The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, will send a complaint "in the next few days" to the RTÉ Authority about this week's Prime Time programme about the purchase of a site for a new prison in north Dublin, his spokeswoman said yesterday.
Mr McDowell is personally working on the complaint, to be made under the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, and is expected to complete it today. He claimed in the Dáil on Wednesday that the Prime Time programme gave, and was deliberately calculated to give, a most misleading impression to viewers as to the sequence of events and the substance of the transactions concerning the purchase of the prison site.
Fine Gael and Labour used private members' time in the Dáil this week to criticise the Government for the purchase of the 150 acre site for €30 million, a price they say was vastly excessive.
Mr McDowell's complaint about the programme will be based on Section 3 of the Broadcasting Authority (Amendment) Act, which requires RTÉ to present news and current affairs material "in an objective and impartial manner".