The documentary focused on visits by the poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh to Nepal during which he had close relationships with many young boys of 16 years old or older.
[1] In March 2008, Liam Gaskin, who had been acting as his public spokesman, stood down as a result of a DVD launched to defend Cathal Ó Searcaigh by his supporters in Kathmandu.
One example is Quentin Fottrell, who claimed that Ó Searcaigh's charity was "conditional" and involved a power gap between a relatively wealthy European adult and Nepalese youth living in poverty.
[14] It emerged in the documentary that Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, while Government Chief Whip, had assisted Ó Searcaigh obtain an Irish visa for a Nepalese youth.
[19] Prominent gay rights campaigner and Senator David Norris defended Ó Searcaigh in Seanad Éireann: "An attempt has been made to create such a firestorm of hostile publicity that justice may never retrospectively be done.
A year after the film was broadcast, Cathal Ó Searcaigh finally made a detailed defence of all the charges against him in an extensive interview in Hot Press.
[6] Paddy Bushe, a poet and filmmaker who became friends with Cathal O'Searcaigh after making a documentary about him, released that film, titled The Truth about Kathmandu, in the autumn of 2009.
Narang Pant, whose testimony was central to the original documentary, states he was instructed to give rehearsed answers, and that he subsequently had asked her not to use the interview she had taken with him.
[21] Bushe also interviewed another young Nepali man who states he was offered money by Ní Chianáin to give a critical account of Ó Searcaigh, which he refused to do.
[22] Ní Chianáin denied that there had been any misrepresentation of the views of those interviewed, stating that social services were happy with the account presented in the film and unedited footage and transcripts.