It’s absurd to suggest media jumped the gun on payments to Taoiseach

AT the opening of the Cleraun media conference in Dublin last Saturday, Communications Minister Noel Dempsey was forceful in criticising The Irish Times for breaking the story about the money given to Bertie Ahern.

“They should have delayed it because it was before a tribunal”, he said. “I feel very, very strongly that if the tribunal made the judgement that the Irish Times could then make their judgement and publish the material”.

This particular tribunal was set up in 1997 and at the rate it is going, God only knows when it will conclude. Bertie Ahern received the first of the money in 1993 when he was Minister for Finance, and he hung on to it for over nine years as Taoiseach. It is absurd to suggest that the media jumped the gun or showed disrespect for the tribunal. The argument could just as validly be made that the tribunal has shown disrespect for the media.