By Cathal Curran
The fallout continues post the revelation that former Fine Gael minister and failed bookmaker Ivan Yates provided media training to Fianna Fáil’s presidential candidate Jim Gavin, while simultaneously appearing on podcasts and broadcasts without disclosing this clear conflict of interest. Yates initially drew attention after suggesting that Fine Gael and Heather Humphreys’ campaign should “smear the bejaysus” out of Catherine Connolly following Gavin’s entertainingly early exit from the race.
Yates has been punished for his jackassery. He was sacked from the podcast he co-hosted with broadcaster Matt Cooper, his standing as a political commentator has been annihilated and, given Gavin’s debate performances during his brief campaign, Yates’ media training services will now be as sought-after as his advice for running a successful bookmaker. He is now due to appear before an Oireachtas committee to account for his actions.
Among members of FG, FF, and the media, Yates is being scapegoated for Connolly’s landslide victory; few tears will be shed for his demise. The fierce nature of the backlash is somewhat surprising, given that neither Humphreys nor Gavin was likely to win. The real source of anger from the establishment is not that Yates violated their principles, but revealed their practices. Yates himself has admitted that the media is “riddled” with vested interests.
Manufacturing consent
This scandal is no aberration but an illuminating window into the machinery of Irish politics and the incestuous relationship between self-declared independent media and the capitalist state. Irish media presents itself as a bastion of independence and neutrality. Yet the 2025 presidential campaign, and the outlandish smears against Connolly that preceded her landslide victory, stripped away this mythology and revealed the truth: that the media in Ireland functions as a key component of the political apparatus defending capitalism.
The media manufactures consent for continued capitalist rule by ensuring that news and political commentary come from overlapping circles of the same elite. Journalists become government advisers; PR consultants become “independent commentators”; politicians become broadcasters. They attend the same schools, summits, and think-tank dinners. The careers of anyone with anti-capitalist views will be curtailed quickly. As Chomsky said to Andrew Marr: “If you believed something different, you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.”
This insidious relationship doesn’t capture the full duplicity of Irish media. Yates providing “unbiased” commentary on campaigns in which he has a material interest is but one example among many.
Lucinda Creighton has a column in the Sunday Business Post where she calls for increased militarisation and abandoning neutrality. What is never disclosed is that Creighton also works as a senior advisor for a right-wing think tank, the Counter Extremism Project, which lobbies for military action against Iran. Ben Tonra is another example. He has appeared numerous times in national papers and on radio shows discussing and critiquing Irish defence policy, the war in Ukraine, and other conflicts. Never is it disclosed that he is a paid lobbyist for weapons manufacturers – founder and director of the Irish Defence and Security Corporation, which lobbies the government on behalf of clients including weapons behemoths Lockheed Martin and SAAB.
Members of the religious fundamentalist group Iona are frequently afforded space in national titles and invited as guests on major radio and television shows, without any mention of how their arguments for socially regressive policies are shaped by the mass funding they receive from dark money groups. They are presented as representatives of a voiceless cohort of Irish society when, in fact, their regressive views are opposed by the majority. Without major funding from shadowy groups and media fealty, they’d have even less prominence in public consciousness. That such people are given outsized influence over national discourse despite being paid to advocate for particular positions is abhorrent. That these biases are rarely, if ever, disclosed to the public is insidious and corrosive to society.
“Smear the bejaysus out of her”
The role of media in this ecosystem is clear: to shape public consciousness in favour of stability, markets, and order. This is why a socialist candidate like Catherine Connolly had to be treated as a danger: not because she was divisive, but because she threatened the illusion of consensus. The smear attempts were not spontaneous or personal but structural responses. Mainstream newspapers churned out attack pieces an industrial scale. During debates, journalists reproduced Fine Gael’s attack lines almost verbatim, often within minutes. The media did not cover the election; it contested it.
The last few months have exposed the general public to where the media’s interests lie—private owners or political appointees run it. The Yates scandal mattered not because of Yates himself, but because it revealed the Irish capitalist establishment that he is a creature of. It was shown how narratives are manufactured, consent is shaped, and “public opinion” is constructed by a narrow class of insiders who fear socialism far more than inequality, housing crises, militarisation, or corporate capture.
