{"id":120023,"date":"2025-11-03T20:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/120023\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T20:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T20:59:09","slug":"ivan-yates-gave-media-coaching-to-micheal-martin-and-four-other-fianna-fail-ministers-as-well-as-jim-gavin-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/120023\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivan Yates gave media coaching to Miche\u00e1l Martin and four other Fianna F\u00e1il ministers as well as Jim Gavin \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> has confirmed it hired Ivan Yates<\/a> during the presidential campaign<\/a> to provide four hours of \u201cinterview and debate training\u201d for its candidate Jim Gavin<\/a> but said the former Fine Gael<\/a> minister was not involved in its campaign team.<\/p>\n

Five senior Fianna Fail politicians, including Taoiseach Micheal Martin<\/a>, were also given media training by Mr Yates. <\/p>\n

Mr Martin, Minister for Housing James Browne<\/a> and Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a> were all coached by Mr Yates for the 2024 general election. <\/p>\n

Minister for Children Norma Foley<\/a> was separately coached ahead of the last general election<\/a>, while Mr Browne and Mr O\u2019Brien were also coached while serving as housing ministers. It is understood this would have been paid for from the secretarial allowance, a publicly funded allowance for ministers that covers public relations expenses. The general election training was paid for by Fianna F\u00e1il.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn relation to the general election, he did one session with Miche\u00e1l Martin during the general election campaign. Mr Yates also provided training to Minsters Darragh O\u2019Brien and James Browne during the same campaign,\u201d Fianna Fail said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Mr Yates also provided debate and interview preparation for Fianna Fail during both the general and European elections. This included training for MEPs Barry Andrews<\/a> and Barry Cowen<\/a> during the European Election campaign.<\/p>\n

Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary<\/a> was also coached by Mr Yates in 2022, when he was a backbench TD. <\/p>\n

In both 2021 and 2022, the then Fianna F\u00e1il parliamentary party was offered a media training programme by Mr Yeats in both group and individual sessions. <\/p>\n

Controversy has surrounded Mr Yates since it emerged he provided coaching to Mr Gavin before the candidate ended his presidential bid. It has sparked an internal Government row.<\/p>\n

After Mr Yates\u2019s work with Mr Gavin emerged, Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n<\/a>, the media regulator, said it would be contacting Newstalk<\/a> and RT\u00c9<\/a> to seek more information about the work Mr Yates did for them during the presidential election.<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said he received three media training sessions from Mr Yates while serving as minister for housing in the last government. A spokeswoman for the Fianna F\u00e1il TD said he \u201chas not availed of media training since he was appointed Minister for Transport and Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Former Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates no stranger to controversyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Yates is a former bookmaker and broadcaster who was a co-host of the Path To Power political podcast with Today FM\u2019s Matt Cooper. His role on the podcast came to an end after the news of him coaching Mr Gavin emerged.<\/p>\n

In a statement on Monday morning, Fianna F\u00e1il said Mr Yates had not worked with the party beyond September 29th.<\/p>\n

It said the commentator was hired for two specific debate programmes, with the focus on \u201cthe practicalities of in-studio interviews\u201d.<\/p>\n

It said it uses a range of media skill consultants \u201clike all political parties\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe did not provide any campaign advice, nor was he involved in the campaign team,\u201d the party said.<\/p>\n

Mr Browne, a Fianna F\u00e1il TD, was coached for media interviews by Mr Yates this year, since becoming a Minister in January. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ivan Yates: \u2018I\u2019m very fortunate. But I can see the younger generation are getting screwed over\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Yates\u2019s work with Mr Browne was not declared to listeners of the Path to Power podcast, including when the Minister for Housing was discussed on the podcast.<\/p>\n

An episode on May 2nd focused on the fallout of the controversy over Mr Browne\u2019s plan to appoint National Asset Management Agency chief executive Brendan McDonagh to the role of the Government\u2019s new Housing Activation Office.<\/p>\n

Mr Yates described the dispute between Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il over the appointment as \u201calmost FUBAR territory\u201d , meaning \u201cf**ked up beyond all recognition\u201d. <\/p>\n

Of Mr Browne, Mr Yates said \u201ccoming into this situation, it\u2019ll take him at least a year to get it all in his head. And it looks like he\u2019s going to be in the exact same situation as Eoghan Murphy, that he is going to be collateral damage in all this.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Path to Power podcast said it \u201chad no knowledge of any professional relationship between the Minister and Ivan Yates\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Yates has been approached for comment. <\/p>\n

A Newstalk spokeswoman said Mr Yates operated as a cover presenter on the station for three days during the presidential campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cIvan Yates did not inform Newstalk of any conflict of interest relating to the presidential election campaign … This matter is currently under review.\u201d<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 said Mr Yates was interviewed three times about the election but not during the election period as defined by Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n.<\/p>\n

It has asked him why he did not disclose his involvement with one campaign and said that, had it been informed, it would have advised him it would have to be disclosed to the audience. RT\u00c9 said it is satisfied it did not breach election guidelines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il has confirmed it hired Ivan Yates during the presidential campaign to provide four hours of \u201cinterview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119327,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3656,895,3775,42,8942,2043,43,978,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-120023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-catherine-connolly","9":"tag-fianna-fail","10":"tag-fine-gael","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-ivan-yates","13":"tag-jim-gavin","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-presidential-election","16":"tag-top-news","17":"tag-top-stories","18":"tag-topnews","19":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}