It’s all laughter and smiles down at the Irish Times…

I know I shouldn’t but… Noel Whelan is unhappy with Sarah Carey.

It is simply inaccurate to say, as Sarah Carey did on this page on Thursday, that I suggested that RTÉ should not have broadcast the content of Simon Coveney’s tweet until they got a response from the Fianna Fáil press office to their query on whether the Taoiseach was “unwell”. The second half of her article was premised on this inaccuracy. The new rule of political coverage for which she and others appear to argue is that the requirements of accuracy should not get in the way of the need for pace and drama.
What I did say and reiterate here is that RTÉ itself should have checked whether the allegation in the text that the Taoiseach was drunk had any basis in fact before parroting it on the airwaves. RTÉ had at least five staff on site in Galway, including the presenter and producer of Morning Ireland itself. Any or all of these could quickly have put together a full picture of the extent of the Taoiseach’s partying the night before and more importantly what physical condition he presented during the interview.
….
Importantly, when given an opportunity to do so later in the day, RTÉ’s senior correspondent on the ground, David Davin Power, was unequivocal on the central point. The Taoiseach, he said, did not when he last saw him late the previous night appear to be “impaired” in any way and there was no evidence to suggest he was hung-over or drunk during the interview.

And what did Sarah Carey say?

And so we come to that tweet, the germ of a hundred columns and radio items on social media. That would have been predictable enough, but I’m afraid Noel Whelan’s arguments on Today with Pat Kenny on Radio 1 yesterday dug the hole deeper.

He’d moved on from blaming Coveney and Twitter to blaming RTÉ. Apparently the real crime was not that Coveney would dare to tweet what everyone else was thinking, but that RTÉ would let us know. Whelan was unusually shrill and genuinely furious that Pat Kenny had broadcast the accusation. He argued it was the responsibility of the mainstream media to check its facts rather than channelling unconfirmed rubbish from the interweb.

When Kenny said they had formally asked the Fianna Fáil press office whether the Taoiseach was “unwell” but received no response, Whelan said they should have waited for one. Hello Pravda .

While there is a lot of garbage on Twitter, there were undeniable facts. Simon Coveney did make the public statement. He described the Taoiseach’s condition in precisely the terms that many other people did without requiring a political analyst to tell them what they’d heard. Several journalists confirmed the fact that the Taoiseach was in the bar until after 3am, and was seen drinking pints. Radio stations were inundated with complaints about the Taoiseach’s interview before Coveney’s tweet was reported.

Whelan’s attack on RTÉ for broadcasting the blindingly obvious without getting permission from the Fianna Fáil press office was way off the mark. It took a slightly incredulous Fintan O’Toole to remind him that the Government has spent two years in green jersey mode, warning us all to behave in front of the international press.

By the way, what about this? Loyalty in such unexpected places these days...

Still, it might explain why there’s been so much hesitation to do anything in FF. Can’t move forward, can’t move back.