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RADIO REVIEW:I'll be the last person that will have to endure this kind of Chinese torture through a tribunal

THERE IS A scene in

The Simpsons

where the cartoon family, driving through the backwoods, decide to get a flavour of the region “through the magic of AM radio”, a shorthand for talk radio. They scan through the stations only for every DJ to riff on the same theme, “the seven signs of evil” as foretold by the Book of Revelations. Visitors to Ireland seeking to absorb the local culture would have had a similarly disconcerting experience last week. During a 30-second flick through the dial last Wednesday the word “Moriarty” was heard on three separate shows: Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays) and The Right Hook (Newstalk, weekdays).

Such saturation exemplified how Mr Justice Michael Moriarty’s report dominated the midweek agenda on talk radio. But it is doubtful that outsiders were any the wiser about the issues at stake after hearing the conflicting accounts spun by presenters, pundits and, in particular, those who came off badly in the tribunal report.

The latter category posed a delicate situation for the co-anchors of Breakfast (Newstalk, weekdays). “You may think because Denis O’Brien is chairman of Newstalk that we’re not going to cover the Moriarty report,” said Ivan Yates, opening Wednesday’s show. “I can tell you we’re going to give it wall-to-wall coverage.” Sure enough, an interview with O’Brien, recorded by Shane Coleman the night before, dominated the first half-hour of the show, during which O’Brien rejected the report’s finding that he made payments to former minister for communications Michael Lowry in a way that suggested linkage between Lowry’s position and the awarding of a mobile-phone licence to O’Brien’s Esat consortium in 1995.

O’Brien claimed that Moriarty was trying to besmirch his reputation. “In the report he does not accuse us all of being corrupt but in a very churlish kind of way starts saying things which are totally untrue, based on hearsay,” he told Coleman before going on to take several swipes at the judge’s reputation, calling him a “ridiculous figure”.

Coleman put the tribunal’s findings to O’Brien, but the recording was repeatedly stopped as the interviewer parsed each answer with presenter Chris Donoghue. It was an unusual way to present the interview, giving the impression of two experienced broadcasters walking a tightrope between analysing the issues and not unduly upsetting O’Brien.

Given that Newstalk was taunting RTÉ about “state-run spin” less than a month ago, it was a lesson in the adage about people in glass houses. By way of contrast, Pat Kenny’s interview with O’Brien yesterday (Today, RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) was much more forceful, with Kenny dissecting the entrepreneur’s counter-allegations and wondering if he wasn’t just “flailing around” in anger.

Still, it was entertaining to hear O’Brien (on Newstalk) strongly backing the Civil Service – or at least those civil servants whose testimony backed his side of the story – given that he and other worthies recently recommended 30,000 redundancies in the public sector.

If O’Brien was bullish, then Lowry sounded a more wounded note when he appeared on the News at One (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), saying he was “sickened and saddened” and that Moriarty’s opinions were “hurtful”. He got scant sympathy from host Seán O’Rourke, who pointed out that the judge had followed a chain of events and drawn a conclusion from conflicting evidence.

But Lowry continued to paint himself as the wronged party. “Seán, this is important,” he said. “I didn’t gain one cent from those transactions.” By the end his victim status was complete: “I’ll be the last person that will have to endure this kind of Chinese torture through a tribunal.” Coming from the normally cocksure Lowry, it was a breathtaking performance.

The most sympathetic, if odd, turn came from the one figure specifically accused of a “profoundly corrupt” act. On Tuesday Ben Dunne went on the nation’s populist court of appeal, Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), to deny the finding that he requested Lowry to increase rent paid by Telecom Éireann on his Marlborough House property. He said that he was innocent of any wrongdoing but also stressed that any accounts he gave about that period were unreliable. “At that stage of my life I attempted suicide, I was on drugs and I was unbalanced,” he said. “I was in a very dark place.”

It was a confusing defence, but he was outraged by Moriarty, who he said ignored psychiatrist’s reports on his mental state, so much so that RTÉ’s legal team contacted Duffy while on air, asking Dunne to retract one of his more inflammatory adjectives for the judge.

Most callers did not believe Dunne, though it is testament to his blustery charm that many apologised to him for their opinion. And, even as his tone veered between the confessional and the brash, Dunne kept his eye on the bottom line. “I’ve crawled out of darker holes than this,” he said, saying he would get on with running his gym chain: “I’m opening a new one next week.” With people suffering real hardship, Dunne’s plug for his business, and O’Brien’s indignation on one of his several media outlets, rendered their outrage hollow.

Radio moment of the week

Fresh from his role in Ireland’s victory over England, the rugby international Tommy Bowe dropped by The Ray D’Arcy Show (Today FM, weekdays), where he good-naturedly revealed the grooming habits of his fellow players. When D’Arcy asked if any of them were preeners, Bowe said he wouldn’t mention any names, as “Rob [Kearney] and Jamie [Heaslip] would be raging.” But Bowe, who plays club rugby in Wales, said the Irish lagged far behind the Welsh in metrosexual tendencies. “I have to try and stay well clear of that. I think if I sat down and took out moisturiser in front of John Hayes I’d be thrown out of the place.” Not that Bowe is immune to dandyism, however: he was there to plug his new range of designer shoes.

radioreview@irishtimes.com