An Irishman's Diary

Kevin Rafter

GARRET FITZGERALD was among our first generation of television politicians. Much of the focus on the former taoiseach’s legacy in recent months has been on his written output, but his entire career in politics was played out in front of the cameras. RTÉ, the first domestic television service, went on air on New Year’s Eve in 1961. FitzGerald was elected to the Seanad in 1965 and won a Dáil seat at the 1969 general election. All of his predecessors lived through the world of newspapers and, to a degree, radio.

But for political figures who first emerged in the 1960s – and all those who followed – the archives in RTÉ, and more recently in TG4 and TV3, contain images from almost every aspect of their careers in public life.

Along with his great rival Charles Haughey, FitzGerald made a small piece of Irish broadcasting history in participating in the first ever televised leaders’ debate in February 1982. Four times in a decade FitzGerald and Haughey went before the electorate seeking a mandate to govern, and on three of those occasions they went head-to-head in live debates.

The format had been tested in the United States in 1960 when John Kennedy and Richard Nixon drew millions of viewers for the first American presidential debates. Despite their success with audiences, the debates were allowed lapse until 1976, and then four years later Ronald Reagan charmed his way into the White House with his hugely effectively “there you go again” putdown of Jimmy Carter. The attraction of a similar format for RTÉ executives in single-station Ireland was obvious. FitzGerald and Haughey – by now well schooled to the camera – saw the benefit in reaching vast number of voters in a single evening.

The programme in February 1982 opened with the late Barry Cowan setting the scene and reminding viewers of the historic nature of the television debate. “Tonight for the first time,” Cowan declared in the dramatic fashion of a sporting encounter before quickly handing over to the debate moderator, Brian Farrell. There were no opening statements by the two party leaders, while Farrell offered no niceties as he got straight down to business with a short first question.

The entire debate was marked by Farrell’s non-intrusive approach. Like a top-flight tennis match the discussion between the two politicians batted over-and-back. There were long stretches with no intervention from the programme presenter. Both leaders took up each other’s points and challenged each other. There was little rancour and hardly any interjections or grandstanding. But watching the debate again from this vantage point it is clear that neither man liked the other. This is particularly evident in their body language. When FitzGerald was speaking his Fianna Fáil counterpart watched with an obvious look of distain although when he replied the tone was ever-so-courteous.

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