OTD: Late Late Show slammed as 'immoral' at Kilkenny conference
November 15, 1974
A recent Late Late Show on RTE was slammed as ‘immoral and subversive’ at the Poverty Conference in Kilkenny at the weekend.
“It was the most immoral programme I have ever seen,” said Mr Seamus Ó Cinneide of the Economic and Social Research Institute. “And it was more subversive than any programme on the Provisional IRA.
“It was concerned with the trials and tribulations of the middle class and it seemed to have been put on to counter the Labour Party’s annual conference in Galway.
“The image that was being presented on the programme was that the middle classes were supporting the ne’er do wells in the lower orders and that the lower orders were shiftless people who were sponging off the State and doing ‘nixers’.
“It was a most immoral and upsetting programme. And it made to forment class rivalry and class conflict.”
Introducing his criticism of the Late Late Show, Mr O Cinneide said it had often been suggested that well off people paid more into the system than they got out, while people who put nothing into the system got a lot out of it.
There was no firm information to come to a conclusion on that matter, but experience in other countries had shown that there was no significant redistribution of wealth from people who were well off to those who were not.
Kilkenny’s ancient and historic documents, locked away in the vaults of City Hall, may at last go on public exhibition.
Monday’s Corporation meeting heard a letter from South East Tourism saying that they had recently been invited to submit schemes which might appeal to commercial sponsors in connection with European Heritage Year.
The public exhibition of the charters and documents would be of enormous interest to tourists. The Kilkenny Design Workshops would give technical help.
Ald M McGuinness felt it was a pity that documents of such great value were locked away. They should be on display in properly designed cases.
There would hardly be sufficient space in the Council chamber for the exhibition. But the dungeons of City Hall might make an ideal setting for the display.
Miss M Tynan said that she would welcome any moves that would result in the documents being put on permanent display, but they would need assurance that the documents would be properly preserved.