IN AMONGST the dreadful dreck and dross of Christmas songs, Christmas advertisements and Christmas shopping features, there invariably enter the still more cringeworthy radio items about "those less fortunate than ourselves".

In recent years this sort of material has been less directly offensive; i.e. so called "politically correct" ideas about treating people with respect, not over relying on experts and avoiding patronising language have had an effect. However, what really grates now is more the blatantly seasonal nature of the medium's compassion.

Liveline (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) is to some degree immune from such criticism, not least because of its year round sob content - and the programme's occasional ability to shift focus to the institutions that lie behind social problems. (The Gay Byrne/ Joe Duffy team used to strike a reasonable balance, too; Pat Kenny has a considerably more awkward touch.)

Marian Finucane's show on Friday contained a great example of urgent, uncontrived, in depth compassion. Ironically, in this argument about moving psychiatric patients from a Dublin home, we heard not a word from any of the people directly affected; but there could be little doubt that their interests were being honestly represented.

Cork Street, in the south inner city, is the sort of area that has been popular on radio in recent months. You know the cliche's protests that have "ominous echoes", of the 1980s Concerned Parents movement (ominous for whom?), and the odd interview with an addict who has never, ever, sold to support his or her habit.

On Liveline, through Charlie Hammond, a representative of local residents, we heard a different side of the community. Local people, we heard, are happy to have a drug treatment facility in the area, but don't want this politically expedient development to happen at the expense of the long time residents of Weir Home, psychiatric patients who have been happily integrated in the neighbourhood, but who are now being moved out to make room for the drug centre.

Hammond's call to Marian was triggered by a tearful outburst from one of them, henrtbroken at the prospect of leaving. Having said his piece on their behalf, Hammond was lined up against a health board official who had to defend the patients' displacement. This obviously decent man didn't stand a chance against Hammond, whose good intentions were beyond question and whose style was refreshingly direct.

An unfair fight was turned into a rout when Martin Doyle, a psychiatric nurse who knows the patients involved, phoned to support Hammond's position. This listener's goosebumps at these men's passion and integrity, on behalf of some of society's forgotten people, turned into a golf ball sized lump in throat when Hammond declared: "I don't know Martin Doyle, but I wish he was a son of mine. That's an honourable man."

Unfortunately, this attention has probably come too late for the patients who called Cork Street home; previous media efforts, too, were unable to shift the bureaucracy. But people like Hammond and Doyle can rest assured that they fought the good fight.

On some long haul flights you can tune your headphones in to a "relaxation" channel, where soothing voices, ambient music and the soft, repetitive sounds of the sea are meant to lull you to sleep.

Leaving aside the question of whether nautical noises are the most relaxing when you're 30,000 feet over the north Atlantic, Colin Morrison's documentary, Innocent When You Dream (RTE Radio 1, Thursday) could have a future in this admittedly specialised niche.

This was presented as an exploration by poets and other dream heads of the significance of dreams in various cultures (e.g. Australian Aborigine) and at various times (e.g. the unspecified past), but it came across as a tasty chunk of millennium mysticism and whatever you're having yourself. Indeed, it's tempting to say this programme was basically dream like in that everyone was talking incomprehensible drivel.

Call me hopelessly Cartesian, but I find speculation about "what the earth dreams" nearly as boring as attempts to cast the Enlightenment as a peculiarly 20th century disease, or to read other cultures' metaphors as their literal beliefs, all the better to embrace them. Wake up and smell the coffee!