Response from RTÉ re IMF press conf.

Our online news service on rte.ie ran the full Government press conference which continued for just three minutes after we finished coverage on TV.There has been a suggestion that we in some way censored Vincent Browne’s questioning of the Taoiseach for reasons of commercial rivalry with TV3. This is far from being the case. Our news special ran for half an hour and contained a number of questions from various journalists including our own, some international broadcasters and from TV3 both Ursula Halligan and Vincent Browne whose first four questions were broadcast before we returned briefly to studio for analysis and then went to the extended Nine O’Clock News. The News Special attracted an average audience of 364,000 compared to 35,000 for Sky News’ coverage of the same event.RTÉ One, being a mixed channel and not a specialist News channel, has to serve audience needs other than News. That said, on a night of intense national drama, it was imperative that the Nine O’Clock news went to air on time for the huge audience (average 769,000) who switched to us to find out the latest developments. To mark the seriousness of the day’s events, The Week in Politics was brought forward to 10.30 pm, broadcast live and extended, and received an average audience figure of 359,000. RTÉ News is satisfied that it covered Sunday's events fully and appropriately.Kind Regards,RTÉ Information Team