From unfinished children’s hospitals to Dáil bicycle sheds, so eye-watering have been the amounts splurged on public construction projects that it’s natural one might feel inured to bloated costs. But the capacity for surprise remains.
On Tuesday, for instance, Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) highlights how plans for even the most bog-standard building can command extravagant fees. “One point five million euro,” its presenter Colm Ó Mongáin says. “That amounts to the cost of one of just four toilets approved for Dublin city centre last year.” Spending a penny, it would appear, has become very expensive indeed.
To make matters worse, none of the €6 million loos has materialised yet. Interviewed by the RTÉ reporter Una Kelly, the Green Party councillor Claire Byrne is high on dudgeon but low on detail about how the situation has arisen. Asked why the project is costing so much, she forlornly replies: “That’s a good question.”
The University College Cork anthropologist James Cuffe raises the question of accessibility in such facilities, pointing out, in fluent academiaspeak, how poor design can exclude people with disabilities or infirmities: “The public toilet is a kind of a cultural space for negotiating the ideals, or what we imagine, about the kind of bodies and identities that we have in society.” Remember that the next time you’re lamenting the empty toilet-roll holder in the cubicle.
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For all that, the item also underscores the way municipal authorities often appear to regard the needs of the public as an irritating distraction rather than a core mission. The same complaint can’t be easily levelled at Ó Mongáin or Katie Hannon, his fellow anchor, however.
The two hosts preside over a show that, on the face of things anyway, is brisk in pace yet comprehensive in content, with a particular emphasis on its listeners’ concerns.
There’s coverage of big news stories, of course, with the ramifications of the United States and Israel’s war with Iran featuring prominently. But even here the presenters focus on how the conflict will affect their audience: Monday’s discussion of the possibility of war-related fuel rationing suggests that, although such drastic measures aren’t imminent, they’re a looming possibility.
Other items are more straightforwardly consumer-oriented, as when Hannon hears the health-insurance consultant Dermot Goode outline the perils of renewing policies that reduce benefits while increasing prices.
Hannon’s interview with Minister of State Robert Troy filters these consumer concerns through the lens of official data, in this case figures from the National Claims Information Database showing a 4 per cent increase in the cost of motor insurance. (Anyone spotting a theme here?)
Discussing this rise – at twice the rate of inflation – the minister is keen to stress the efficacy of the data, which he says allows policymakers “to respond to evolving trends”. Troy notes, in bafflingly chipper tones, that it’s damage to cars rather than personal-injury claims now driving increases. Well, that’s a relief.
Hannon, in contrast, sounds exasperated as she vainly attempts to ascertain whether – perish the thought – the insurance industry is adding hidden markups on to premiums.
Frustratingly inconclusive though the encounter is, it’s the kind of item that plays to people’s interests while providing entertainment in the form of on-air skirmishing. It’s also the kind of item that the Drivetime duo probably need more of.
Not that Hannon and Ó Mongáin are flailing in the early-evening spot they’ve held since November. As experienced journalists, their current-affairs chops are suitably sharp, while they sound easy with more diverting matters, as in their deeply topical discussion of avoiding overindulgence in Easter eggs. (On being informed by the dietitian Aoife Quinn that the optimum portion is 30g – the size of a fun-size bar of chocolate – Hannon can’t hide her dismay. “Ah, come on, Aoife. Who’s going to stop at a fun size?”)
Even so, the latest iteration of Drivetime doesn’t possess quite the air of fizz or promise of fireworks as it did under Cormac Ó hEadhra and Sarah McInerney. It’s of course wise that Hannon and Ó Mongáin don’t try to ape their predecessors’ shtick. Fine broadcasters both, they are still developing an understated dynamic of their own; he the irreverent observer, she the eye-rolling realist.
But despite appealing performances and consistent content, their tenure is, so far at least, somehow less than the sum of its parts.
The case of the missing jacks also features prominently on Lunchtime Live (Newstalk, weekdays), as Andrea Gilligan hears callers outline how the dearth of public conveniences has deeply inconvenient consequences for people with health issues such as colitis.
Rebecca tells Gilligan how she plots her course through Dublin city centre by proximity to cafe or store toilets, an experience echoed by Cork resident Diana: “I know every single toilet in the city, because I have to.”
These conversations unfold in unhurried fashion, with Gilligan, as is her wont, acting more as sympathetic pal than probing interrogator. What the resulting chats lack in dramatic impact they make up for in relatable testimony on the everyday impact of shortfalls in service. (No talk of “cultural spaces” here.)
It’s a good example of what Gilligan does best. Though her determinedly unpretentious approach can come across as a tad wide-eyed, she has a congenial and understanding manner that encourages callers to converse freely.
And although her show may not have the agenda-setting influence of Liveline, RTÉ Radio 1’s weekday phone-in, Gilligan equally isn’t hampered by the portentous self-importance that can sometimes weigh down her powerhouse rival: not every conversation is framed as an issue that requires action now.
So her conversation with the endocrinologist Mary Ryan about understanding period cycles is frank, and surely illuminating for male listeners. But the earthy candour of both host and guest befits a discussion of a fact of life for half the population, even as they acknowledge that – scandalously – it’s a topic rarely aired in public.
Gilligan’s light-touch style doesn’t always work: an item on public transport has one caller talking at length about the vagaries of west Dublin bus routes, the host seemingly powerless to intervene. Such meandering moments may mean that Gilligan’s show will never be flush with success, but she still offers good value.
Moment of the Week
He may be presenter of a weekend chatshow, but Brendan O’Connor (RTÉ Radio 1) has of late been hosting something of a literary salon. Having spoken with the novelist (and regular guest) John Banville the week before, on Saturday O’Connor talks to Colm Tóibín.
The Enniscorthy-born writer is ostensibly on the programme to discuss his favourite music – opera, classical, folk – but in the process he opens up about his late father, his childhood stammer and his years in Barcelona.
Rarely a reticent conversationalist, Tóibín seems even more loquacious and revealing than usual as he responds to his host’s pithy but perceptive questions. O’Connor, who describes himself as “quite a basic individual”, starts off by calling his guest a master of the short story. By the end the host shows himself to be a maestro of the long-form radio interview.
