A homeless mother who phoned RTE Radio 1’s Today with Sean O’Rourke programme said she was “speechless” when she discovered that Michael Noonan and Brendan Howlin were given detailed information about her call in advance.
Yesterday The Times reported that advisers for Mr Noonan and Mr Howlin were shown questions from the public before the two ministers appeared on the phone-in programme on Wednesday, the day after they unveiled the budget.
The report was based on an eyewitness account from a reporter who was present for conversations between RTE staff and departmental advisers having been shown into the wrong room. The reporter watched as a Department of Finance adviser warned RTE personnel that the ministers would not do the interview unless the questions were provided.
Erica Fleming, 30, has been homeless since June and living in a Dublin hotel with her nine-year-old daughter. She contacted the show to express her view that the budget was not of assistance to her.
“I just think it’s really funny that the people we elected into government can’t think for themselves. As government ministers, they should be able to give a real honest answer and not have to have it written down in front of them,” Ms Fleming said. “I don’t think the question I was asking was very hard. It shouldn’t have caused so much fuss.”
Advertisement
Ms Fleming said she was contacted by RTE researchers after emailing the programme and expressing an interest in getting an opportunity to ask questions about her situation.
“I did not expect that they would have been preparing responses to my question. On that basis, it’s not really a response is it, it’s just a speech,” she added.
Before the radio programme started, department officials were heard describing Ms Fleming on the phone and devising what the ministers’ response to her question should be. Mr Howlin incorrectly claimed on air that Ms Fleming was receiving unemployment benefits, referencing notes he had been given on her question.
Michael McGrath, the Fianna Fail finance spokesman, said the government was attempting to control public debate.
“Perhaps naively, I always believed that this annual phone-in was a genuine, spontaneous engagement between the people and the ministers in which anything about the budget could be asked,” he said.
Advertisement
In a statement yesterday, RTE claimed that The Times story was inaccurate.
“At no time was a threat delivered that a minister would not appear on the programme as a result of his press advisers not seeing the questions in advance,” the broadcaster said. “In the case of yesterday’s programme, advance access to audience questions on specific individuals’ circumstances and post-budget queries was given to ministerial advisers as standard practice.”
“This protocol was agreed in advance as has been standard practice for years and there was no debate about access to the questions prior to going on air for that specific programme.”
The Times does not accept that its report was inaccurate.
A former adviser to a previous finance minister who had appeared on RTE for a similar post-budget show said they were not provided with any questions in advance in the past.
Advertisement
“We would get broad guidance about the topics that were going to come up. You might get a list that said pensions, childcare, income tax, that kind of thing. We never got the questions or any specific details about the person, I’m not even sure we got the caller’s name in advance,” the former adviser said.