A representative for Siptu said he would give “a very guarded welcome” to RTÉ’s decision to strip back its coverage of Ireland’s forthcoming Uefa Nations League fixtures with Israel.
“It’s a small step in the right direction,” said Greg Ennis, deputy general secretary of Siptu, which has 620 members working for RTÉ. “I’d obviously prefer if there was no broadcast and if there was no games, ultimately. Then there wouldn’t be need for a broadcast.”
On Saturday, RTÉ announced it would not be running any ads or sponsorship during its coverage of both Ireland-Israel games. The national broadcaster also confirmed there would be no studio presentation, and commentary for the games would be taken from an international feed. A minimal technical team will be deployed.
Siptu wrote to RTÉ in June to request the broadcaster boycott coverage of the matches altogether. Ennis said Siptu’s members within the organisation had made it clear that “on moral and conscientious grounds that they do not want to be associated with [these games]”.
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“We’ve been consistent since we wrote to RTÉ in June that we don’t believe that these games should be broadcast,” he said. “So yes, I do welcome that it’s a much reduced, scaled-down broadcast, but I would prefer if they weren’t broadcast at all.”
In a statement, RTÉ said it was meeting its contractual obligations to broadcast the two games, adding that there would be news coverage of the games and the wider events surrounding them.
Ennis is a proponent of the Stop the Game campaign, and he was keen to emphasise that the issue of the games being played is more significant than an approach to coverage taken by a broadcaster.
He added it “galls” him that Ireland’s ostensible home fixture is being played in Serbia, where thousands of people recently attended the funeral of Ratko Mladić, a Serbian general convicted of genocide in the Balkans in the 1990s.
Siptu members in RTÉ communicated their feelings with the trade union via elected representatives from its various departments. Ennis said similar concerns were raised by workers across a variety of represented sectors that could be affected by the games going ahead, and he welcomed the objections they put forward.
“I think that has had a significant role or influence in RTÉ’s decision to have a very greatly reduced broadcast of the game,” he said.
