The Rubberbandits. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI) has criticised the presenter of The Late Late Show for not showing “sensitivity to the potential for offence” over the ‘haunted bread’ incident.
During a panel discussion on the show on January 6 Blindboy Boatclub of The Rubberbandits comedy duo referred to Holy Communion as “haunted bread”, while another panellist compared it to cannibalism, resulting in thousands of complaints being sent to RTÉ.
Response
In a detailed response to 11 complainants, including Fr Gerard Ahern and Fr Kevin McNamara, the BAI ruled it was “legitimate for a panellist to articulate their own personal views”.
However, the authority accepted that presenter Ryan Tubridy “mis-judged the offence likely to have been caused by the use of the term ‘haunted bread’” and that his comments “compounded the offence caused to the complainant” when he complimented the panellist for the term.
The BAI committee said it did not believe that the comments or the presenter’s contributions “crossed a line such that undue offence was caused to the audience as a whole”, but that the degree of offence may have been minimised if “the presenter had demonstrated greater sensitivity to the potential for offence” and it advised RTÉ “to have regard to the Committee’s view in this regard”.