Tag Archives: Gavan Reilly

From top: Panel on Virgin Media One’s post-debate show, Political Correspondent Gavan Reilly, debate moderators Ivan Yates and Matt Cooper

Last night.

Virgin Media One hosted a seven-way leaders’ debate which was moderated  by Ivan Yates and Matt Cooper.

Mr Yates opened the debate with the following line:

I’m wondering has there ever been such a collection of chancers and charlatans put before the Irish public. Because I put it to you, starting with the Taoiseach, that is a fundamentally dishonest election because the presumption is there’s €11billion to have a giveaway on tax cuts and spending when, in actual fact, the Department of Finance have not assured us that money will be available.”

Following the debate, Virgin Media One’s Political Correspondent Gavan Reilly hosted a post-debate show with a panel including journalist and commentator Alison O’Connor, Associate Professor of Politics at DCU Gary Murphy, Irish Independent‘s Fionnan Sheahan and businesswoman Norah Casey.

The manner in which the debate was moderated came in for a lot of criticism on social media and from the panel.

Ms O’Connor said she’d like to have one of the moderators “drug tested” to see how much “Red Bull” they had drank before adding that she felt there was too much testosterone in the room.

Mr Sheahan reluctantly admitted he’d like to see Vincent Browne back, in a nod to the former host of The Tonight Show on then TV3.

During the debate, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin told Mr Yates to “calm it” at one point [see above].

Eventually, Mr Yates and Mr Cooper joined the post-debate panel.

Then Mr Reilly put the criticism up to them and they had this exchange…

Gavan Reilly: “Welcome back. Matt Cooper and Ivan Yates have joined us straight from this evening’s debate which, technically speaking they moderated but gents I have to put it to you, Ivan, you specifically, the way you set the tone in the first 15 seconds. It hardly really set the pace for what should have been a very mature exchange of views about the future of the country and how Ireland ought to be run…”

Ivan Yates: “Well, part of what I do, both on this show and on radio, is not to do the ‘journalistic-ask-the-questions’. I’m not a journalist at all. I have an opinion and I’ve a very strong opinion on this election that the Department of Finance is muzzled for saying what they really think.

“And I think they are having a conniption about the promises that all parties are making. They actually don’t believe there’ll be 2.5% growth each year for the next five years, that we’ll be record breakers.

“And all those things.

“And I’ve seen the correspondence that they’ve sent the parties and they’ve totally, dishonestly misrepresented what the costings are. Because, like, if you say ‘what’s the reduction of pupil-to-teacher ratio? it’ll cost €50million’. They’ll give you a figure but they have an opinion of the knock-on effects of tax change…”

Reilly: “No sure, and all of that is fine…”

Yates: “The public have never got that…”

Reilly: “But that’s fine, but that’s your opinion, and you’re not running…”

Yates: “That’s right.”

Reilly: “…in the election…”

Yates: “Absolutely.”

Reilly: “So why then did you take up so much time from the seven people who do have aspirations to lead different cohorts of the Government and take up so much time, not only setting the tone but not letting them finish when they tried to reply?

Yates: “Well, a lot of that was to do with crowd control. There was nine people in the room and there was only so many minutes. But the whole entire first section was taken up with the economy and their promises. And I think that has to be put squarely to the voters, to say ‘are they really trying to buy my vote here?’.”

Alison O’Connor: “Yeah, but I think the viewer, I think that the problem was, appreciating what you’re saying, the problem was that in that section the viewer wasn’t served. Because it was like ‘reach for the Solpadeine’. That was the problem. It was very shouty and camáile and it was difficult, appreciating that there were nine people. So it was very, it was very difficult to…”

Talk over each other

Yates: “…the seven leaders because they were very anxious…”

Reilly:Matt, having just come back from the studio what do you think the other seven leaders made of the tone of the conduct of tonight’s debate?

Matt Cooper: “That’s not something we discussed with them afterwards. You do your handshakes, you let them go off and do what they’re going to do…”

Reilly: “No, and I appreciate you have to come down here too but surely you talked to them during the ad breaks?”

Cooper: “No actually, we didn’t. We go and talk and talk to our producers, whatever, so there wasn’t, we had, I had one brief conversation with them at the second ad break in relation to, that there was an issue that perhaps there was a bit too much talking over each other. And I think then when we moved into the discussion about a united Ireland was particularly interesting and particularly illuminating, and I was very, very happy with the third and fourth sections.

I see where you’re coming from in relation to the early parts. And that’s something obviously that, well we can’t change, we take very much on board.

“But one thing I would say, I think one thing that we are probably, I think we should be glad of in Ireland is that we do actually have an awful lot of really, well-intentioned politicians. Whatever you might think of the particular positions that they take in relation to things. I’d say I was impressed by all of them with the way that they stood their corner, the way they articulated their positions, some of them perhaps maybe are not as well thought out as they might think and some of them are…”

Gary Murphy: “But that’s not the way...That’s not the way you introduced the debate though. That’s not the way you introduced the debate. You introduced the debate saying that basically they were all, you know, chancers because of the Department of Finance…your views…”

Cooper: “It’s not…in fairness to Ivan, sometimes that is to provoke the response from the people to say ‘well no, we’re actually not chancers, this is what we’re doing and why we’re doing it’…”

In fairness.

Watch back in full here

Previously: Lose The Hattitude

 

Last night.

On Virgin Media News at 8pm.

The station’s political correspondent Gavan Reilly explained that people who have registered to vote in Ireland in recent months may not be registered in time to vote.

Mr Reilly explained:

“It’s emerged in the last couple of hours that basically anyone who has registered to vote, certainly in the last eight months, will not actually have had their registration processed in time for general election.

“And that is on the presumption that the general election is going to take place on either February the 7th or 14th.

“The reason for that is that, by law, the new Register of Electors takes effect every year, legally, on February the 15th which is just after we expect the election to actually be.

“And that means that anyone who’s registered in the last couple of months, who thought they’d be registered in time for a general election, actually won’t have been because the register that will be in place for the forthcoming general election will be this year’s register and not next year’s one. And they’ll have been added to the wrong one.

Now, it’s not too late to get added to this year’s one. There is the opportunity to get added to what’s called a Supplementary Register.

“But there’s an extra complication which is you can’t get added to a Supplementary Register until the election has officially been called. And of course, as of now, it hasn’t actually been.

“So only when the election is called will it be possible for people who are already registered on the pretence that they thought they’d be in on time, to get registered for this year’s one. And the time will be of the essence as well because they’ll have to get registered two weeks before polling is actually going to take place.

“And it means you could have tens of thousands of people – 18-year-olds who might be registering for the first time who already thought they were in before they needed to be done who now could have a fairly frantic couple of days, trying to get all the paperwork in on time.”

Meanwhile…

Watch back in full here

This afternoon.

At Dublin Airport.

TV3’s Virgin Media’s Political Correspondent Gavan Reilly plays piano in the arrivals lounge of Dublin Airport.

Take That, RTÉ

In fairness.

Earlier: Home Is Where The Arf Is

The event is being organised by European Movement Ireland

UPDATE:



Taoiseach Leo Vardkar leaves the Science Gallery.

Journalists were blocked from asking any questions.

Hmm.

Rollingnews

UPDATE:

Screen-Shot-2016-02-23-at-17.00.58C5ygRGYWAAIABK-
much better than those three giant png files that were slowing down screenloading. Anyone?

From top: Letter from Grace’s foster parents to then Minister for Health Michael Noonan in 1996; page 30 of the Conal Devine report; the panel on last night’s Tonight with Vincent Browne; Daniel McConnell; and Vincent Brown and Gavan Reilly, of Today FM

Last night.

On TV3’s Tonight with Vincent Browne, the panel – Fianna Fail TD Mary Butler, Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell, Labour TD Jan O’Sullivan and political editor at The Irish Examiner Daniel McConnell – discussed the Grace case.

It followed the publication of the 2012 Conal Devine and 2015 Resilience Ireland reports into the case yesterday.

Grace is a non-verbal, intellectually disabled woman,  now in her 40s, who lived with an abusive foster family for 20 years, until 2009.

Grace lived in the home for almost 13 years after the local health board decided to stop placing children at the home.

An original 1996 decision to remove Grace from the abusive home, amid allegations of sexual abuse, was overturned following representations to the then minister for health Michael Noonan in August 1996.

During the discussion, Gavan Reilly, of Today FM, read out tweets that were being directed at the show.

From the show…

Daniel McConnell: “Vincent, one of the starkest things that came out of the press conference today and also the interviews from the HSE’s designated spokesperson was, when it got to the idea of accountability, the three people who were involved in the decision to leave Grace in the home in 1996 – which was an overturning of an earlier decision to remove her from the home – they’re no longer with us, so, therefore, we can’t pursue that angle.”

The HSE don’t have powers of compellability so we can’t even ask them. So, therefore, it’s just, they’re gone, they’re off the hook. There are 11 other healthcare workers, remaining in the system, but yet the HSE are convinced that there’s no difficulty or there’s no risk to child. How do they know if they haven’t even asked the people who were involved, as to what went on?

Later

Gavan Reilly (after reading several tweets):  “It has to be said, Vincent, there’s one other common thread in the tweets and it’s something that I think relates back to a point that Daniel just made a few moments ago which is a lot of people are querying why there hasn’t been more made today, in the media coverage, about the role that Michael Noonan played in this, bearing in mind that Michael Noonan was the Minister for Health in 1996, when a decision was made to remove Grace from this particular home. The foster family, themselves, approached Michael Noonan, he passed it down the line and, ultimately, a decision was made, further down the line, not to remove Grace from that home.”

“Now, as Daniel has said, there’s obviously significant shortcomings in the fact that the three people responsible for that decision have yet to be approached by the HSE because, it says, it doesn’t have compellability – that is, possibly, the only lingering reason why a Commission of Investigation would still be a good thing. But, just to finish this point, Vincent.”

“The report today, and it has to be said, and there is other commentary around Michael Noonan, and no doubt there are questions to answer, the reports today, particularly, the Conor Dignam report, there is nothing damning about the handling of this case by Michael Noonan in that, quite simply, because it doesn’t go into any detail at all.”

“The only instance where Michael Noonan is invoked in that is  that the family wrote to Michael Noonan, Michael Noonan passed it down. There is no indication that Michael Noonan gave any instruction, either way, that’s something that has to be sounded out. But I just, I think, it should be said because a lot of people are wondering, they think that the coverage  is a little bit lacking because it doesn’t incorporate the role of Michael Noonan and I think the point just has to be made: that the reports today didn’t make any comment on the performance of Michael Noonan and it doesn’t shed any light on that.”

Watch back in full here

Related: Grace files: Grace scandal officials given senior roles (Irish Examiner)

Previously: ‘Confidence In The Institutions Of The State Is In Unequivocal Jeopardy’

Grace, Noonan and Monageer

Pic: Irish Examiner and Namawinelake