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RTE programme criticised in Dáil

Last month’s issue of Community Voice carried a story dealing with the upset caused to parents of children attending Scoil Choilm community national school in Porterstown by a programme carried on RTE’s Prime Time series. Johanna Tuffy speaking in the Dáil

According to school principal Treasa Lowe, “we are very concerned as a school community that the programme was not a fair or equitable depiction of our school.”

One angry parent who spoke to Community Voice said “the programme implied that there was segregation in the school and that there was a division between the children based on their religious beliefs. This is the complete opposite of what Scoil Choilm stands for.”

Another VEC run community national school is planned for the Lucan area. Speaking in the Dáil recently Labour Party Deputy Johanna Tuffy who represents that area was also highly critical of the RTE programme which she said attracted a number of complaints to the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI).

According to Deputy Tuffy, “although the programme was about the VEC model of national schools and about a particular school, the VEC was not invited to take part in the panel discussion afterwards. Instead it had a representative of an educational body [Educate Together] that is campaigning for a particular model of school and in reality is in competition with the VEC for school patronage. A representative of the Catholic Church was also on the panel. Those were two people not directly connected with the school, resulting in a very unbalanced discussion among the panel afterwards. That was not the fault of the members of the panel but the fault of the makers of the “Prime Time” programme,” she said.

Referring to the complaints made to the BAI, she said “I do not know if there will be any further coverage regarding that programme or what will happen as a result of complaints made to the broadcasting authority. Many people would have watched that programme and taken it to be fact. I took a look at it and could see it was unbalanced but some people have expressed comments to me that indicate they took the programme to be factual and a fair presentation of the situation. It was not.

RTE must look at that issue again.”

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