Expensive Watches, Wasteful Public Expenditure and the Mainstream Media

national | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis Wednesday October 06, 2004 08:50 by Michael Hennigan - Finfacts.com

O'Hanlon to foot bill following media coverage

It's always interesting to observe how individuals can be so generous with other people's money. €9,000 for a retirement watch looks certainly like gilding the lily. However, this is just an example of a 'sexy' story that can get public attention while so much else is ignored.

One of the recipients of the Cartier watches, the PD Party nominee on the now defunct Aer Rianta board said on RTE's Liveline that the Department of Transport had spent an estimated half million euros on private consultants on the breakup of Aer Rianta - to simply tell them what they should already know.

Both the Irish Times and RTE gave prominence to the watches story yesterday. Is this an example of greater public transparency? I don't think so.

Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone!!

Media organisations are far from transparent when it comes to their own corporate largesse. In fact the excuse of 'confidentiality' is used as blatantly as elsewhere. In the Aer Rianta case, the argument is that it's taxpayers' money. However, there is also an obligation of prudence on for example RTE- partly funded by a tax and the Irish Times, which has a tax-exempt status.