Nervous Naughten fails to convince with weak Dáil defence

Offering a detached personal opinion on a future ministerial decision you will take requires a feat of political gymnastics that is almost impossible to execute.

In outlining a weak defence for why he informed a lobbyist for Independent News and Media (INM) that he was likely to refer a mooted takeover by the company of Celtic Media for further examination, Denis Naughten, the Minister for Communications, did not prove the exception to the above rule.

In a nervous performance in the Dáil yesterday, Naughten attempted to explain how, in conversation with Eoghan Ó Neachtain, a former government press secretary acting for INM, he had expressed a “purely personal view” that the likeliest course of action of his deliberations was a further referral to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.

Under guidelines for proposed media mergers, the Minister for Communications of the day can refer such a takeover to the BAI if there are concerns for the plurality of media ownership.

INM and the minister: who said what to whom and when?

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Given the position across Irish media of Denis O’Brien, the major shareholder in INM, this was always a likely course of action. Naughten’s difficulty is that he did not apply the same standards to his public utterances that he did to his private.

"I have not made my views known and I am not going to," he told Sinn Féin's Brian Stanley in the Dáil on December 6th, 2016, the month after his private conversation with Ó Neachtain.

In the House yesterday, Mr Naughten repeatedly said the views he expressed to Mr Ó Neachtain were personal. He also maintained he told Mr Ó Neachtain he would likely follow the advice from his officials in making a call on whether to refer the INM-Celtic deal, which was abandoned last summer, to the BAI.

However, despite Mr Naughten saying that he and Mr Ó Neachtain had marched together to save Connacht Rugby, it is highly unlikely that the lobbyist rang him to discuss the form of a favoured team and the conversation merely happened to turn to INM.

This was a lobbyist engaged by a party to a takeover ringing the Minister under whose remit the proposed acquisition fell. To describe the opinions expressed in the duration of the short mobile phone call – with no official record kept of it – as merely personal stretches credulity.

Naughten displayed an error in judgement in taking the call, and said yesterday he would have preferred if he had not done so. He also exhibited a looseness in conversation he likely now regrets.

Wider audience

He did, after all, refer the proposed takeover to the BAI. But if, just once, he had publicly expressed the view that he believed the takeover would likely be referred to the BAI – a step he clearly believes was obvious – then there would be no issue.

If the process was as public, as he and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar argued throughout yesterday, Naughten would have felt no restriction in offering his view on what was likely to transpire to a wider audience than Mr Ó Neachtain.

That he did not do so was the key weakness of his defence during a special question and answer session in the Dáil , but Naughten has probably done enough to stave off further trouble, unless further damaging details emerge.

As of now, there is no great appetite among Opposition parties to table motions of no confidence, although Sinn Féin says one cannot be ruled out.

The definite charge in the atmosphere that takes hold of Leinster House at moments of high political drama, such as when a minister's job is on the line, was lacking yesterday.

All opposition leaders bar one asked Mr Varadkar about the controversy during Leaders's Questions at noon, but the bite that took hold when, for example former Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald was in difficulty before Christmas, was not apparent.

As in all these matters under the confidence and supply arrangement, the matter rests with Fianna Fáil, and the main Opposition party is unlikely to push matters towards calling for Mr Naughten's resignation.

Timmy Dooley, Fianna Fáil's communications spokesman, last night said he didn't want "to escalate things" and added that any question of forcing a resignation was above his pay grade.

Other party sources privately said that, while they will attempt to stoke the embers of the controversy in the coming days, it is not of the order of the Fitzgerald crisis which brought the country to the brink of an election.

One party frontbencher remarked that business around Leinster House is often based on loose conversation, and it is. Another said: “It is a lesson for us all, we are all inclined to chatty with people.”

But Mr Naughten shared his insights with a lobbyist with an interest in his future ministerial decisions, while being scrupulous about keeping his counsel with everybody else. His problem was applying different standards on to who he was loose with.