asked the Minister for Justice if he requested the BBC not to include an interview with him in a recent edition of Midweek; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Ministerial TV Interview.
52.
I would refer the Deputy to the statement made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs on this matter in reply to Question No. 2 on the Dáil Order Paper on 15th July, 1975.
Would the Minister agree that the problem involved in the case of the Midweek programme would have compounded an embarrassment to the Government if the BBC channel in question had been rebroadcast by our own television services?
I do not agree. The Minister for Posts and Telegraphs dealt with that point when he stated that any embarrassment or misunderstanding that the programme gave rise to would not have had any effect in this jurisdiction where the true facts were known but did give rise to misunderstanding in the United Kingdom where the facts were not known.
The question I am putting to the Minister is not in relation to the difficulty that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs mentioned. I am putting the question in relation to a similar programme being rebroadcast by our own television services to which the Minister might take objection; a similar programme being rebroadcast by our own television services on behalf of a foreign service to which the Minister might take objection.
The point at the moment is that for two-thirds of this country these programmes are broadcast and I cannot do a thing about it.
Not on the State's authority. That is the point.
The reality of the situation is that it is being received in up to two-thirds of our homes. How it gets there I do not know.
Does the Minister not see any difference between a programme which is transmitted giving a certain British propaganda viewpoint by the BBC and that same programme being transmitted by the official national broadcasting authority here? Does the Minister not see an essential difference?
There is a difference but what we have to look at is the harm if harm is what is involved. I worry about the result of what is involved. The reality of the situation is that it is being received in X number of homes and surely it is irrelevant how it gets into those homes. It would be well known that nobody receiving it in those homes would be of the opinion or under the impression that because a State transmitter was made available to broadcast the waves that it was thereby given a State blessing. People would not be so foolish as to assume that.
The Minister surely sees a fundamental difference between a situation where those of us who receive BBC recognise it as an official British broadcasting medium—and if it disseminates British propaganda to the detriment of an Irish Minister we recognise it as such because it is coming from a British controlled broadcasting system—and a situation where that same programme denigrating an Irish Minister is broadcast officially by an Irish broadcasting institution?
This programme did not denigrate an Irish Minister. The balance of the programme was the matter at issue. I believe the Irish people have enough sense to realise that when a BBC programme is coming across their waves irrespective of who transmits it that it does not represent Irish Government policy or have any mark of legitimation or validation about it. The people will know that it is a British programme. If the people want that, as the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs says, this is what they will have to get.
Does the Minister not think that the power should rest with an Irish Minister not to allow that to happen?
That matter is one for the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs and not for me.
If a programme is, in the opinion of the Minister, considered unbalanced does he consider he has a duty to seek to prevent that programme being broadcast?
That depends. Implicit in the Deputy's question are many serious issues. If a Minister is asked to participate in a programme that he subsequently has reasons to believe will be unbalanced or present an improper point of view, he is entitled to make a protest. That was my position in regard to this programme but that is as far as my powers would go, to make a protest. The same would apply in regard to RTE.
By his answer the Minister deems his actions were legitimate in this case?
I consider I was right to make a protest and ask for my interview to be withdrawn.