Ireland Film & Television Net : News

MMDS and the Ray Burke Controversy

The fallout from cheque '9922' continues unabated as politicians and the media savage each other over the implications of a £30,000 payment to politician Ray Burke (a Fianna Fail party member) and the tribunal into payments to politicians has been asked to investigate the matter.

The facts are clear but the details vary wildly according to who you happen to be listening to. Ray Burke, a Government Minister, received a cheque for the sum of £30,000 made out to cash from two executives of Fitzwilton, Robin Rennicks and Paul Power, as a "contribution to the political party". Power and Rennicks were selected to hand the money over to Burke in person rather than hand the cheque into party headquarters. Fitzwilton claim that they contribute to all political parties and that this was in no way an attempt to influence the man in charge of telecommunications nor did they see any problem in the method of payment. The cheque was cashed the next day and the following week the minister kept his seat at the general election retaining the communications portfolio, even after he was promoted to Minister for Justice.

Ray Burke held onto £20,000 for 'local constituency expenses' and only £10,000 seems to have made its way to party headquarters. The how, why, and what (as in, what the hell is going on here!) are to say the least varied.

Tony O'Reilly, the billionaire tycoon, who dominates the Irish newspaper industry through his Independent Newspapers group is chairman of Fitzwilton. Fitzwilton has said that O'Reilly was "absolutely not" aware that the payment was made and that Kevin McGovern, the Chief Executive, had authorised the payment. "O'Reilly was also "absolutely not" aware at the time that the money was paid by way of cheques made out to cash. Four months after he was re-elected Ray Burke awarded Princes Holdings, an Independent Newspaper subsidiary Company, seven of the franchises to operate the multi-channel, multi-point microwave television distribution system, ie MMDS. Companies in which Princes Holdings had a stake also won another 11 of the 29 franchises, and Prince Holdings has since taken those companies over.

As it turned out it was a linked political issue which had the main players showing their hands. For MMDS to work the government had to close rural illegal deflector operators in order that the successful applicants would have exclusive rights to their areas. MMDS is aimed at the market in rural Ireland and voters in these areas felt strongly about losing cheap television reception run by local people to more expensive MMDS, run by corporations about which they know nothing and care less. As we all know the only thing closer to a politician's heart than money is votes (one being a prerequisite for the other); rural voters felt so strongly that they elected Thomas Gildea, who stood for the Dail (Parliament) as an anti-MMDS candidate. Needless to say this scared the hell out of politicians (who stood for the Dail on the very important issue of being long standing party members) - the Government refused to move on the deflector operators fearing a public backlash and Princes Holding may have lost IR£25 million and is now planning legal action. The best laid plans of men and mice etc etc.

In 1996 O'Reilly personally asked the then Taoiseach (Prime Minister) John Bruton (Fine Gael party member) to act on the deflector issue. Bruton did nothing, which resulted in sending the politicians and the media tycoon on a collision course.

Now let's be honest - this squalid little affair is disgraceful but then who the hell trusts a politician anyway. What has transformed an alleged piece of insider dealing into a open blood battle is the enormous power wielded by Tony O'Reilly through his almost complete control of the newspaper industry in Ireland. According to The Guardian newspaper at a follow up meeting, after O'Reilly met the Taoiseach, Independent executives warned that the Government would "lose Independent Newspapers Group as friends". The Independent's own minutes noted "We said that large numbers might be at stake and that this surely would not be good for the Government in an election year". The Irish Independent came out strongly against the Government. The crux of the issue is, did O'Reilly directly attempt to influence the '96 election through editorial comment against Fine Gael and warn others of his power and does O'Reilly have too much power? Certainly his influence is being felt as many commentators are noting that Independent Newspapers rallies to the defence of it's Chief Executive in amazingly loyal fashion for employees of a man who "does not intervene in the editorial comment of his newspapers".

Amazing how an application for a franchise in MMDS raises questions about the fundamental quality of our democracy. Naturally enough all of this will be lost in a swamp of legal papers and submissions which will run for as long as it takes the public to forget what the original issue was about, after which time the tribunal will issue a 5 million page report that no one knows whether to weigh or read and if anyone does bother to read it, I bet the conclusion will read "We are very sorry but it all turned out to be a frightful misunderstanding and actually nobody's really to blame at all, (P.S. how would the tax payer like to settle the bill, we will naturally accept a communal arm and leg).

-->