with which I am not familiar.
Mr. Corish
The Minister is, of course, satisfied that this correspondent represents the state of affairs generally in Rome?
The correspondent is very carefully chosen.
Yes, but is it not desirable, from the point of view of our own people hearing communications distributed over Radio Éireann, a State institution, from Rome, to be able to determine whether the person charged with the responsibility of sending these communications is in fact an objective observer or is one of a crowd of publicity hounds with which the Minister for External Affairs, the Taoiseach, surrounds himself?
I think the Deputy is talking nonsense.
I am not.
The responsibility is with the Department to see that the news is of the right type.
Of the right type, exactly. That is what I object to.
It is not your type.
That was a bad slip.
That is what I object to. I want it to be objective, not always what the Minister thinks is the right type.