Controversial historian Irving to appear on 'Late Late Show'

Controversial historian and Holocaust denier David Irving is due to appear as a guest on the Late Late Show tonight, RTÉ has …

Controversial historian and Holocaust denier David Irving is due to appear as a guest on the Late Late Showtonight, RTÉ has confirmed.

Mr Irving (69) is scheduled to take part in a debate on the freedom of speech along with several other participants, a spokesman said.

The Irish Anti-Nazi League has criticised RTÉ for extending an invitation to Mr Irving, claiming the show was "promoting someone who is an apologist for fascism and crimes against humanity".

The league plans to hold a protest at his appearance at the RTÉ studios in Donnybrook, Dublin 4, from 8.30pm tonight.

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The league's spokeswoman, Sarah O'Rourke, said: "One of the most respected shows on Irish television and Ireland's national broadcaster should not being giving a platform to someone who wishes to deny the horror of the Nazi Holocaust, which claimed the lives of six million Jews and other minorities."

"By allowing Mr Irving to speak, the Late Late Showare conveying the message that the horror of the Holocaust is matter of dispute rather than one of the greatest crimes of human history," she added.

Mr Irving served a prison sentence in Austria in 2006 for glorifying the German Nazi Party, which is a crime in the central European state.

He lost a high-profile libel case in London in 1998 against Penguin Books and US historian Deborah Lipstadt who had described him as a Holocaust denier in her book Denying the Holocaust.

Mr Irving has also been invited by the Philosophical Society at University College Cork  to speak in a debate on March 10th.

He will speak in favour of the motion: "That this house believes free speech should be free from restraint". The society would not confirm a venue for security reasons.