Eoghan Harris - Controversies

Controversies

In 2006, during an RTÉ Television debate Harris stated that the leaders of the Easter Rising were "suicide bombers, I mean suicide terrorists".

Harris was featured on the front cover of the August 2007 edition of Village. Inside, Harris was the subject of a number of critical articles written by Vincent Browne.

It was reported in The Sunday Times (Irish edition) that Harris is at the centre of an internal investigation at the National Film School in Dún Laoghaire, where he lectures. Harris has also incorrectly but accidentally claimed to have received a Silver Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in his entry in 'Who's Who' in Ireland, for his documentary Darkness Visible. Harris insisted that he did win the award, saying that the Berlin Film Festival "mustn't keep proper records". The award he actually received is the Prix Futura, awarded at the Berlin Television Festival. He has since corrected the mistake.

On the RTÉ Radio One programme News At One on 3 December 2007, Harris strongly defended Bertie Ahern, saying that the Irish Daily Mail was a 'lying newspaper', which practised 'sensationalist, sick journalism' and which had a 'record of fascist appeasement in the 1930s'. He also said that the Mahon Tribunal should be shut down because "there is no natural justice available", and that in ten years time "people will look back and say that the Tribunal time was scoundrel time". The Irish Daily Mail denied his allegations. In a debate with Fintan O'Toole on the RTÉ TV Primetime programme on 4 December 2007, Harris further alleged that "the entire (Mahon) Tribunal is a fantasy of (Tom) Gilmartin".

In another RTÉ related controversy in 2004, Harris was confronted aggressively by an angry viewer, Kilmacud Crokes star Hugh Gannon, regarding the Sunday Independent's editorial. This happened after an episode of Questions & Answers, with Gannon implying Harris was a lackey for Tony O'Reilly. Harris reacted angrily to this, dismissed Gannon as a "Shinner" and presenter John Bowman had to step in to separate the two men. Bowman suggested that the men agree to disagree, but Gannon, a former 1998 Leinster minor hurling medallist and staunch Fine Gael supporter, suggested "No. Let's agree that you agree with me."

During a heated interview on the TV3 programme The Political Party with Ursula Halligan broadcast on 9 December 2007, Harris threatened to walk out because he didn't wish to discuss Bertie Ahern's appearances at the Mahon Tribunal any further. He then changed his mind and demanded that the programme be re-recorded, but Halligan informed him that this was impossible. The show was recorded live and therefore could not have been stopped.

Harris has defended the Irish Language Poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh, who admitted buying lavish gifts for and having sex with 16 to 18 year old boys while on charitable visits to Nepal. Harris pointed out that Ó Searcaigh was not a paedophile but rather a paederast, a sexual preference which was common among the great philosophers of Ancient Greece, and that the age of consent in Nepal is 16. He also wrote that Nepal is a notoriously homophobic society, and that some of the accusers may have their own agendas.

Harris has been strongly antagonistic towards the Croke Park Agreement, arguing that the levels of pay it guarantees to public sector workers are "choking social solidarity".