Supine media peddle Garda lie on death of young Dublin man

By John O’Brien 

It’s a great relief to find that the Independent newspaper group, having briefly flirted with news and serious analysis about two weeks ago, has reverted to type and is once more spewing out the dishonest misrepresentation that is their hallmark.
Having led the charge in favour of the abolition of stamp duty – avoiding the reality that the only beneficiary would be the builders, who would pocket the extra cash instead of the Government – the daily Indo shocked the nation by publishing an article that explained exactly why stamp duty abolition, though superficially attractive, was really only a con trick.
The point is that in a market economy, there is a definite amount of money available for things like house purchase: some of that money goes on the house itself (including the land speculator’s, the builder’s, and other chancers’ fees); some of it goes on auctioneer’s fees, and some on legal costs; and some of that money goes to the State in stamp duty.
Abolish stamp duty, and the price won’t go down, because the market has set the price.  Instead, the spare cash will mean a bit extra for the builder and the land speculator.
If the nation was shocked that there was a serious news piece in the Indo, there was consternation in the management boardroom,
Somebody was apoplectic. Possibly because he/she is planning a major house sale and wants every cent he/she can get?  In any case, it came as no surprise to see in last week’s edition of the nation’s lowest gutter rag, the Sunday Independent, that the Indo group have returned to the fray on the stamp duty question.
Underneath a stirring headline which told us that “Bertie sinks as the house market goes under”, the Sindo explained that it was the stamp duty issue that had caused the Government’s “collapse” in one of the paper’s notorious polls (actually this poll indicated that Fianna Fáil had gone up two points and the Rainbow down two).
But it didn’t suit the Sindo’s agenda to discuss Fianna Fáil support going up after Brian Cowen had given the thumbs down to Sir Anthony’s demand for the abolition of stamp duty so, in the tradition of what passes for free journalism here, the Sindo ignored the poll’s real content and chose to waffle instead about Bertie’s popularity levels.

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Talking of which, were you as taken as I was by that poll in the Belfast Telegraph?
This poll, of course, was ignored by the southern media, for whom only two parties – the SDLP and the UUP – are worthy of serious mention. But it is a bit hard to explain how, when northerners were asked which politicians were regarded favourably or unfavourably, the highest number of favourable responses was achieved by – wait for it – Bertie Ahern.
Bertie scored a resounding 27% (well, resounding by comparison with Tony Blair’s 18% and Peter Hain’s 12%).  Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams were the next most favoured politicians, on 23% and 21% respectively, but both of them had high unfavourable scores as well: 53% each.  43% of Catholics thought Adams was good news, while only 6% held Paisley in high regard, with a massive 75% of Catholics not liking Paisley at all.
Conversely, 77% of Protestants have yet to be won over by the charms of Gerry Adams.  But after Adams, the most disliked politicians among Protestants were Blair (62%) and Hain (53%), with Catholics disliking them to the tune of 42% and 44% respectively.
Who, we may ask, are the most anti-English of us all?  Fintan O’Toole, shake in your boots!

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For any parent to lose a child is a most grievous loss, and the death of Clondalkin’s 24-year-old Derek O’Toole was naturally a terrible tragedy for his family and friends.
The mysterious circumstances of his death are being investigated, but someone spread the story – and the gutter press published it as fact – that Derek O’Toole was “known to the Gardaí”.  This is a well-known euphemism for indicating that someone is a criminal or drug dealer.
In Derek O’Toole’s case it was totally and completely untrue, something the Gardaí were forced to acknowledge soon after the scurrilous publication of this “story”.
But not one of the rags that published this – including RTÉ, the state broadcaster – acknowledged their own guilt in the matter, or apologised for the lies they spoke and wrote about this young man – words that, naturally, added to his family’s grief.
It’s what we should expect from the free market in journalism, of course.
We don’t know yet how exactly Derek O’Toole died, but that hasn’t stopped RTÉ’s Paul Reynolds, himself the son of a Garda, from going overboard in pushing out a version of events that reflects best on the Gardaí – even though the investigation is barely begun, let alone completed.
But what has been almost completely glossed over is where this story came from. In fact, it came from “Garda sources”.  The Gardaí were keen to paint Derek O’Toole in an unfavourable light by implying that he was a criminal and hoping thereby that public concern would be reduced.
This was a dirty trick, but don’t hold your breath for any investigation as to who leaked the lie.  It certainly adds to suspicion concerning the incident, but once again it’s the Gardaí who are investigating themselves, so even if there is something wrong it’s unlikely to get official acknowledgement.
And with RTÉ acting as prime cheerleader for the Gardaí who ran over him, it’s unlikely that there’ll be any journalistic investigation either.