Claws out after crime drama’s cat scene

RTÉ’s hit drama Love/Hate lived up to its name as it began its latest series by attracting praise for its portrayal of the gardaí, but sparking anger over the killing of a cat.

The first episode of series four of the groundbreaking show about gangland crime in Dublin attracted 971,000 viewers on Sunday night — 53% of the viewing public.

It introduced Garda characters in a significant way for the first time, and while series writer Stuart Carolan had said recently he was worried about how real members of the force would react, the response was generally positive.

Former assistant garda commissioner Martin Donnellan said he was impressed by the character of Inspector Mick Moynihan. He said the lucky break the inspector enjoys when a member of the gang returns to the scene of a tiger kidnapping out of concern for the welfare of one of the victims, was not completely far-fetched.

“Often times in this situation the guards need a break of some description. Often it comes from DNA or a good witness,” he said.

And while there was some scepticism about a daylight exchange between gangland leader Nidge and a uniformed member of the force who is in the gang’s pocket, the retired senior officer said overall, the script was realistic.

“I certainly hope that [the buying off of gardaí] never happens. I know there is always the danger but in our investigation units it was my experience that we never had problems with that type of thing. It would be a sad day that we would have some of our own people snitching on others.”

He said the test of how realistic the show is will come as the series progresses, as in reality, to break a gang like Nidge’s, it would take extensive surveillance and intelligence gathering, which was hugely labour intensive.

While the arrival of the boys in blue to the show went down well, the swift dispatching of a feline character drew severe criticism, with one animal charity urging a boycott of the programme in protest.

The Animal Rights Action Network (ARAN) said the machine gun shooting of the cat in the opening sequence by two teenagers glamorised cruelty to animals.

Spokesman John Carmody said: “ARAN is incensed and angered, and whilst we are aware the cat was not actually killed, this scene does irreparable damage to our work of curbing violent crimes towards animals and comes at a time of record reports of violence towards animals around the country.”

He called on the show’s producers to make a donation to school education programmes teaching young people about the importance of treating animals with kindness and respect.

RTÉ confirmed it had received 17 complaints about the scene, but stressed the cat was not harmed.

“Under the supervision of an experienced animal handler, Eddie Drew, the cat had a fishing line attached to its collar to lead it in the necessary direction and stop it as it ran,” RTÉ said.

“The line was removed in post-production. The impact blood splatter was created through computer generated imagery effects in post-production.”

RTÉ added that the cat was seen by a vet post filming and was in good health.