Scannal

This week’s Scannal takes a look back at RTÉ’s controversial drama from the 1970’s, The Spike, and the whirlwind that surrounded it. In 1978, RTÉ launched a 10 part drama series which was destined to become front page news. It raised uncomfortable issues about inequality in the Irish education system and in Irish society in general. It also featured the first ever naked Irish woman filmed by and shown on the national broadcasting service. The series was called The Spike and it was axed by RTÉ after the fifth episode. Set in a tough post-primary co-educational public sector school in an unspecified urban working class area in the late seventies, The Spike was a new departure for RTÉ Television drama. It was to be a gritty and realistic picture of a particular layer of the Irish education system and flowing from that a wider of picture of Irish society with all its inequalities, hypocrisy and incongruities. As soon as The Spike went on air, the letters pages of the newspapers were full of negative reviews and reactions. By episode five, The Spike had gone too far. The decision was taken by RTÉ’s Director General, Olivia Maloney, to withdraw it. The final episode aired dealt with adult evening classes and featured an art class involving a nude model. Although tastefully shot, the producer’s brave decision to show the nude model sounded the death knell for the series. Once actress Madelyn Erskine cast off her clothes, The Spike was doomed. In the ensuing days, The Spike and RTÉ were roundly condemned by the press, while RTÉ was inundated with irate letters and phone calls from angry viewers. County Councils up and down the country passed motions calling for the axing of The Spike, saying it was vulgar and suggestive and a slur on teachers and the education system. JB Murray, head of the League of Decency and a staunch campaigner against The Spike from the outset, suffered a heart attack while phoning the papers to complain about the nude sce

Today it would seem unthinkable but in the early 70s IRA prisoners broke out of jail not once but twice! A new coalition government came into power in early 1973, with a Fine Gael, law and order Taoiseach – Liam Cosgrave promising to take a no-nonsense approach to subversives. But on 31st October 1973 he was in for a shock. Three IRA men succeeded in pulling off a dramatic helicopter escape from Mountjoy Jail. At 3.30pm in afternoon, to the astonishment of prison officers, and the cheers of other prisoners, a helicopter scooped up three high-ranking members of the IRA: Seamus Twomey, J.B O’Hagan and Kevin Mallon, in the middle of a football game taking place in the prison yard. The chopper lifted off with the fugitives to the farcical shouts of prison guards attempting to foil the escape by shouting for the gates to be shut! The embarrassed Cosgrave Government reacted to the fiasco, ordering nationwide searches and the transfer of remaining republican prisoners from Mountjoy and the Curragh to Portlaoise prison After weeks on the run – Kevin Mallon was the first of the escapees recaptured at a GAA Dance in the Montague Hotel in Co. Laois. A republican comrade, Marion Coyle, was charged with attempting to shoot Gardaí arresting Mallon, but she was acquitted due to lack of identification. The government were to be even further embarrassed in January 1974 when a close associate of Mallon’s, Eddie Gallagher, along with Dr. Rose Dugdale hijacked another helicopter in Donegal to bomb the RUC station in Strabane from the air. The milk-churn bombs never exploded. Dugdale got away and went on to take part in the theft of the Beit paintings from Russborough House in Wicklow after which she was arrested and jailed. Gallagher too was subsequently jailed but not for long as, within 10 months of the Mountjoy escape in August 1974, 19 Republican prisoners blasted their way out of Portlaoise prison using old fashioned gelignite. Two of the 19 escapees were K

This week’s Scannal revisits the high-profile murder of French documentary filmmaker, Sophie Toscan du Plantier, on the Mizen peninsula in West Cork in 1996. There hadn’t been a murder on the Mizen peninsula in West Cork for a hundred years according to locals, but December 23rd 1996 changed all that. The brutal slaying of the well respected French documentary filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier on Christmas Eve that year cast a pall over the seasonal festivities, not only in the immediate area of Goleen and Schull, but right across the country. To this day nobody has ever been charged or convicted for this horrific crime. Sophie’s family learned of her killing from reports in the french media that night but it was to be over 30 hours before her body was examined and removed from the scene of the crime. In the early days media speculation about the murder was rife, but the Gardaí did not seem to have any obvious suspect. A local newspaper-stringer, Iain Bailey, who’d reported on the crime, was to become the focus of the enquiry – arrested twice he gave many media interviews acknowledging that he was a suspect but denying he had anything to do with the murder and he was never charged. Despite huge interest in the case in France, as months lead to years it seemed no closer to being solved. Bailey took a libel case against eight newspapers which attracted such huge interest that the presiding circuit court judge had to remind those in court that it was not a murder trial but rather a civil libel case. However the case did lead to a massive amount of testimony coming into the public domain about Bailey and the crime for the first time. Bailey brought actions aginst eight newspapers for libel – he won two of these cases and was awarded €8,000 in damages. In 2008 – after seeking justice for over 11 years – the Irish Authorities have finally agreed to send the files to their counterparts in France. Sophie’s body has been exhumed and French

This week Scannal delves into the story of National Irish Bank. Normally when you think of bank robbery, it’s the bank that’s being robbed, but the scandal of the National Irish bank story was that it was the bank that was caught stealing from its own customers. When the National Irish Bank story broke in January 1998 it changed the course of Irish banking forever. It was a scandal that saw the fourth largest bank in Ireland brought to its knees thanks to a courageous whistleblower. A scandal where two prominent journalists put their reputations on the line for what they believed to be the truth. A scandal that saw precedents set by the highest court in the land and a scandal that saw a well known TD ousted and shamed for her part in the proceedings. The story began with a phone call to RTÉ’s Chief News correspondent Charlie Bird. Charlie Bird worked on the story with RTÉ economics expert, George Lee. The first report was broadcast on the January 23rd, 1998. This first report dealt with tax evasion, specifically, the fact that the bank was helping its customers evade tax by availing of an offshore investment scheme on the Isle of Man. After the first broadcast, National Irish Bank were concerned about other confidential information being revealed and went to the High Court to stop RTÉ reporting any further reports using internal bank documents. The case went to the Supreme Court and in a landmark ruling, the court found in favour of RTÉ and on the March 25th, 1998 the second story about the bank was broadcast by RTÉ’s Six One News. An emergency cabinet meeting was called and the public wanted answers fast. The then Tánaiste, Mary Harney, ordered an inquiry and for Charlie Bird and George Lee, it seemed like a good end to their story. There was however, to be another twist in the tale. Beverley Flynn TD had worked in National Irish Bank and during the course of their investigations Charlie Bird and George Lee were told that she had encourage

On April 17th, 2002 an Irish political colossus fell upon his sword. The man in question was Bobby Molloy. Molloy had been a TD in Galway West for the previous 37 years, during which time he had represented two political parties and served in a variety of government positions. He resigned from his position as Minister for Housing and Urban Renewal because of the perception that he had attempted to interfere in a criminal case which was before the courts. The case in question was the serial rape of Barbara Naughton by her father, Patrick Naughton, over a period a nine years. This crime, which occurred in the Connemara townland of Camus, was of a particularly horrific nature. Patrick Naughton was tried between the October 22nd and 31st, 2001, and was found guilty. While Naughton was awaiting sentence, an official in Bobby Molloy’s office made a phone call to Judge Philip O’Sullivan enquiring about correspondence from Naughton’s sister. The judge also received a call from the dept. of Justice asking whether he’d take a call at home from Molloy later in the evening. Judge O’Sullivan said he wouldn’t, and terminated the phone call. In court the Judge drew attention to the phone calls and all hell broke loose. Molloy announced his resignation as Minister and announced his decision not to fight the next election. It was an ignominious end to an otherwise respectable political career. However, as time passed, the level of Mr Molloy’s involvement in the case became clearer. He had written repeated letters to the Minister of Justice asking for updates on unspecified requests from the defendant’s sister in relation to the case. There followed an exchange of fifteen letters between Ministers Molloy and O’Donoghue in which the Minister for Justice had finally to point out that he could have no role in a case which was being tried by the independent judiciary. And what of the victim who found herself in the eye of this political storm? What were h