Ivan Yates has said client confidentiality was the reason he did not disclose the fact that he gave media training to former presidential candidate Jim Gavin.
The former Fine Gael minister advised Fianna Fáil’s presidential candidate Mr Gavin on media appearances.
Mr Yates has also provided similar advice to a number of Fianna Fáil ministers, but did not reveal this information at the time, leading to debate over whether this should have been known by the public watching or listening to Mr Yates’s contributions to on-air political discussions.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with David McCullagh, Mr Yates said when he left full-time broadcasting in July 2020 and set up his business to offer media training, that his golden rule was client confidentiality.
My Yates said everyone knows he has strong opinions on everything but he said his job as a media trainer is “nothing to do with policy for any party and I have no involvement in any manifesto”.
“My job is like a physio at the last minute to get them match fit.”
He pointed out that in the nine days since the story broke, no other media trainer has come forward to say who they train.
This is because they owe their clients confidentiality, he said.
Mr Yates denied that he had any financial incentive for Mr Gavin to win.
“Let’s be clear,” he said, “I had initially said some things in Jim Gavin’s favour because I thought he would be a good choice but I quickly found out that he is not a politician and had no political skills.”
Mr Yates insisted that he did not break any broadcasting rules by giving media training to Mr Gavin while also presenting a news programme for Newstalk and presenting a podcast with journalist and Today FM presenter Matt Cooper.
He said all clients are entitled to confidentiality and he does not believe there has been a breach of trust.
He said, “I ask myself the simple question – is this legal in everything I do”.
“And in the case of the podcast, I asked myself that question – and do you know what the answer is? The 2009 Broadcasting Acts do not cover podcasts. And in fact, the only law covering podcasts because they’re a personal and private expression, is the law of defamation.”
Mr Yates said he did not recall Mr Cooper or anyone else who worked on the podcast asking him if he worked with any of the presidential candidates, nor did he recall Newstalk asking if he was coaching Mr Gavin.
Mr Yates gave Mr Gavin media training on 23 September and 29 September, and guest presented The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk on 23, 24, 25 September.
He said that Newstalk have trawled through the tapes of shows he presented over three days during the period and have not found tapes of anything inappropiate that he said.
Mr Yates said he was confident that he did not break any Coimisiún na Meán rules.
Yates sorry for impact on Heather Humphreys
Mr Yates said the only thing he is sorry for is the impact on Heather Humphreys that his comments about ‘smearing the bejaysus’ out of Catherine Connolly had.
“It was my opinion that the minute Jim exited the race was that Catherine Connolly was going to win the race,” he said.
“I handed in my Fine Gael membership card when I started in Newstalk in 2009,” he said, “and it was a stroke of genius by the Catherine Connolly campaign to claim those comments were a Fine Gael smear.”
“Similar claims by Simon Harris that it was a Fianna Fáil smear are also lies,” Mr Yates said.
Mr Yates added: “I broke no rules. In my mind, I’ve done nothing wrong. Any coaching job I have has not compromised my own opinions.”