Who is Fred O Donovan and why is he trying to silence Gay Byrne?

On Tuesday November 2 The Late Late Show team had its first meeting of the week. Three items were pencilled in for Saturday's show. There was to be a 40-minute report and discussion on car theft. The show was to open with Anna Raeburn. A human interest story about a Scottish woman was to follow her. The Late Late Show team talked about the morality of putting car thieves on the programme. There were no problems with the schedule until the following day. The following day the Scottish story fell through: the woman was indisposed. A replacement was needed. One of the researchers became enthusiastic about Cynthia Payne, who is otherwise known as Madam Sin.

It was not the first time that the name of Madam Sin cropped up in the discussions of the Late Late Show team. Several weeks beforehand, Paul Bailey's book on Cynthia Payne had been sent to Pan Collins. The publishers said she would be available at any time to come to Dublin. Pan Collins passed it on to one of the researchers. The idea of having this woman on the programme began to be raised at meetings. Gay Byrne wasn't happy about it. Adrian Cronin, the director, didn't like the idea at all and never warmed to it. Every so often someone would mention it and it became a joke, just as Artificial Insemination had until they did an item about it. But on Wednesday November 3, when there was a gap in the plans for the show, Gay Byrne assented. He said he would do it.

"1 think it was the whole programme," says Fred O'Donovan, Chairman of the RTE Authority. "It was an unfortunate mixture." He didn't mind Madam Sin, he says. He thought people should know about her. It was mixing Anna Raeburn talking about abortion and this woman talking about prostitution that he objected to. "Abortion is a serious subject, prostitution is a different thing," he says. He also disapproved of "the solicitor defending people who steal cars." And when the following week Fred O'Donovan was sitting in his house in Howth and heard Gay Byrne telling the nation that he was going to devote an entire programme to the abortion referendum Fred O'Donovan decided it was time to do something.

For the past thirty years Fred O'Donovan has been involved in show business in Dublin. He is the man who brought us "Gaels of Laughter", "Jury's Irish Cabaret" and many more. He is the man who brought us "Annie". He was born in Dublin in 1927. At the end of the Second World War, of which he had spent the last year with the RAF, he was part of the team which was responsible for investigating war crimes and searching for missing persons. In 1948 he contracted TB, was sent to a military hospital in Northern Ireland and later to a sanitorium in Switzerland. When he recovered he was sent to Birmingham to train as a radio producer. However, the TB returned and he spent several months in the Adelaide Hospital in Dublin. He stayed on in Dublin and began making radio commercials and working as stage manager. He soon joined the Eamonn Andrews organisation and became artistic director of the Gaiety Theatre.

There are several versions of how and why he fell out with Eamonn Andrews just over two years ago. There are also several versions of how much money he was paid by the Eamonn Andrews organisatlon to stay out of show business in Ireland for three years. His version is that he went into hospital to have open-heart surgery and while he was there Eamonn Andrews contacted Noel Pearson and offered him O'Donovan's job. His story goes that when he came out of hospital Pearson told him what had happened. He says he decided he could no longer work with people he couldn't trust. He decided to quit and go to America. Either way, there was a falling-out between Fred O'Donovan and Eamonn Andrews in 1980. Either way, he was paid a large sum of money, at least £110,000, possibly £150,000 or possibly more to stay out of show business in Ireland until the end of 1983.

He talks a lot about leaving Ireland. In the 1950s he "had not intended to come back to Ireland." And this time he said to himself "If I leave Ireland I'll never come back." For family and other reasons he decided he wanted to stay, however, and he wrote to the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, to explain his situation and ask if Charlie could give him anything to do. He pointed out that he didn't want any salary or reward. Just something to do, some way to make himself useful. He knew Haughey. His relationship with him had always been "cordial and friendly". He attended the same school. His brother was in the same class as Haughey. Within two weeks of receiving his letter, Haughey appointed him Chairman of the National Concert Hall.

He performed his chores with great gusto in the National Concert Hall. Too much gusto, some would say, too much gusto altogether. He spent a good part of the day in the National Concert Hall and more and more took upon himself the job of the executive as well as that of Chairman of the Board, who in normal circumstances would have merely chaired a monthly meeting and been responsible for policy decisions of a general nature. Fred O'Donovan ran the National Concert Hall and still runs it. He booked the shows and he still books them. "If I'd had to earn my living I wouldn't have been able to do that," he says.

The first meeting of the Board of the National Concert Hall was in March 1981, seven months before the Hall opened. At this meeting the Board agreed that a certain Dublin solicitor would act for the Hall. After the meeting, one Board member noticed that a small group had gathered around Fred O'Donovan. There was some agitated whispering going on. At the following meeting of the Board, there was no mention of the first solicitor but another firm of solicitors was proposed and seconded. This was the firm of Pat O'Connor, who came to fame in the polling booths of the February 1982 General Election. It is generally understood that the first solicitor was dropped and O'Connor's firm appointed at the direct insistence of Charles Haughey. A new caterer for the Hall has just been appointed. However, we have established it is a complete coincidence that the caterer chosen, Willie Oppermann, is a brother of Johnny Oppermann, who is a friend of Charles Haughey. Willie Oppermann is simply an old chum of Fred O'Donovan.

Fred O' Donovan, for his own part, is a personal friend of Michael Woods, the former Minister for Health. He worked on his campaign in the 1981 General Election. He was, at that stage, just Chairman of the National Concert Hall. Bu t just one day before the Coalition Government took over in June 1981, as the last act of the outgoing Fianna Fail Government, Fred O'Donovan was appointed Chairman of the RTE Authority to replace Paddy Moriarty who had gone to the ESB.

His appointment was generally welcomed in RTE. It was felt that as a producer he would have a good understanding of how television worked. The people in RTE who still make programmes were pleased. But there were going to be problems with Fred O'Donovan. Firstly, he had time on his hands. Secondly, in his own words, he was "by nature a person who has strong opinions about radio and television". Thirdly, he was used to running the show.

It is felt in RTE that he misunderstood the relationship between the Authority and the executive. The Authority offer general policy guidelines; the executive make the day to day decisions. The twain functions should never meet ..

It is thus understood that the Chairman of the Authority does not interfere with individual programmes. It is thus understood that the Chairman of the Authority does not talk to the press about individual programmes. Not long after his appointment Fred O'Donovan was talking to the press about the precise number of jobs which would have to be cut in RTE. For the past month, and without any consultation with the Authority or the Director General he has been making regular statements to the press about what will and will not be shown on RTE. There is a feeling in RTE that something will have to be done soon about Fred O'Donovan. There is also a feeling that the Director General, George Waters, is not the man to do it. There is considerable dissatisfaction with George Waters. The four chief executives under the Director General, Dick Hill, Director of Television Programmes; John Kelleher, Controller of Programmes RTE 1; Bob Collins, Assistant Controller of Programmes RTE 1 and Ted Dolan, Controller of Programmes RTE 2 sent an eight-page memorandum to George Waters last week to complain about various matters. One of the main complaints concerns the poor, much-maligned Madam Sin.

On the week after The Late Late Show of November 6 letters poured in from every corner of Ireland to every corner of RTE. It was, for example, the "largest correspondence" which Fred O'Donovan ever had. An agreement was made between the executives and the Director General that they would reply in a uniform manner. They would not apologise, but would express regret at any offence which might have been caused. The executives were surprised, to say the least, when they found that George Waters, the Director General, had apologised unreservedly for the appearance of Madam Sin on the Late Late Show and said it was an error of judgement. He did not consult the others before he did this. Various Urban District Councils received one reply from the Controller of Programmes which did not apologise for the Late Late Show and another from the Director General which did apologise unreservedly for the same show. The various Urban District Councils were not alone in thinking that this was a highly peculiar state of affairs.

The affair of the Madam Sin apology did not convince people in RTE that George Waters was going to do anything about Fred O'Donovan. It is felt that another Director General would not have allowed the present row between the Authority and the Late Late Show to develop. Two months ago, before the General Election, there was a press conference in RTE to discuss the appalling state of the station's finances. Fred O'Donovan ran the press conference. George Waters sat beside him as though he were his assistant. When RTE was asked if it would support the staff in the blacking of any politician who went on pirate radio, Fred O'Donovan said he would support such a move. The Director General immediately said that he would not. It is felt in RTE that the Director General should not have allowed Fred O'Donovan to dominate the press conference. It is also felt that were the Director General to take on Fred O'Donovan over the Late Late Show he would have the backing of the entire station and he would win. It is considered unlikely that he will do so.

Fred O'Donovan's behaviour during the past month is thought to be grotesque, unprecedented, bizarre and unbelievable by the programme-makers in RTE. He has been described by people over the past two weeks as "a meddler", "a fixer", "an interferer". He denies this.

"Anyone who would consider me a meddler has got the wrong end of the stick," he says. "I will only put forward suggestions. My life is too short to be meddling with programmes." He adds: "I'm on the ball. If RTE goes off the air, I phone RTE to know why. I may say 'I. thought that was a bit much last night' but I never interfere with programmes."

He says the Letters Programme on RTE 2 was his idea. He claims that the variety show presented by Donncha O' Dulaing on Christmas night was his idea. One of the people who was involved with the Christmas night show on RTE 1, however, denies this emphatically and says it was someone else's idea.

In September 1980 Marian Finucane won the Prix Italia for a documentary on abortion. She had interviewed a woman who was about to have an abortion, had travelled with her to England, been with her in the hospital and talked to her afterwards. The programme offered no opinions about whether abortion was right or wrong. The woman herself didn't know. The listener, any listener, was made to sense that this was a very complex matter. A few weeks later Gay Byrne read a letter about abortion on his radio show. And over the next few mornings he talked to people about abortion. Again, there were no simple solutions. If abortion was wrong, then a lot of women, who sounded respectable and ordinary, had had an abortion and felt they had no choice. Gay Byrne listened to this attentively. He didn't seem to know himself.

Over the past two years the subject of abortion has been constantly raised at meetings by members of the Late Late Show team. Gay Byrne listens to all the suggestions and makes all the decisions. He says things are a turn-off. He bases this on instinct but more often on reaction he has got from earlier shows on similar subjects. He reads the majority of letters which come in to both his radio and television shows. He feels that he has his finger on the pulse of things. But sometimes if a rejected idea is presented in a different way by a different person, he will agree. Sometimes not. Sometimes he can return to an idea which he has rejected and say he wants it done, and done for next Saturday. Up to last summer he thought no one was interested in abortion. Then he agreed to consider doing an abortion show, even though he thought other programmes might do it as well. ("The only place abortion wasn't being discussed was Wanderly Wagon", Fred O'Donovan says.)

When it became clear that there would be a referendum to enshrine the abortion laws in the constitution, Gay Byrne decided not to do a show on abortion. He decided to do a show on the referendum. Very careful consideration was put into what sort of show it would be. One of the ideas was to use the old Late Late Show EEC format. This would involve using a courtroom scene, a judge and two senior counsel. The counsel would select their own witnesses, the judge would sum up. Gay Byrne would open the show and close the show. That would be his only involvement.

But the team also had another show prepared which they were ready to run before Christmas, had it been necessary. It would be serious, tightly organised, with no breaks for music or party games, every shade of opinion from every angle would be represented. As far as the Late Late Show team is aware neither Fred O'Donovan nor George Waters knows what sort of programme the Late Late Show was planning. As far as the team is aware, neither Fred O'Donovan nor George Waters has enquired.

The team is hurt and unhappy. Its members have found out what they can or cannot do in the newspapers only. Some of them have been confronted by the press with statements made by Fred O'Donovan of which they had been previously unaware. They have been told nothing, although Dick Hill, the Director of Television Programmes, has intimated that he is working day and night to do something about the situation. His thoughts on this matter, and those of John Kelleher, Ted Dolan and Bob Collins are contained in the eight-page document which has been submitted to the Director General. The Director General has been away.

While Fred O' Donovan was making "Gaels of Laughter", Gay Byrne was changing the face of Irish life.

"I believe he has made the single most important contribution to RTE as a personality," says Fred O'Donovan. He thinks the Late Late Show is a great pr.ogramme: "You just have to look at the figures." "But I don't think it's figures we're looking for in this one. Abortion is possibly one of the most serious things we will ever consider. Since 1973 in the USA 12 million children have been aborted." He thinks, or at least he thought on the morning of Monday January 10 - he may have since changed his mind - that Today Tonight is the place where abortion should be discussed. He thinks that they are "a first-class team of investigative reporters". Fred O'Donovan abhors "the .philosophy which allows death on demand". He thinks "we are answerable to the end of time if we allow the media to use that philosophy". He wants RTE "to put forwar'd the truth, to educate people honestly, truthfully" ..

"We haven't interfered," he says. "In the final analysis the responsibility is ours. The responsibility lies entirely with the Authority ." He quotes Dr Bernard Nathanson: "We succeeded in breaking down the laws on abortion in the USA because the time was right and the news media co-operated." The same Dr Nathanson, oddly enough, was given half an hour on Gay Byrne's radio show to put forward his anti-abortion views just two months ago. "Finally the realisation came to him that he was murdering children," Fred O'Donovan comments.

"It's not abortion. It's the right of the unborn child," he says. He refers to emigration again. "If I thought that we, as a Broadcasting Authority, failed and because of our failure we had the same situation on abortion as in America I would step on the boat and I would never look back on this country."

He thinks the format of the Late Late Show is inappropriate for a discussion on abortion. "Because of the emotional situation with cameras, people say things they wouldn't normally say. This is too important a subject to be treated trivially. I hope I haven't made the wrong decision."