RTE has defended Miriam O’Callaghan after online trolls said she should not have co-presented the Prime Time leaders' debate because her brother is in Fianna Fail.
The Prime Time star is the sister of Fianna Fail’s Jim O’Callaghan, who is seeking to be re-elected.
He is currently the party’s outgoing justice spokesperson and is running in Dublin Bay South.
A number of tweets said Miriam O’Callaghan should not have been questioning Micheal Martin, Leo Varadkar and Mary Lou McDonald on Tuesday night’s debate.
One said: “Miriam O’Callaghan shouldn’t be asking questions on this debate.
“Her brother is a FF candidate and she is clearly biased against @sinnfeinireland.
“It’s typical of the rotten system within this country. RTÉ are a disgrace.”
Miriam refused to comment, but a spokeswoman for RTE told the Irish Mirror: “RTÉ is entirely satisfied that Miriam O’Callaghan and David McCullagh were, as always, fair and impartial in their roles as presenters on Tuesday night’s RTÉ Prime Time Leaders Debate.”
Other’s praised O’Callaghan’s performance stating she handled the debate “professionally and appropriately.”
Meanwhile, RTE said over one million people tuned into the debate at some point.
The spokeswoman said: “The programme drew huge audiences as an average of 658,000 watched the near two hour programme with over a million people tuning in at some point.
“Over half the people watching TV last night were watching 54% share.
“The programme was also a big draw with 15-34 year old viewers.”
