Declan Ganley - Businessman? Arms Dealer? Politician? Dissident? The Devil incarnate? Or the subject of an Irish and EU-led hatchet job?
RTÉ, the Irish State broadcaster, aired a documentary of FOX News proportions tonight on its supposed marquee current affairs program Prime Time that purported to shine a light on who exactly Declan Ganley is. For those of us here who are not Irish and who have no idea who this guy is, Declan Ganley is a very rich and charismatic English-born Irishman who rose to prominence after successfully leading the NO campaign to victory in the recent Lisbon referendum here in Ireland this year. He has had both success and failure in his many business ventures over the years and has been involved in everything from Latvian forestry to communications technology for warfare scenarios. He has served as an advisor to foreign Governments in the past and is now the founder and leader of Libertas, a self-styled think tank on European affairs. Some reports recently have suggested that Mr. Ganley could be moving to turn Libertas into a European political party; Ganley recently hosted Euro-sceptic Czech President Václav Klaus on his recent visit to Ireland.
Now as far I'm concerned the jury is still out on this guy, he is a very interesting character but I don't know enough to be sold on him one way or another. He was a very articulate and persuasive speaker in the run up to the Lisbon referendum and I don't think the NO campaign would have had anywhere near as much momentum or drive without his leadership (and financial input!). I have to say RTÉ let themselves down tonight with this Prime Time 'special'. I've grown to expect certain things from Prime Time over the last couple of years (e.g. ambient, evil music played over sinister shots of people with their faces blurred out and open-ended accusatory questions with no actual answers or proof) but tonight just came across as a total hatchet-job; Prime Time tacitly accused this guy of being a Neo-Con puppet, an arms dealer and a corrupt businessman and suggested that he may be somehow implicated in the murder of a former business colleague; as a glorious denouement they pointed out the flaws of other European figures he has met with in the past (e.g. Václav Klaus and his belief that climate change is not man made and Dariusz Sobkow and his negative view of homosexuality) as though they might be in some way attributed to Ganley himself. Now if the State broadcaster wants to take a public figure down with actual facts then they're quite right to do so, but tonight's program was nothing more than hearsay, accusations and guilt by association.
If Ganley is a man with a dark past or a man with dark aspirations then take him down with facts. I mention him to you now because he may become a big player on the European political scene in the near future.
One point worth noting: RTÉ were recently quizzed angrily by the Government over their coverage of the Lisbon referendum - the Government believing that they were too partisan on the side of the NO campaign (which I personally didn't think myself)
Source: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire … 25230.html
Last edited by Braddock (2008-11-27 16:28:15)
