‘Extinction level’ – Director Jim Sheridan believes RTÉ is ‘on the way out’ Jim Speaks Direct, and is Bluntly Honest, cannot Wait for the Movie on Ian Bailey, The Verdict.

He told us: “I’m playing a member of the jury. I had to do it at the last minute because there wasn’t anybody else and no one understood the story, they didn’t have the history with it.”

Mr Sheridan’s new movie on the unsolved murder will question what happened almost three decades ago, using a fictional jury to deliberate over the facts of the case.

Games of Thrones, Kin and The Wire star Aiden Gillen has also been cast in the upcoming production. Mr Sheridan that he is “delighted to have two icons of Irish cinema join the cast”.

He will co-direct the film alongside David Merriman, while actor Vicky Krieps ( Phantom Thread) is already confirmed for the film’s cast, returning to the case after documentary series Murder at the Cottage.

04/08/2023 UP DATED BY WATCHERS TO NOVEMBER 10th 2024.

Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan believes RTÉ will need ongoing Government ‘life support’ to survive.

The Oscar-winning director of movies such as My Left Foot and In the Name Of The Father said that traditional television programming has been ‘on the way out for ten years. It is reaching the extinction level’.Probably that needs to happen, just as the Government in Ireland supports Screen Ireland.’

The Dubliner added that ‘it’s very sad’ to witness the numbers of people who pay their TV licence fee falling off a cliff in the wake of the RTÉ payments debacle to its top presenter, Ryan Tubridy. The ongoing fall in TV licence revenue, revealed this week, shows that July payments have plummeted by €2.7million – in June revenue fell by just over €900,000.

The issue over the payments made to Mr Tubridy was made public in the middle of June.Mr Sheridan said that RTÉ finds itself in an ‘impossible position’ because nobody wants to pay for a TV licence.

He asked: ‘Who wants to pay any kind of a licence anywhere on Planet Earth? Who does? Nobody. So, you put RTÉ in the invidious position of being the person coming to take the money out of your bank account and then you are just going to make the population at large hate them.