Why is Ireland's mainstream media so reluctant to report the fact that the editor of the Irish Independent, Stephen Rae, had penalty points deducted from his driving licence?
It would be an interesting story at any time. But it has a special relevance because of Rae's firing of a reporter following her approach to the head of the Irish police force about his also having had penalty points erased from his driving record.
As I reported last month, the Indo's investigative reporter, Gemma O'Doherty, was made compulsorily redundant after her door-stepping of the Garda commissioner Martin Callinan.
She was criticised by Rae as "a rogue reporter" for approaching Callinan without permission from her bosses. The paper eventually ran what was called a "sanitised" version of O'Doherty's story about Callinan's driving penalty.
It now transpires, as the London-based Irish Post reports, that a vehicle registered to Rae accrued penalty points on 5 November 2009. Those points were later terminated.
An Irish Post reporter spoke to Rae - a former editor of the Garda Review magazine - who said: "I'm not commenting." Rae did not respond to my phone call, just as he did not when I wrote about O'Doherty's firing.
A Garda press office spokesman told me: "We don't comment on individual persons. It would not be appropriate to do so."
But the evidence of the quashing of Rae's points has been verified by one of two Garda whistleblowers who have revealed hundreds of examples where senior officers abused their discretionary power to annul penalty points. There has been an inquiry into the scandal by the Dail, Ireland's parliament.
So I repeat: why is the Rae story, like the story of the firing of Gemma O'Doherty before it, being ignored by the Irish media?
The media exist to hold power to account. Given that the Indo is owned by the largest and most powerful media company in the Republic, Independent News & Media, it should be scrutinised by its rivals.
Journalists should police each other or the public they serve will think there is some kind of special treatment for the media élite. (The British phone-hacking saga was a case in point).
The absence of coverage in Ireland of the Rae story implies a cover-up.
