Ahern and ministers are to blame — not RTÉ

JOHN CREGAN TD, chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, is critical of the amount of time RTÉ has devoted to the coverage of the Taoiseach’s engagement with the Mahon Tribunal (Letters, March 1).

Both your leader and Ryle Dwyer’s column of the same day provide Mr Cregan with the answers to the points he has raised.

Mr Ahern is only the second Taoiseach whose finances have been the subject of tribunal investigation.

As your leader writer put it, the culture of dig-outs, ‘loans’ from party funds, personal and political donations meaning different things, raises all sorts of unpalatable questions that will not go away until the details promised are revealed. RTÉ’s coverage of this affair is not bringing the body politic into disrepute — it is the actions of Mr Ahern and of his cabinet colleagues that are dragging politics into disrepute.

Jim Quigley

The Headlands

Sarsfield Road

Cork