Commission agrees Gibbons was unfairly treated by RTE

A claim that the late Mr Jim Gibbons was treated unfairly in RTÉ television programmes on the 1970 arms crisis has been upheld by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.

The complaint was made by his daughter, Ms Barbara O'Keeffe. RTÉ insisted that Ms O'Keeffe's brother, Senator Jim Gibbons, had declined to participate in the programmes.

Mr Jim Gibbons, the Fianna Fáil minister for defence at the time, was a central figure in the arms crisis, which saw the dismissal by Mr Jack Lynch of Mr Charles Haughey and the late Mr Neil Blaney from the cabinet. They were subsequently acquitted of charges relating to the illegal importation of arms.

Ms O'Keeffe asserted that the RTÉ Prime Time programmes, which were shown in April, May and December 2001, failed to provide an objective and impartial analysis of the events and were unfair and unbalanced. She claimed that there was no attempt to invite participation or comment from Mr Gibbons's family.

"Relatives of other deceased interested parties were facilitated in commenting on various issues raised. The participants were almost of the same viewpoint on the arms crisis, i.e Capt James Kelly, Col Michael Hefferon and others were innocent victims of a State cover-up organised by Jim Gibbons and Jack Lynch."

Ms O'Keeffe said that in one programme an anonymous juror had accused Mr Gibbons of perjury. "Opinions of anonymous individuals were unchallenged and unquestioned by the programme presenter and were left to stand as facts. This calls into doubt the balance and objectivity of the programme."

Ms O'Keeffe said the programmes amounted to trial by television. "The accused were Desmond O'Malley, Jim Gibbons and Jack Lynch - the latter two are dead and their reputations have been destroyed by these poorly researched and hopelessly biased programmes.

"The fact that two of the principal victims are dead is very significant. Dead men cannot defend themselves. The treatment of Des O'Malley was very different to the treatment of Lynch and Gibbons. It is a case of it being safe to criticise dead men and not live ones."

In its response, RTÉ said the programmes had provided a reinterpretation of events which had happened 30 years ago in the light of evidence found in recently-released documents.

"RTÉ believes that public service broadcasting in a functioning, healthy democracy must be able to evaluate critically important historical events, even when that process may cause hurt to the relatives of those involved at the time."

RTÉ said that Senator Jim Gibbons had been invited to contribute through an interview to the first programme in April. "The offer was made by telephone through Iarla Mongey [head of the GIS] on April 4th.

"The producer provided Mr O'Malley and Iarla Mongey with the documentation on which the programme was based. Senator Gibbons declined to participate, as did Mr Desmond O'Malley TD.

"RTÉ does not accept that the approach of the Prime Time production team indicated an issue of bias and lack of balance in its approach to potential participants in the programmes.

"In regard to the December 13th programme, as a result of the refusal to become involved in April, the producer concluded the Gibbons family was not interested in going on camera in related matters."