Keeping his head down

RADIO REVIEW:HE'S NOT quite as audible as he once was. In stark contrast to his previous incarnation as the life of the party, and his media-friendly persona, we don't hear a peep out of Seán FitzPatrick these days. Once upon a time the former chairman of Anglo Irish Bank cut a swagger around town. His unapologetic appearance on Marian Finucane (RTÉ Radio 1, weekends) in October 2008 will go down in history, alongside Pádraig Flynn's pride-before-the-fall appearance on The Late Late Showwith Gay Byrne, during which Flynn boasted about his multiple homes.

But when FitzPatrick was declared bankrupt by the High Court on Monday he was unseen and unheard, and he showed no signs of enjoying his infamy. Of Anglo's gung-ho lending practices, David Murphy told News at One(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), "there was an attempt to follow the leader." Well, that was an understatement of epic proportions.

Gavin Jennings asked, with a kind of prepared theatrical shock-and-awe: “What sort of man was he? Was he admired? Was he liked? How wealthy was he?” Murphy replied: “In terms of the megawealth he wasn’t up there with the top 10, the people like Seán Quinn, Denis O’Brien, Tony O’Reilly, but he was seen as a very influential person, and a lot of people wanted to know him.” I wished they’d explored this. Still, that’s yet another lesson from the Celtic Tiger: apply the same rules we now do to doctors and men of the cloth; social status or money is not enough to warrant unquestioning admiration.

On Morning Ireland(RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) Murphy said the €22 billion in state capital being used to recapitalise Anglo is "more than the cost of cleaning up after the BP oil spill . . . That's the type of scale of problem that the Irish state is left with."

On The Ray D'Arcy Show(Today FM, weekdays), D'Arcy lamented that FitzPatrick would live comfortably once his wife was given her share of his assets and pension. As such he feared history would repeat itself. "Somebody will be sitting behind a microphone in 20 years' time giving out about the same kind of person."

But back to Finucane’s 2008 interview with FitzPatrick after the Government guaranteed bank deposits and before Anglo was nationalised. FitzPatrick thanked the Government, but he refused to say sorry. (This was obviously a man used to being feted.) He oozed self-confidence, leaving a trail of silk along the corridors of Montrose in his wake. “Of course banks have made mistakes, and Anglo Irish Bank has made mistakes because we’re in the business of risk,” he said at the time. “But have we been reckless? No, we haven’t. We cover all our loans in a belt-and-braces way.”

There was more. “If the Irish banking system collapsed there would have been chaos,” FitzPatrick told Finucane. “This was the most important economic decision since the foundation of the State.” It sounded like he was proud to make it into the nation’s history books, no matter how he managed it. “Did you see Armageddon coming?” Finucane asked. “Oh, I did, yeah,” he replied. How unlikely that seemed then . . . or now. Of the bank crisis, FitzPatrick said: “We were on the brink . . . This was not a shameful position to be in.” Perhaps he will now reconsider that position.

Still, the most startling interview of recent times doesn’t go to FitzPatrick. Sorry, Seánie. It goes to Fr Gary Donegan, a priest in Ardoyne, in north Belfast, on Wednesday’s Today (BBC Radio 4, weekdays). He painted a picture of flash rioting in Northern Ireland, helped by social-networking sites and text messaging among unsupervised tweens and gangs of teenagers, plus the usual smattering of dissident republicans stirring up toil and trouble.

Donegan said the teenagers were rioting and cruising, and young girls took part, too. “It looked like the Milan catwalk. I tell you it was ridiculous. There were girls out with little parasols,” he said, adding, “Young fellas acting it up for the girls and posting these images on to social networks.” He, and others, called it recreational rioting: “I saw children facing down what would have been hardened mainstream republicans of yesteryear who are now full weight behind the peace process.” He compared the riots to a circus, albeit a dangerous one. Donegan came face to face with a nine-year-old child and had to physically pull stones out of his hands. Donegan also knew his radio sound bites. “It was a bit like a Euro Disney theme park for rioting,” he said. “It was just ludicrous. I thought to myself, Where are your parents; who is supervising you?”

Children rioting? Adults tearing a hole in the country’s finances and polluting our oceans? There is a lack of parental supervision, but, if you look at the rest of the world, there is a notable lack of role models, too.