The solicitor representing Fr Kevin Reynolds said this morning the priest was not seeking revenge and added that the fine of €200,000 imposed on RTÉ by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI ) following its libellous Prime Time Investigates programme Mission to Prey reflected the seriousness of the lapse in editorial standards at the station.
Yesterday the BAI published a damning report into the programme which falsely claimed Fr Reynolds had sexually abused a young girl and fathered her child while a missionary in Kenya.
The report was heavily critical of journalism standards involved in the broadcast and found there was a significant failure of editorial and managerial controls within RTÉ, that note-taking was either non-existent or grossly inadequate and that in some cases gossip was treated as fact.
Speaking on the Marian Finucane programme which was presented by Claire Byrne this morning, the priest’s solicitor Robert Dore said it Fr Reynolds was focused on his communion mass in Ahascragh, Co Galway which took place this morning.
He said Fr Reynolds was anxious to get on with his life as a parish priest and said he had no desire for revenge.
“Father Kevin is not a vindictive person. He hasn't a vindictive bone in his body. He personally is not out for revenge,” Mr Dore said. "He has drawn a line in the sand and wants to get on with his life but unfortunate reality is that this is the story that won't go away."
He said it was "sad to see" RTE reporter Aoife Kavanagh had resigned last night but suggested she had no other option given the findings of the report. He paid tribute to Anna Carragher who conducted the BAI investigation and said she had produced a “considered” report.
The Minister for Communications Pat Rabbitte said last night that RTÉ faced a major challenge in re-establishing trust with the Irish people. He said he planned to meet members of RTE’s board early next week.
Mr Dore said he and Fr Reynold's would "await with interest what will transpire on Tuesday morning, what the outcome of that meeting will be. That’s a matter for the minister not for myself or Father Kevin.”
Mr Rabbitte said "regaining that trust is critical for RTÉ given that it is the public service broadcaster and significantly funded by the TV licence,” he said.
Among the report’s other findings were that:
The secret filming of the cleric and a doorstep interview was an unreasonable breach of his privacy;
There was a significant failure of editorial and managerial controls within the organisation;
It also failed to recognise the grave injustice which could be done to Fr Reynolds;
There was a lack of scrutiny and challenge within the department and overreliance on the team’s past experience, which led them into a “groupthink” mentality;
RTÉ did not waive its claim to privilege in the solicitor/client relationship between itself and its in-house legal staff.
RTÉ said it accepted the authority’s findings and expressed deep regret for the errors committed.
The broadcaster – which described the defamation as one of the gravest in its history – also published an independent report from Prof John Horgan into the safety of editorial processes and said it was training RTÉ staff in new guidelines.
The broadcaster’s director general, Noel Curran, said the findings did not make for easy reading. “We are not proud of . . . the findings. However, we have learned from and we will continue to learn from these grave errors,” he said.