



Yesterday’s Sunday Independent, above; Group Business Editor at INM, Thomas Molloy, top; and Mark Malone, middle

Mark Malone, of Sound Migration, joined the panel of RTÉ Radio One’s Marian Finucane via telephone yesterday morning.

Among the panellists were Irish Times columnist and former Fianna Fáil adviser, Noel Whelan, and Thomas Molloy, Group Business Editor at Independent News and Media.

Mr Malone was invited to talk on the show because he attended Saturday’s protest in Dublin.

As Ms Finucane interviewed Mr Malone, the discussion turned towards Independent News and Media, Denis O’Brien and how GMC Sierra – a subsidiary of Mr O’Brien’s company, Siteserv – won a contract to install water meters.

Marian Finucane: “Mark you were on the march yesterday.”

Mark Malone: “I was indeed, yeah.”

Finucane: “And you were coming from Stoneybatter?”

Malone: “Yes I was coming from Stoneybatter. But if I could just first address some of the comments there…”

Finucane: “Sure.”

Malone: “I think the level of debate there is pretty poor in that you get the sense that ‘these are the times of the poor politicians who go in to the job with a great heart and, unfortunately, some hard decisions are made and, you know, there’s not a lot of respect there’. You talk about the idea of playing the person, rather than the ball. I mean public policy plays the person all the time. If you’re [inaudible], if you’re at the back end of disability cuts, if you’re at the back end of being put back on JobBridge, if you’re experiencing that, that’s you being played.”

Finucane: “Can I go back, I’ll come to that with you. But can I go back first of all to yesterday. What was it like? What was the atmosphere? How many were there? What was the spirit of the thing?”

Malone: “It was a really good atmosphere, I mean, as you probably know, it wasn’t really organised by any political organisation. This is a community response, a grass-roots level response and organised, mostly, through local campaign groups. So, as I say, I was involved with the Phibsboro group, we have folks there from Stoneybatter, from Broadstone, we kind of marched down, there was a couple thousand of us and we met up with folks coming from Heuston, who came from, landed at Heuston, I guess from all over the country. So that’s it. The tone was very relaxed. You know, most of us didn’t really have an idea where we were going, we were kind of walking around town, celebrating the fact that we were out. We were cognisant that over half the people haven’t signed, so it’s very clear that we’re winning this. As much as it likes to get spun, when you see that Denis O’Brien’s media, funnily enough, comes out and condemns an attack on democracy while Denis’ company is putting in the water meters, I mean you don’t need to be very smart to see what’s going on there in some sense.”

Finucane: “Are you implying that the editorial is based on a business decision by Denis O’Brien that was presumably commissioned by Irish Water?”

Malone: “No, I would have a much more nuanced understanding of the role and nature of how the mainstream media plays in shaping public discourse.”

Finucane: “No, I just thought that was the implication.”

Malone: “No, I’ve made clear I do think the mainstream media frames a lot of public conversations [inaudible]..the framing is around this sort of, the fear that, you know, conversations around the usefulness or not, or the problems around peaceful protest.”

Finucane: “Mark, can I just say to you – the very first sentence I uttered after doing the headlines was, I read the Sunday Indo headline and I said to a contributor who’s been writing about this week [Noel Whelan], ‘do you think that’s a bit OTT?’ and his first answer was, ‘yes’. He did think it was a bit OTT. So like, steady on, when you talk about framing, you know, what do you mean by framing, given they were the first two sentences in the programme?”

Malone: “Well another way to phrase it is this is a media conglomerate that’s owned by, you know, mostly owned by an individual who has the contract for putting in water meters.”

Finucane: “So that is the implication?”

Malone: “That’s not an implication, that’s fact.”

Finucane: “And you think that dictates the headline in the Sunday Independent?”

Malone: “No, I said it dictates notions of framing of how things are talked about in the public domain by mainstream media corporations.

Finucane: “Would you go along with that, Noel?”

Noel Whelan: “No but I think that the framing is going on, on all sides here. I don’t know why those involved in the protests feel the need to disagree with those of us who condemn the excesses of some of the protests.”

Finucane [to Thomas Molloy]: “Can I come to you because you are the Independent group. If there’s a plot and a plan and a subtext here, please reveal all.”

Thomas Molloy: “Well if there’s a plot, I need to be told about it but there’s isn’t a plot. This is the kind of nonsense that these people bring out, it’s just absolute drivel.”

Malone: “These people? Sorry, can I come in there?”

Molloy: “No, you know, you know, it’s just wrong to say that there is…it’s wrong…it’s wrong…”

Finucane: “He’s [Malone] is not ‘these people’. His name is Mark Malone and we invited him on the programme.”

Molloy: “It’s wrong to say that there’s a person who has a controlling stake in INM, there isn’t. It’s just a fact that there isn’t anybody who has a controlling stake. Just at that very basic level…”

Finucane: “Ah now, come here to me…”

Molloy: “Let’s stick to the facts.”

Finucane: “He [Denis O’Brien] has a shareholding in Independent News and Media that’s what? 29%, I think it is? Yeah. So I mean, do you know what I mean?”

Molloy: “No it’s the same shareholding that Ryanair has in Aer Lingus.”

Finuance: “Yes.”

Molloy: “Nobody goes around saying Ryanair has a controlling stake in Aer Lingus. If they did, that would be a problem but clearly they don’t, we’ve seen that this week. You know, people can be big shareholders without being, without controlling a company.”

Malone: “Can I just say, like, we’re talking about media, I’m talking about media that’s pretty much first year courses in universities discussing how, you know, media shapes public conversation. And this is why I’m talking about the level of debate. Now you’ve got an editor in chief there trying to come back and refuting what is pretty much 101 sociological, like theory that’s accepted by most lecturers in media studies.”

Molloy: “No, I’m not talking about first year university course here, I’m talking about reality, I’m talking about the Irish media landscape, as we all live and work in it. And, you know, whether or not you agree with ‘Attack on democracy’ as being over the top, the reality is that there are protesters outside Paschal Donohoe’s house. He has a family, he has to put up with that. What happened to Joan Burton, again, whatever you think about it, was really quite extraordinary and we are, we are coarsening the debate in this country, we’ve got to the stage where politicians will not be able to mix with other people in the streets and will not be able to pick up on what’s already happening and that’s a great shame because one of the conceding graces of Irish democracy has been that our politicians live among us.”

Finucane: “Well let me go back to Mark, let me go back to you because you said that it [Saturday’s protest] was good humoured and you say that the whole point of the representation on the streets yesterday was of those who haven’t signed up, as opposed to those who have.”

Malone: “Absolutely and I mean we talk about, I mean I could send you links all day long about videos on YouTube around men in masks coming into my community to put in water meters, coming in to intimidate us on a daily basis.”

Finucane: “Men in masks?”

Maloney: “Men in masks. I mean this is obviously, you can go to the Journal.ie, they’ve covered it, RTÉ haven’t really covered it that much. You have private security firms, like Guardex, who are there gathering intelligence, coming up, you know, coming up to people like me, to other individuals, naming us by name, telling us they know where we live, as whilst we’re taking part in a sort community protest of civil disobedience. Obviously, you know, we’re trying to stop the water meters coming in but there’s a level of actual intimidation, that stuff is on YouTube for sure, as well.”

Finucane: “Yeah well, you see, the interesting thing, Mark, is for somebody that gets information from people like you and from the media, as you call it, etc, etc, we hear both sides complaining about intimidation.”

Malone: “Absolutely, yeah, well I think there’s a differing level of conversation, I mean whatever about shouting names at politicians, I think that’s relatively fruitless, probably not that useful, that’s very different to private companies coming into my street and into my community and intimidating us, as part of a process of pushing through State policy. That’s, that has serious implications…

Molloy: “It’s not your street.”

Finucane: “Yes but it..”

Malone: “But to come back to yesterday’s march. Yesterday’s march was a celebration. Let’s not lose sight of the facts: we’re winning this, we’re winning this hands down. The State probably needs about 90% for this project to go through, it’s no way near that as the deadline approaches.”

Finucane: “Right.”

Malone: “So I’m very proud and inspired to be part of the movement, it’s the largest civil disobedience movement in generations.”

Listen back in full here

Previously: Dumb Intelligence Gathering