{"id":159360,"date":"2025-11-02T21:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T21:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/159360\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T21:00:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T21:00:08","slug":"ivan-yates-work-on-gavin-campaign-sparks-political-and-media-fallout-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/159360\/","title":{"rendered":"Ivan Yates work on Gavin campaign sparks political and media fallout \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Controversy over coaching provided by broadcaster and former Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates <\/a>to Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s presidential campaign <\/a>has sparked an internal Government row and fallout over his media work during the election.<\/p>\n

Fine Gael TD and Minister of State for Migration Colm Brophy <\/a>on Sunday told RT\u00c9 Radio that Fianna F\u00e1il had \u201cquestions to answer\u201d on the matter.<\/p>\n

He said Fianna F\u00e1il could not \u201cjust dismiss\u201d questions about the media training work Mr Yates did with Jim Gavin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After the news emerged, Mr Yates<\/a>\u2019s role as a co-presenter of the Path to Power podcast with Today FM<\/a> broadcaster Matt Cooper <\/a>was ended.<\/p>\n

A Newstalk spokeswoman said: \u201cIvan Yates operated as a cover presenter on Newstalk for three days during the presidential campaign on September 23rd, 24th and 25th from 9am-12pm.\u201d <\/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 by Newstalk management.\u201d<\/p>\n

RT\u00c9 said Mr Yates was interviewed three times about the election but not during the election period as defined by media regulator 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 that it would have to be disclosed to the audience. It said it is satisfied there was no breach of election guidelines by RT\u00c9. <\/p>\n

Mr Brophy said it was \u201camazing\u201d that Fianna F\u00e1il had not disclosed the work. <\/p>\n

\u201cFianna F\u00e1il have questions to answer and I don\u2019t think they can just dismiss it.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said broadcasters and the media regulator may need to examine the matter. <\/p>\n

He said it was \u201csurprising\u201d nobody in Fianna F\u00e1il \u201cwould think of putting their hand up and saying, \u2018Oh, by the way, this person is actually working as part of our team on the campaign\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n

His comments earned a swift backlash from Fianna F\u00e1il TDs. <\/p>\n

One Minister said it was an \u201cutterly inappropriate time for the asylum Minister to start a row in Government\u201d in the wake of a fire in an accommodation centre<\/a> for international protection applicants. <\/p>\n

Pointing to the upcoming EU presidency, they said a united Government was needed and it was \u201cno time for junior ministers to be firing potshots across Government\u201d. <\/p>\n

Another Fianna F\u00e1il TD said it was \u201can attempt by Fine Gael to deflect\u201d, adding that \u201crather than either party attacking or undermining the other, we all need to focus on delivering in Government\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The three viral moments that swung the election campaign for Catherine ConnollyOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Mr Yates sparked a campaign-trail controversy when he suggested that were he working with Fine Gael, he would \u201csmear the bejaysus\u201d out of Independent candidate Catherine Connolly.<\/p>\n

A Fine Gael spokesman said it has not used Mr Yates for media training or similar work. <\/p>\n

Mr Yates did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

Coimisi\u00fan na Me\u00e1n has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Controversy over coaching provided by broadcaster and former Fine Gael minister Ivan Yates to Fianna F\u00e1il\u2019s presidential campaign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[92702,18,4771,553,19,17,37856,19487,91727,59,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-159360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-colm-brophy","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-fianna-fail","11":"tag-fine-gael","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-ivan-yates","15":"tag-jim-gavin","16":"tag-matt-cooper","17":"tag-presidential-election","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115482120954843215","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}