RTÉ executives are today to face questions in the Oireachtas following an internal RTÉ investigation which criticised the editorial control over a controversial series about cocaine use.
The two-part programme, High Society, was based on a book written by Justine Delaney-Wilson, who claimed to have interviewed a politician, an airline pilot and a nun who all said that they habitually take cocaine.
Publishing the findings, but not the report, RTÉ said the station's "established controls were not sufficiently exercised" over the programme, which "relied heavily on dramatisations of anonymous source material".
However, RTÉ's statement that it still believes the author's claim that a Minister admitted on tape that he took cocaine will infuriate members of the Oireachtas Committee on Communications, who meet RTÉ director general Cathal Goan today.
"Everybody here stands over the veracity of the programme. There is no reason not to," an RTÉ spokeswoman told The Irish Times, following the publication of the findings and recommendations of the inquiry.
But RTÉ is to stop for now making any factual programmes that "are largely dependent on anonymous contributors, or re-enactments".
"In a sensitive documentary series of this nature ... a greater level of access to, and interrogation, of the source material should have been sought by RTÉ," the report presented to the RTÉ Authority stated. New editorial rules will be put in place to govern the making of any programme that "relies heavily on an external publication as its primary source", while all programme makers will be expected to complete code of standards training.
RTÉ Authority chairwoman Mary Finan said some shortcomings in RTÉ's editorial processes existed but the authority accepted that the tougher rules "should ensure that such shortcomings will not recur.
"We are satisfied that, following what was a wide-ranging inquiry, this issue was confined to one series and is not endemic in RTÉ Factual," said Ms Finan, who was the only RTÉ figure available for interview. The High Societyprogramme had achieved the objective of focusing attention on "middle-class cocaine abuse in Ireland", she said, adding that this view is shared by drugs experts.
"Unfortunately recent events have shown all too clearly that the central thesis of these programmes about the prevalence of cocaine abuse in Ireland is grounded on tragic fact," she said.
In the statement, RTÉ tied the High Society programme to the highly-praised Prime Timeprogramme on cocaine use, which interviewed former users of the drug on camera.
Saying that RTÉ had a "key role" to play in informing the public, the RTÉ Authority expressed its support for RTÉ's role in focusing attention on difficult, and at times, unpalatable stories that it believes are in the public interest.
Ms Delaney-Wilson's lawyer could not be contacted for comment last night, while Michael Gill, the chairman of the book's publisher, Gill & MacMillan, said he had nothing further to add to a statement made by the publisher last month.
