RADIO REVIEW:THE WORLD seemed to stand still for several minutes on Wednesday afternoon as artist and writer Gerard Mannix Flynn, who spent two years in Letterfrack industrial school, spoke without interruption on Lunchtime With Eamon Keane(Newstalk 106-108).
“This is Ireland’s darkest period,” he said. “This is surely the death of Romantic Ireland.” Flynn said that, in relation to child abuse, the state had not only indemnified the Church, it had also indemnified itself. “These people are talking about a charitable contribution with no blame and no fault at their door.” He asked Irish people to “draw breath” and to call on the United Nations Human Rights Commission to open an investigation here.
“It can be proved within the documentations that I’ve read that monies that were handed over to the congregations of religious for the upkeep of us, for our education, for our wellbeing, was squandered and spent while our teeth rotted in our mouths, while we walked around freezing cold, while we walked around starving,” he said.
Flynn said he didn’t want any “dirty blood money”, adding, “I’m in a country that cannot render me justice . . . How can they possibly look after us when it’s the State that wants to give us counselling, when it’s the State that wants to ask us about the intimate details of how our souls were taken from us, and how we were destroyed.”
Also on Wednesday, Ivan Yates showed much wide-eyed enthusiasm during his second week on The Breakfast Show(Newstalk 106-108, weekdays). "My next guest I could natter to for an hour, but I only have three or four minutes," he said, introducing John Fitzgerald of the Economic and Social Research Institute. Welcome to the fast-paced world of soundbite radio.
Fitzgerald is a sea of calm during this economic “perfect storm” and will now be a monthly guest on the show, keeping worried listeners in the loop. He reiterated previous ESRI reports, unemployment hitting 17 per cent next year, and a painful 2010. “You kind of scare me when you say next year is not going to be pleasant,” Claire Byrne interjected. You and me both.
But Yates, a former politician, refused to have his slightly wired, early morning chipperness knocked out of him.
“We want to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he exclaimed. Despite Fitzgerald advocating a tax on child benefit, carbon and property tax, Yates finished up with a nice happy bow: “The end of the bad news by the end of next year.” Alas, if only it were that simple.
On the ubiquitous subject of government corruption, Sunday Tribune journalist Michael Clifford was asked the same question on several radio shows this week. Former government press secretary Frank Dunlop, right, goes to prison for bribing local counsellors to rezone land, but what about those who received the money?
Why no prosecutions there? Clifford told Tuesday's The Last Word(Today FM, weekdays) he was a little surprised at the severity of Dunlop's two-year sentence, of which six months was suspended and, in relation to rezoning land at Carrickmines, he said, "A number of the councillors admitted receiving money from him, but they say that was a legitimate political donation."
Exasperated, Matt Cooper wondered what it took to get justice in this country. He asked if others are afraid that they too might go to jail. Clifford didn’t think anyone was quaking in their boots. He said, “Frank Dunlop’s case was unique in that he was the only person to come out, put his hands up and say, ‘I was involved in corruption’.”
On Thursday’s Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio One, weekdays), Eleanor Burnhill reported on the government’s new Credit Supply Clearing Group for businesses. Pat Farrell, chief executive of the Irish Banking Federation, said, “Banks would not exist without their customers, so it’s a no-brainer for banks to continue to sustain these businesses.”
But Mark Fielding, chief executive of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, said 58 per cent of business customers in that category are refused loans, while many of the other 42 per cent cannot take them up due to tighter rules. He said if banks remain in “denial” about credit, “We will find it difficult to get past Go with this one.”
Anne Watson, owner of Alpha Lingo, a language website for children, is just one who has been refused a loan. But she took inspiration from Walt Disney who went to 369 banks before he got a yes: “Even if I have to go around 369 banks or 369 investors to get one, my knight in shining armour, I will do that.” This week’s lesson: never, ever give up.
qfottrell@irishtimes.com