Broadcaster Joe Duffy has slammed claims that there is ‘RTE bias’ on the reporting of missing Mary Boyle.
The Liveline presenter has hit out at suggestions recent that the station is somehow covering up the disappearance of there six year old who vanished outside Ballyshannon in 1977.
Duffy said he has followed the Mary Boyle story closely over the years.
And he said suggestions that there is a cover-up saying “Ireland is not Turkey.”
“I know there is no conspiracy in RTE to cover up anything is this awful case and I doubt very much there is a conspiracy in the Garda and Government,” he said.
The popular broadcaster also said he did not like RTE constantly being referred to as ‘the State broadcaster.”
He referred specifically to the recent You Tube documentary ‘Mary Boyle – The Untold Story’, in which it was claimed that a serving Donegal politician prevented Gardai from investigating the case properly.
He added “I listened to Gemma O’Doherty (the maker of the video) speaking to a local radio station last week which produced little new information but quickly descended into a 20 minute attack on ‘State broadcaster’ RTE for bias in the case. Firstly, to keep referring to RTE as the ‘State broadcaster’ seems to imply that there is a widespread cover up of Mary’s murder. RTE is not the ‘State broadcaster.’ Ireland is not Turkey,” he said.
Duffy also lashed Sinn Fein and their part in “invariably using it as another attack on RTE.’
“Let’s look at all the unsolved murders of children in the last 50 years – in Northern Ireland during the Troubles my research shows that 144 children aged between 16 and under who died violently – including children who died in the same year as Mary.
“And whether Sinn Fein likes it or not, the biggest group of children were killed by so-called ‘republican paramilitaries.’. Most of these killings remain unsolved today,” said Duffy.
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