Madam, – It is both facile and wrong of Dr Diarmaid Ferriter to attempt to dismiss Anthony Jordan's publicising of RTÉ's secret deal to promote Mr Ferriter's book Judging Devas "good old-fashioned Irish begrudgery and resentment about a successful project" (Home News, April 17th).
Using the Freedom of Information Act, Mr Jordan has uncovered facts surrounding deals whereby a sanitised, Fianna Fáil friendly, version of de Valera’s career was disseminated over the airwaves by RTÉ, the national broadcaster, and, possibly more importantly, in schools, (at a cost of €36,000) under Fianna Fáil’s Mary Hanafin, the then minister for education.
The really important point here is that when Mr Jordan offered his book on WT Cosgrave to the department for free, he was told that it would not be a “proper use of resources to distribute this book to schools” .
Dr Ferriter is entitled to his views, and to write whatever he likes about de Valera. But the viewers and listeners should have been told at the time that the considerable amount of programming devoted to his book stemmed, not from an independent assessment of its merit, or importance, but from a contract entered into by RTÉ with the book’s publishers, the Royal Irish Academy, from which RTÉ derived royalties.
This agreement, uncovered by the use of the Freedom of Information Act, committed RTÉ to promoting the book on television, radio, and on its web site.
As a practising author for almost half a century, I never before heard of such a commitment being entered into by the national broadcasting organisation.
I understood the position to be, as indeed an RTÉ spokes person is quoted as saying in the Irish Times report, that: “RTÉ does not and cannot commit to securing any level of editorial publicity for a project whether on RTÉ programmes or in other media”.
I, not being aware of this agreement, took part in good faith in a debate with Dr Ferriter, (a pleasant man) during the hurricane of publicity which RTÉ unleashed about his book, although I remember thinking at the time that the setting was somewhat unusual for a discussion, not about Dáil proceedings, but about a book – the Oireachtas Report programme.
Had I known of the contract, or of Ms Hanafin’s department’s intention to spend public monies in placing the book in schools, I would certainly have drawn attention to these highly relevant facts and stated that we were engaged in a publicity exercise aimed at rehabilitating de Valera’s reputation with an obvious potential for a beneficial knock-on effect for Fianna Fáil.
I don’t know Mr Jordan, nor have I read his book. But I do think he has at least an understandable prima facie case for feeling aggrieved at the rejection of his free offer by the Department of Education and by the amount of free publicity given to a rival book by RTÉ.
Despite Dr Ferriter’s rather ad hominem rejection of his findings, it is surely a reasonable proposition that if the Department of Education chooses to pay for the dissemination of a work to State-run schools on the life of the man who sought to destroy the State at its inception, then, for reasons of balance alone it would have been “proper” that a book on the life of the man who presided over the successful resistance to that attempt, WT Cosgrave, should also be made available – especially, in these straitened times, if it were offered free? – Yours, etc,