Remembering Bill O'Herlihy: 'The Inquiry into the Programme on Moneylending'
Bill O'Herlihy is remembered first and foremost as a sports broadcaster but a tribunal report in the Official Publications collection in the Library documents his challenging earlier career as a reporter for the 7 Days programme, one of the first investigative journalistic formats produced by RTE. In November 1969 Bill O'Herlihy, as chief reporter, investigated the operation of moneylenders in the Dublin area. The programme was the first of its kind to use hidden cameras and more controversially an acted insert to give it dramatic and narrative structure. There were a number of contentious statements made within the programme and such was the impact and the ensuing controversy, that the Fianna Fáil government ordered a public inquiry into the 7 Days production. These are Bill O'Herlihy's concluding remarks at the end of the programme, reproduced in the Inquiry Report. The claim of 'as many as 500 moneylenders' was considered inaccurate by the