{"id":121242,"date":"2025-11-04T12:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T12:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/121242\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T12:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T12:43:07","slug":"fianna-fail-td-accuses-fine-gael-of-trying-to-undermine-party-over-ivan-yates-training-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/121242\/","title":{"rendered":"Fianna F\u00e1il TD accuses Fine Gael of trying to \u2018undermine\u2019 party over Ivan Yates training \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Fianna F\u00e1il TD has accused Fine Gael of trying to \u201cundermine\u201d his party by raising concerns over training provided to some of its senior figures<\/a> by Ivan Yates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a> has confirmed it hired Mr Yates 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

Six senior Fianna F\u00e1il politicians, including Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on RT\u00c9<\/a> Radio\u2019s Morning Ireland on Tuesday, Minister of State at the Department of Justice Niall Collins<\/a> said there was no obligation on Fianna F\u00e1il to disclose any contractual relationship.<\/p>\n

The revelations that Mr Yates had provided services to Fianna F\u00e1il was \u201cnot new news\u201d, the Limerick County TD said. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ivan Yates controversy shows why media must take conflicts of interest seriouslyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cFianna F\u00e1il, like any political party, like any organisation, procures services from people and there\u2019s no obligation, in my opinion, for Fianna F\u00e1il to be disclosing any contractual relationship that they have. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s no big deal. It\u2019s been out there in the public domain for a long period of time. It\u2019s well known.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked if the issue was causing conflict between the Coalition parties, Mr Collins replied: \u201cI think it\u2019s just another example, this is a concern I have within the working of the Government, that Fine Gael take every opportunity to try undermine Fianna F\u00e1il and to try to undermine Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin at every opportunity they get and I think this is just another example of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand. It\u2019s not really any of Fine Gael\u2019s business what media consultants or media trainers Fianna F\u00e1il use,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I don\u2019t understand why Minister Colm Brophy will be saying on radio when he\u2019s asked in relation to this that Fianna F\u00e1il have questions to answer. We don\u2019t in my view. It\u2019s a matter for Fianna F\u00e1il, who Fianna F\u00e1il engages as a media coach or indeed as a consultant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just struggle to understand why they are saying it raises questions and I think that they\u2019re just in a subtle way trying to undermine Fianna F\u00e1il. That\u2019s my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senator Anne Rabbitte, who received media training from Ivan Yates, said she was unhappy that the issue and the fallout from the presidential election were dominating the headlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is all, it\u2019s all dragging on. It\u2019s incredibly embarrassing for the elected representatives, very embarrassing for our grassroots and our councillors. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it needs to go to bed as quickly as possible. And I think it [the review of presidential election] needs to be open, honest and transparent,\u201d the Fianna F\u00e1il Senator said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re eight days in the papers, it\u2019s not good news, you don\u2019t like that. It\u2019s because of the past. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe prefer to be talking about what needs to be talked about, what people are elected to do, which is actually to see where we\u2019re going with housing, where we are going with health, where we are ensuring that people with additional needs are getting the support they need. Well certainly that\u2019s lost. That\u2019s what we should be talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Minister for Agriculture Martin Haydon welcomed the move by Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n to investigate the issue of independent commentators being on news programmes.<\/p>\n

Mr Haydon, a Fine Gael TD, told RT\u00c9 Radio\u2019s Morning Ireland that there was a broader issue involved when commentators like Mr Yates appeared on programmes where they were asked for a view but did not declare a conflict of interest.<\/p>\n

When asked if he thought Fianna F\u00e1il should have disclosed the involvement of Mr Yates in Jim Gavin\u2019s presidential campaign, Mr Heydon said that was \u201cfirst and foremost\u201d a question to be answered by Mr Yates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Fianna F\u00e1il TD has accused Fine Gael of trying to \u201cundermine\u201d his party by raising concerns over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15910,895,3775,72308,42,8942,7116,2043,1843,43,64474,978,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-121242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-darragh-o-brien","9":"tag-fianna-fail","10":"tag-fine-gael","11":"tag-general-election","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-ivan-yates","14":"tag-james-browne","15":"tag-jim-gavin","16":"tag-micheal-martin","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-niall-collins","19":"tag-presidential-election","20":"tag-top-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topnews","23":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121242","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=121242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}