RTE criticised for Southill documentary.

Amazotheamazing

‘Stop this sensationalism’ - Southill strikes back
Written by Colum Coomey
THURSDAY, 16 DECEMBER 2010 09:31
Reporter Colum Coomey on the fallout to the recent Prime Time Investigates programme

“Stop using us for sensationalism....we’re tired of it,” was the response of Mary Higgins, estate management officer for O’Malley Park, to the portrayal of the estate on RTE’s Prime Time Investigates.



“We’re trying to move on, we’re trying to regenerate the place, but we’re not allowed to move on because some programme will came down and over dramatise the place again.
“It’s just the same thing over and over. There was a lot of staging, basically it was just sensationalism”.
The TV depiction of the estate, she added, was not representative of the majority of residents.
“Most up here are ordinary decent hard working people trying to bring up their children properly.
“You’d swear there’s a road block outside and people are stopped coming in.
“I’ve been working here for the last five years and I’m not frightened of anything, there’s nothing to be frightened of.
“What annoys me is that people from Southill had to get up and go to work the next morning and children had to go to school, how can they hold their heads up?
“The psychological damage done by such programmes are not fully realised”.
Mary agreed that the programme did highlight a lack of a multi-agency approach to problems with anti-social behaviour.
“There is only one solution to this, and that is a multi-agency approach.
“We do need more Garda patrols but the problems involve less than 5% of the residents”.
Mary Kelly, the mother of murder victim Richard ‘Happy’ Kelly, had this to say:
“Of all of the positive things we did with the programme, nothing was shown on television.
“We brought the film crew to the Southill afterschool project.
“The next day the reporter arrived he did 90 minutes in the bingo, the women thought it was positive.
“To my way of thinking, the good kids of Southill didn’t get a chance”.
She claims that the RTE reporter <snip>, initially told her the programme would be positive.
“I asked him if it was going to be positive, and he replied, yeah
“But there was very little of the positive stuff that we recorded included”.
Mrs Kelly said she had since spoken to the reporter.
“I was a long time on the phone to him. I told him he didn’t do a great job.
“I was very disappointed... I would never have taken part if I had known the way it was going to come out”.
* When contacted for a response to these complaints, reporter <snip> directed us to the RTE press office who said that RTE and Prime Time fully stands over the programme and its content.

Amazotheamazing

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Berty

Honestly you cannot win when it comes to reflecting on people's lives. If it went the other way you would have people saying:

"If they would only have depicted the problems we face then possibly more people would consider the area needs help"

Report wrote:

“Most up here are ordinary decent hard working people trying to bring up their children properly."

Unfortunately there are some who do not are they are always going to be the focus.

krudler

Cant win in this city, try do something positive and you're accused to trying to gloss over the issues, highlight those same issues and then its just painting a negative image of the city.

seachto7

agreed. You can't bloody win! damned if you do, damned if you don't!

It's like there is this conservative attitude amongst those in authority on how Limerick should be viewed....

BogPony

I watched it and didn't see what was so sensationalised. I lived about 5 minutes from the worst area for over 20 years and could see it imploding with my own eyes.

Call a spade a spade. Hopefuly it will open people's eyes though to realise there are really good people caught up in that crap. People who want to get out and get their families out. I wouldn't mind seeing the troublemakers kept to one area to kill themselves off.

dr.fuzzenstein

BogPony wrote: »

I wouldn't mind seeing the troublemakers kept to one area to kill themselves off.

Many people would agree with that sentiment and seeing scumbags kill each other has a certain appeal, but sadly it never works, there's always more of them, for every one that gets killed, 2 more jump in the breach and the violence only escalates from there.
And sooner or later innocent people will get caught in the crossfire or someone will get shot by accident because of mistaken identity.
Having said that, maybe there is a way...
How about if anyone has a grudge with someone else and both parties agree they could fight each other in the arena of Thomond Park.
This could be any style with any weapon, except guns, can't have members of the audience shot, now can we?
Tickets could be €50, TV rights sold to the highest bidder with a percentage of the pay-per-view.
That way we can all enjoy genuine fights to the death in safety and with full catering, just think of the revenue possibilities!

Berty

Only if they dress up. It would make it even more fun. Get Willie O'Dea in to decide on whether to let the loser live or have him put to death.