Blurred Keys

As the World Health Organisation classes Ireland as the least violent country in Europe the church classes the violence levels as "close to a national emergency" according to the Irish Times.

While it might be wrong that anybody is being killed or murdered, the facts simply don’t back that there is any kind of crisis. Crime in the country is low per head of population, and there is no trend of alarming growth.

On the eve of the release of a WHO report that shows Ireland to be least violent state in Europe, the media and "leaders in society" are continuing to peddle outright twisted view that violence in the country is spiraling out of control, it simply isn’t.

In the Sunday Times yesterday a news report started with the view that the WHO report "seems to fly in the face of reality", the reality it seems is that the political and media hype flies in the face of reality and hard facts.

Challenging the idea that the level of violence is out of control is akin to challenging an urban myth that just won’t go away. Close to everybody is sucked into the myth and the fear, and the fear is irrational and near to unchallengeable.      

MORE: There is no crime crisis
MORE: Ireland ‘least violent country in Europe’
MORE: The hyping of crime

The director general of RTE has written a ‘Opinion Piece’ in response to the state broadcasters settlement with Beverly Flynn over a failed libel action.

The opinion piece by RTE director general Cathal Goan (pictured) was published in the Irish Independent yesterday and online at rte.ie. In it he defends RTE actions linked with the case and credits Charlie Bird and George Lee for "breaking an important story".

If Flynn had been declared bankrupt had RTE pursued her for full costs awarded to them Flynn was possibly in a position to lose her recently won Dail seat.

The settlement amounts to €1.225m, less then half of the  €2.3m legal costs, plus interest of €500,000, that RTE were first looking for. It lead to newspaper letter writers and commentators asking "If Beverley Flynn paid RTE half, why not us?" in regards to TV licences.

"Throughout this case my two overriding considerations were firstly;
protecting the integrity and independence of RTE, its journalism and
journalists and secondly ensuring value for money for licence-fee
payers. No other considerations, political or otherwise, were part of
my decisions at any time" Goan states, likely in reply to accusations over the last week of the possible influence of political pressure.

He went on to say, "If there is a political issue from all this it is about libel
reform. On the one hand when a person feels their name is damaged they
risk potentially catastrophic expense to seek redress. And on the other
the publisher is often left with the difficult choice of whether or not
to run stories where a mistake could result in huge legal bills. Or as
in this case, we can run a story of the highest standard, based on
excellent journalism of genuine public interest and value, be
challenged, win, and still end up paying a high price". Image (c) RTE