RTE or any media organisation should operate with the laws and be held accountable. That’s a given. No excuse and in a lot of cases they get pulled and corrected.
Except that you go on to make a specific complaint about that very accountability process having been played out in the case of a SF member.
In this case a sitting TD has pulled in a substantial payment. Obviously something was said. By who or what we don’t know as it didn’t cause a ripple at the time. It wasn’t a reported story and caused any outrage. In July the story broke of the court proceedings and again, was little known of what was said. Now it has been settled and weeks later it has come out of the payment. As of yet, there hasn’t been an official apology by RTE or Joe Duffy. It seems the TD was after the money and not interested in a public apology to clear his defamed name. Maybe that will come but it’s fairly standard in such places.
I think the most important thing is to hold the state broadcaster to account and correct what they have said. From a TD this should be main driver of getting the record corrected. Not a six figure pay out for something that never caused a ripple.
How do you know his motivation was financial? Perhaps a confidentiality agreement prohibits any apology giving specifics of the case, and perhaps a commitment from RTÉ that it cannot and will not say whatever it was that was said, ever again, and that this is the main motivator. Besides, even if his motives
were financial (and you have no idea what he might intend to do with the money (it's not unusual for charities to benefit from such settlements for instance), it doesn't really matter, because if anyone, TD or otherwise, is slandered by the state broadcaster, they are perfectly entitled to challenge it, regardless of how important a potential payout is for them.
Secondly, I expected the normal flood of usual suspects defending SF and them not having a clue what’s it about. They mad keen to hold RTE to account when it harms them, yet last week it was the devil for trying to protect itself from similar happening again when Joe Brolly wanted to talk without been checked.
And how disappointing that there hasn't been any such "flood" of messages defending SF. Only two posters (myself included) have discussed it with you, and I for one am not discussing it in terms of SF. You're the only one who seems to be interested in the story due to the SF aspect. I'm discussing it in terms of the rights and wrongs of slanderous comments being made by a state broadcaster. I don't care what party you belong to or what your motivations are - if the state broadcaster slanders you, they ought to be taken to task. I find it revealing, that in this story, where a person was slandered by the RTÉ, your reaction is to fixate your criticise upon the victim of the slander.
Finally, back to the money. SF like to talk about state money, insurance reform and be seen handing back money in pay increases. But here we have a TD happy to pursue state money and take the money and run. Maybe it’ll go to party funds or to charity but if this was settled a number of weeks back, why no formal apology and statement as to where the funds are going?
Possibly because it's is absolutely none of your business where the funds going. Nobody who settles a dispute out of court is under any obligation to tell you or me what they do with the money.
