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It was just after 7 pm, Monday 30 May 2005, when Mr Justice Frank Clarke gave his decision to the High Court. He refused an injunction sought by the proprietors of the Leas Cross nursing home, John and Georgina Aherne, and a separate injunction by the home’s matron Denise Cogley, to get the programme stopped. I jumped in my car and drove down to Windmill Lane, a post-production house on Dublin’s south city quays – we had just over two hours to air. I had to sign off on the final details. Once that was done we had to play out the programme to tape – in real time. All fifty-two minutes. As soon as we had the master tape, myself and researcher Seán Mac Giolla Phádraig raced to my car and headed for RTÉ (Radio Telefís Éireann). We ran from the car park to hand deliver the tape to the anxious broadcast co-ordinator Irene Kirby in TV reception at 9.20 pm. There was just over ten minutes to air. Home Truths (2005) is one of the many investigative documentaries produced under the Prime Time Investigates banner since 2003. The strand is made up of three/four hour-long documentaries broadcast on consecutive weeks in November/December and May each year. It is a separate strand from the bi-weekly current affairs programme Prime Time, with its own slot in the TV schedule at 9.30 pm on Monday nights. The Prime Time Investigates strand was instigated by the then editor of Current Affairs, Noel Curran.1 He had returned to RTÉ in 2001 after a spell in the independent sector convinced that investigative documentaries should be a priority for current affairs. Around this time there was an increase in the licence fee and Noel saw this as an opportunity to pitch for additional resources for current affairs to put in place a new investigative strand of documentaries. The choice of name was deliberate – by putting ‘investigates’ in the title, Curran felt it would ensure the series was grounded in investigative journalism and would not slip into social documentary. While current affairs had been sporadically producing investigative documentaries – most notably at that time Cardinal Secrets (the documentary by Mary Raftery and Mick Peelo about the Catholic Church’s track record on clerical sex abuse cases broadcast in October 2002) – the difference with the 84 Home Truths Prime Time investigates nursing homes and Leas Cross MÁIRE KEARNEY new strand was that it would go out as a television series of 3/4 documentaries on consecutive Monday nights. This was seen as a way of making more of an ‘event’ out of these major documentaries and having a greater impact with the audience. Investigative documentaries take time and money to make and it was felt that it was important to showcase them and differentiate them from the weekly current affairs shows. The reaction within RTÉ to the setting up of the new strand was generally positive with the recognition that investigative journalism is an essential part of RTÉ’s public service remit. RTÉ has always felt that investigative journalism is one of the key standards by which its current affairs output is judged by viewers. Noel Curran, with a background in investigative journalism himself, had the ambition and confidence to make the case for the strand, push for the resources and make it a reality. By the time the first series went to air in December 2003 Noel had become managing director of Television in RTÉ and David Nally had taken over as editor of Current Affairs.2 The strand has been hugely successful for RTÉ both in terms of audience reach and overall impact. Since its establishment the series has maintained an average audience share well above 30 per cent. The highest audience in terms of all viewers was ‘Carry On Regardless’ with 783,000 (a programme on NAMA and the developers involved) at the end of 2010, followed by ‘On the Edge’, 773,000 viewers, in December 2008 – a documentary exploring the Travelling community’s way of life. The third most popular programme achieved an audience figure of 704,000 for the investigative programme entitled ‘Cocaine’ in December 2007. These programmes have often generated a wide public and political discourse after broadcast and have in some cases been a catalyst that began a process of political reform. Investigative documentaries tackle contemporary stories in a journalistic fashion and invariably there are complications and...

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