Drama and intrigue, vanity and hysteria - it's 'Oireachtas Report'

PRESENT TENSE:Drunks and insomniacs aside, Irish TV audiences have a great appetite for politics. But are the politicians beginning to repeat on us? asks SHANE HEGARTY

THIS IS UNLIKELY to be a question that keeps you awake at night, but what would you do with Oireachtas Report? Put it on at prime time? Shove aside RTÉ1's romcom-of-the-week every Wednesday and give it epic treatment? Or would you throw it somewhere dark and deep in the schedules and replace it with something you'd like to watch? Such as "International Paint Drying, live from Kazakhstan".

This issued troubled some members of the Oireachtas this week, for 45 minutes anyway, during a Joint Committee meeting on Wednesday. The edited highlights were shown late that night where, as you may occasionally have discovered, Oireachtas Reportlives. Pat Rabbitte once described it as being a programme that is watched only by "drunks and insomniacs" – a line so good, two committee members used it.

Actually, an average of 65,000 people watch the programme, which makes it a reasonably popular nightcap, all things considering, although it now has increasing competition from TV3's controversial quiz show, Play TV.

It means the audience has a choice between watching a confusing and expensive system that infuriates the public on one channel and . . . you know the rest of that joke.

The committee's TDs and Senators took a largely pragmatic approach, most being reasonable enough to suggest that they should sort themselves out before they expected people to be interested in their activities. RTÉ's managing editor of news, Cillian de Paor, pointed out that for all its importance, it was unlikely that Oireachtas Reportwould ever dislodge Desperate Housewivesin the ratings. If it did, of course, it would mean that a vain hysterical and always bickering bunch would be replaced . . . etc.

Still, there were some interesting insights into the way television coverage of the Oireachtas operates. If a politician wants to get some coverage, they need to be at a committee meeting on a Tuesday morning because there’s nothing else going on then. On Wednesdays, though, it’s a committee free-for-all, and Leader’s Questions is held too. It means everything is squashed in together and there is too much to be covered.

There was much discussion about empty seats and the never-ending drone of the speech-readers. It was compared with the BBC’s more extensive daily coverage, although no-one pointed out that the UK broadcaster has had the luxury of hiving off its children’s programmes to dedicated channels.

Senator Paddy Burke asked that there be a plug for Oireachtas coverage after the nine o’clock news every night, for the “transport committee or leaders’ questions”. De Paor said he’d make that point to the relevant person in RTÉ. Everyone sniggered knowingly.

And there was also discussion about the Oireachtas channel which is due to air from 2012 when Irish television goes entirely digital.

But what worried them most was the scheduling of Oireachtas Report. "The lateness at night doesn't make sense to me," pondered Jack Wall. "Sometimes it seems RTÉ is showing it just for the sake of showing it." Which is, surely, the very definition of public service broadcasting.

It is two decades since the Oireachtas got TV cameras, giving a limited glimpse of the proceedings, but only fixed views, unable to reflect the wider mechanics of Leinster House. There was little mention, interestingly, of the fact that you could watch this committee live through the Oireachtas website. The site is useful – up to a point.

It has rolling coverage, so you can drop in live to whatever chamber you wish, but there is no agenda of what’s happening in each one. It leads to a certain committee room lottery (if you like your lotteries on the mild side).

The protagonists nodded and agreed it had been a good committee meeting, left the room knowing that nothing would change. It had been a bit of a chat, but this was no drama. Perhaps the politicians’ attitudes were tempered by how they were talking to people who represent a station that now puts current affairs on prime time in a way that’s making it freakish in comparison to other countries.

Two weeks ago, The Frontlinemoved forward in the schedule to a 9.30pm slot. Prime Time has Tuesdays and Thursdays to itself and Friday's Late Late Showalways carries at least one substantial current affairs item. News and, by extension, politics gets coverage here that it is no longer given in the UK. If anything, the balance is becoming skewed, reducing variety from RTÉ1's schedules.

There is an identikit feel to midweek that does neither itself nor the viewer any favours. Of course, the ratings hold up, although De Paor stressed that everything shouldn't always be about ratings. Maybe the question that should be asked is not "should politicians elbow aside Desperate Housewives?", but "has RTÉ become too desperate for politicians?"