I am Siún Ní Raghallaigh, and I’m not going to be traduced by the minister. Just listen to me roar.

Nobody expected Helen Reddy’s song to be reinterpreted so soon after the dismissal of the former Chair of RTÉ. And nobody could have expected the calm skewering by her of the minister. Day, date, and detail, she powered her weaponry home, and deployed a curiously old-fashioned word – traduced – which lent a Biblical flavour to the condemnation.

Ms Ní Raghallaigh’s nicely timed statement removed any doubt about the minister’s actions on the night of her Prime Time appearance. This paper made it clear, immediately after that appearance, that something was seriously wrong with the minister’s actions on that day and that it seemed more like meanness than the exposure of a failing state Chairperson.

In the absence of data other than that offered by the minister to the Oireachtas Media Committee, Ms Ní Raghallaigh not wanting to receive a letter from the minister seemed at best peculiar, at worst ridiculous. Every second radio programme suddenly had commentators suggesting that refusing to accept a letter belonged more in the time of the Brontë sisters than twenty-first-century Ireland. All very twittery and ladylike, don’t you know. Maybe requiring smelling salts?

Tonight's statement put that refusal to accept a letter in a very different light. Its writer says she was told – presumably by civil servants – that the minister wanted to get the letter out to her before the Prime Time interview.

“It was now apparent that a plan was afoot, somehow involving the letter and the Prime Time appearance and that would not be changed by any input from RTÉ,” says Ms Ní Raghallaigh. 

“It began to appear that the letter was as much being dictated by the upcoming Prime Time interview as anything surrounding my clarification about the Collins case.” 

The former chair may not have known Catherine Martin well – difficult to get to know your minister when she meets you astonishingly rarely – but she could see the teeth of a trap, and while she could not prevent those teeth meeting in her leg, she could refuse to go along with the structure of the trap. That’s what she did, only to find herself mocked as a leftover Victorian.

Except that while Ms Ní Raghallaigh is neat and quiet and was happy to have Kevin Bakhurst do most of the talking during her time in office, she clearly, after her forced resignation, got mad as hell and became determined not to take it any more. Her statement isn’t small in its intent or impact.

Now, one of the points that Minister Martin made repeatedly in her Oireachtas Committee appearance was that her relationship had to be with the Chair, not the Director General. In an appearance distinguished by the weakness of the questioning by TDs and Senators, she managed to establish and re-establish that point. Which makes Ms Ní Raghallaigh’s rug-pulling last night more lethal. Because she portrays this minister as being “hands off.” 

“Hands off” may be a euphemism for “disengaged.” 

It indubitably establishes that Catherine Martin is no Simon Harris, no Stephen Donnelly, no Roderic O’Gorman. None of those three could be described as “hands off.” 

If any state body reporting to them was in an existential crisis complicated by public controversy, they’d be in like Flynn, not hiding behind their civil servants. Yet here’s what Ms Ní Raghallaigh says about her experience:

“The rule book on good governance may prescribe regular contact between minister and chair as the norm but, from day one, I had no choice but to accept the practice of regular contact between chair and secretary general.” 

Be clear. Ms Ní Raghallaigh is not making a retrospective complaint. Rather the contrary. She states that the arrangement worked pretty well. Which has to be the most devastating judgment of the minister: that her absence wasn’t a drawback or a cause of problems. She literally didn’t matter.

Ms Ní Raghallaigh does, however, say that this hands-offery was contrary to the impression given by the minister to the Oireachtas Committee members on Tuesday, 27th February. And then, lest anybody miss what she’s saying, she adds this.

“My experience over the past 15 months has been of a minister actively taking a hands-off approach whilst delegating through her officials.” 

In fifty years of working with politicians, I have never seen a sacked chair take such action. This is not fury. This is cold determination. Ms Martin and the people working with her cobbled together a plan involving using Prime Time. We cannot speculate about the motivation, but expressing no confidence in someone who reports to you tends to make the reporting person look failed and weak while making you look strong and decisive. At least in the short term.

Catherine Martin survived an Oireachtas Committee in the silence that followed the chair’s ejection, not least because the party leaders circled wagons around her.

Siún Ni Raghallaigh managed to shoot an arrow between those wagons last night. That arrow landed right in the middle of Minister Martin’s reputation. It’s still vibrating.