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FORMER RTÉ COMMENTATOR Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh has said that he is “really considering” a bid for the presidency and revealed he will make a decision between “now and the end of next week” after consulting his family.
Ó Muircheartaigh told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that he was considering a possible bid for the presidency because of the events of recent weeks: ”I’ve become involved through chance. I never set out to be anything in the political sphere.
“What’s really got to me is the vast surge of support from the people,” he said.
The former GAA broadcaster said that there had been a lot of “promised support” from people who would like to see him in the contest. But he would not say which politicians had contacted him only confirming that he had not been contacted by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.
He also said that he would “certainly run as an independent.”
Meanwhile, most Fianna Fáil TDs and senators want the party to run a candidate in the presidential election later this year according to a survey carried out by the Irish Independent.
Published today, David Whelan and Michael Brennan report that 25 of the party’s 34 TDs and senators were contacted in which 13 said they favoured a candidate, eight were undecided or refused to comment and only four were against the idea.
Former ministers Éamon Ó Cuiv and Mary Hanafin have been mooted as possible candidates in the past. The party’s MEP Brian Crowley has been most widely mentioned and included in recent opinion polls, securing 13 per cent in a recent Red C poll.
However the Independent’s survey found that only five of the party’s Oireachtas contingent would back Crowley to run.
Party leader Martin threw his support behind possible independent Gay Byrne before the broadcaster withdrew from the race before he had even entered it over the weekend. Yesterday part whip Seán Ó Feargháil said it would be weeks before a decision would be made by the parliamentary party.
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RTE did record a lot of stuff on tape, which was at the time prohibitively expensive, and was as a matter of course, recorded over, in order to cut costs.
Sad, but nothing unusual, as even the BBC did likewise, consigning much of their earlier stuff to the dustbin of history. Even now, many BBC releases, such as Dad’s Army, are partly comprised of home recordings made by viewers.
What stood to RTE was that they were more reliant on film, and as such that tended to survive.
As a matter of fact, RTE have an excellent repository, as borne out by much of Brendan Balfe’s work, down through the years. It’s a fairly safe bet that he will have a hand in this project. I have to give them credit for this, as a history buff myself, I’ll find it interesting.
Balfe relies on audio, and probably a personal archive too, video is very different. My problem is not with reusing tape but recording over significant footage blithely.
Haven’t they wiped most of the stuff before 1980? No Late Late archive to speak of and hardly any home produced programming from 60s has survived.
We’ll soon find out.
Think of the physical space required to keep long running shows like the Late Late or the Den archived – it’s no surprise they couldn’t keep it all!
Wonder if they’ll have that Prime Time Investigates show up?
Seriously though, I can’t imagine an organisation as overpaid and inept as RTE having the amount of organisation and talent it takes to organise a serious archive.
Haven’t they wiped a huge amount of stuff? No Late Late archive to speak of and little or no home produced programming from 60s has survived.
Yep.
Would they show the famous prime time interview c. 1997 of the fine gael leadership candidates. specifically enda kenny babbling waffle when he was asked about his economic policies. The look on his face was like a kid doing the leaving cert just realising he had studied the wrong paper. And that will explain why I could NEVER vote for FG
Don’t we see enough of Gay Byrne? Young people leaving by the thousand and he has so many income streams it is immoral. Just because his greed got him into trouble financially RTE and The government bail him out. Just like the developers he gets helped out by the taxpayer all because he gambled. He is a greedy guts with a smirk on his face because he can get away with this appalling behaviour. I bet he goes to mass on Sunday’s as well as he is typical of our politicians,developers,and bankers – all smug immoral cheats. I think Gay would let his kids emigrate instead of giving one of them just one of his jobs. RTE equal opportunities employer my xxxx
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