Keep Bertie’s mimics off the air

I WOULD like to draw your readers’ attention to what I consider to be a serious lapse in standards by RTÉ, our tax and license-funded ‘national’ broadcaster, which has also been dutifully echoed in some press reportage.

I strongly object to the demeaning mimicry of evidence of the Taoiseach in the course of RTÉ’s news broadcasts on the tribunal.

The manner in which the actor did a take-off of Mr Ahern’s homely north Dublin accent and phraseology is in marked contrast to the upper crust — almost ‘Home Counties’ — tones of the learned counsel probing him for details of transactions that took place 14 years ago.

The Salem Witches-like mood generated by this style of reporting perhaps conceals a snobbish “better school, better address” attitude to a grassroots Dublin Taoiseach.

Anyone who appreciates the trauma in Mr Ahern’s domestic affairs at that time could hardly expect clear and detailed memories about different bank transactions on different dates in these circumstances.

After all, one of the sums which is so exciting the tribunal lawyers and blatantly partisan media commentators is almost 10 times smaller than a proposed consultant’s salary offer, which was dismissed recently by a spokesman as “Mickey Mouse money”.

I notice no media or leftwing outrage about that.

Incidentally, Mr Ahern’s transactions might bear comparison with the legal costs paid by the taxpayer to keep this tribunal running.

Looking back over the Taoiseach’s career and his massive contribution to industrial peace and unprecedented economic development, and his tireless and successful work for an historic Northern settlement, should put things in a proper perspective.

His achievements for this nation can be weighed against the contribution of his media critics, his detractors and his interrogators, but then that was the way the voters made their judgment at the last general election.

Gráinne Lawlor

Thornton

Kilsallaghan

Co Dublin