MEDIA WATCH:Ears and eyes can detect little more than staid rhetoric on the burning electoral issues, writes MARY FITZGERALD
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT election campaigns are not known for scintillating debates, nor are they renowned for the kind of verbal jousting that will thrill viewers, listeners or readers.
To be fair, stories such as the fall-out from the Ryan report, and the jailing last week of Frank Dunlop, have dominated the domestic news agenda and all but drowned out the voices of sitting and prospective MEPs desperate to get their message across before the polls open on Friday.
After travelling through Sligo, Roscommon and Athlone recently, Le Monde journalist Elise Vincent opined that there was “notable lack of interest” from the Irish media when it comes to the race for the European Parliament.
That is a mite unfair, given the number of radio and TV debates featuring candidates for the European Parliament. True, many have proved lacklustre and oddly bloodless. All this despite the fact the Dublin constituency has been reduced from four seats to three. Then there is the pressure of the current economic climate and the subsequent discontent with the political status quo. And of course there is the Libertas factor.
The European media is fascinated with Libertas and many of those reporting from Ireland on the build-up to Fridays ballot have trooped to the North West constituency to join Declan Ganley on the hustings.
John Murray Brown, Financial Times Ireland correspondent, reported Ganley was momentarily taken aback when one woman in a Galway housing estate asked him: “Are you a power-seeking man?”
The Libertas phenomenon, and what it might mean for Europe, has been dissected in recent weeks by media outlets ranging from the Economist to Middle East Online.
But the party’s candidates have not been faring well on the national airwaves. Fine Gael MEP Mairéad McGuinness prompted a hearty round of applause from the audience during a debate on RTÉ’s Pat Kenny Show last week when she told Libertas candidate Raymond O’Malley his party was guilty of negative campaigning.
The day before, Caroline Simons, running for Libertas in Dublin, riled several listeners and audience members with her constant interruptions in another radio debate hosted by Pat Kenny. When one man, a Green Party member who said he voted against the Lisbon Treaty, asked about Libertas recruiting candidates in Europe with links to the far-right, Simons replied unconvincingly she was not aware of such candidates and even if they existed, they would soon be “whipped into shape” by the party.
The same debate was probably the liveliest so far, with Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan and Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald noisily trading barbs over each other’s record in Brussels. But one of the most amusing interjections came from the presenter himself after hearing Mary Lou McDonald gripe the “media establishment” did not tolerate debate on the Lisbon Treaty. “We’re browned off talking about Lisbon on this channel,” said an exasperated-sounding Kenny. “We did our bit in spades . . . until our listeners were bored.”
Too often debates featuring European parliament candidates have been hijacked by party politics and national issues that have little to do with the EU. Not much changed during the weekend radio shows. On Newstalk’s The Wide Angle yesterday, Sinn Féin’s Toireasa Ferris discussed the prospect of her party cosying up to Fine Gael for the next general election, Fianna Fáil’s Thomas Byrne admitted he wasn’t hearing much talk of Europe on the doorsteps, and Labour MEP Proinsias De Rossa rather childishly refused to even utter Declan Ganley’s name.
The candidates have just days to prove they can do better than the largely uninspired, pedestrian debates and interviews that have so far characterised the sprint for Brussels.