On taxpayer funded show Liveline yesterday, Ireland’s State Broadcaster RTE incited a hate filled frenzy against Listowel priest Father Sean Sheehy. It comes as their employers, the Irish government, look to make a case for imprisoning Catholics under new hate speech laws.
In 2017, the government’s propaganda arm took 11,693 people to court for not paying their hugely inflated wages. Many of these were single mothers and a significant number of people were actually jailed for not funding this regressive station.
In 2018-19, the presenter of the Liveline programme in question, Brian Dobson, earned €209,282 per year, not far off of the President's €250,000 annual salary.
Much of the RTE coverage of the church centres around the premise that the abuse scandals render any and all church teachings null and void.
But if we apply thus logic to RTE themselves, we must look at it in a different light.
One of the worst paedophiles that the Irish State has seen in recent memory hid in plain sight at the broadcaster.
Kieran Creaven was a producer for RTE who abused a young child in the Philippines seven years ago while other children were in the room. The sicko was only exposed after travelling to the UK to meet a 13 year old to abuse, only to be told that he was meeting a group of Paedophile Hunters.
RTE staff were ‘shocked’ when stories emerged and referred to him as an ‘efficient professional’. In December of last year, Gardai searched RTE headquarters to see if Creaven had used devices at work for his evil deeds.
One RTE staff member told the Irish Sun at the time:
“Were any red flags raised about sites he visited on work computers? Was there anything strange found on his devices when they serviced over the years?”
Most recently, former RTE journalist Mícheál Ó Leidhin was found guilty of raping a sleeping woman.
In 2010, after the death of RTE journalist Gerry Ryan was linked to cocaine use, the Sunday Independent wrote the following:
“FORMER RTE presenter and friend of Gerry Ryan, Gareth O'Callaghan, has lifted the lid on the rampant use of cocaine within RTE.
In an explosive interview with the Sunday Independent he has claimed the scourge of cocaine has infected every level of RTE -- including management -- and says Mr Ryan once offered him coke in the RTE staff canteen, telling him: "Don't knock it till you try it".
In his most revealing interview yet, the insider has also claimed:
The shocking allegations come as pressure mounts on the national broadcaster for failing to do enough to cover the cocaine addiction and death of its biggest star.
A poll carried out by the Sunday Independent has also found that 68 per cent of people believe there has been a conspiracy of silence in RTE on Mr Ryan's drug-taking, with one respondent saying: "If he has been taking cocaine for years, several of his colleagues must know the source"; while 57 per cent believe there should be a Garda investigation to find the person, or persons, who supplied Mr Ryan with drugs.
Mr O'Callaghan said yesterday: "I know of three or four stars in RTE alone that are using the drug.
"People would get a huge shock if they realised how bad it actually is. That some of the people they look up to as celebrities -- who they listen to on the radio, who they watch at home on their TV sets -- use cocaine."
This is the station that our bishops fear falling foul of. Why?