Priceless publicity for a five-star car park

Radio Review: In the car park of the new shopping centre in Dundrum there's some fancy gizmo that helps you find your car if you've forgotten where you parked.

And the car park is painted too - apparently such a rarity in the car park world that it's a sure-fire bet to make it into the next issue of The World of Car Park Interiors.

"It's a five-star car park," said the shopping centre's director Don Nugent, without a single trace of irony, "It's unique on the world stage" (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1, Monday). At that point, Kenny should have been in like a hot knife through butter, cutting through the guff. Instead, the half-hour item on the suburban shopping centre quickly developed into the sort of puff piece best described in the words beloved of public relations people everywhere, "you couldn't buy this sort of publicity".

Reporter Valerie Cox went for a wander around the shopping mall and, fuelled with the enthusiasm of Imelda Marcos in a shoe shop, reported on the range of stuff on offer. "There's even a male crèche," she said, which isn't as you might imagine, a pub, instead it's some sort of golf swing practice area. Back in the studio, Kenny seemed so enthralled by the idea of it all that Nugent and the project architect, Niall Kerney, got ample opportunity to talk about the shopping mall as if it was - well, something far more significant than a shopping mall. "Is it a town centre in the traditional way?" asked Kenny, buying in a little too literally to the centre's name. "Is there, for example, a church?" Carney replied that there is already a church on Dundrum's main street but that a new street layout would make that church "one of the urban events along the street". The amazing thing is that no-one in the studio howled with laughter at such ludicrous jargon.

It took callers to Liveline (RTÉ 1, Monday) to inject a bit of everyday reality into the coverage. They were mostly traders in the old Dundrum shopping centre who are facing an uncertain future because, grim and all as it is, at least they can afford the rents there.

With all the coverage there wasn't even a cursory questioning of the sort of culturally impoverished Ireland that names a multinational-focused shopping mall, that could be plonked down anywhere in the developed world, a town centre. What listeners in the Dundrums of counties Down, Armagh and Tipperary, or anyone outside the suburbs of south Dublin, made of all this coverage is anyone's guess.

It was back again on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) with George Lee reporting on the centre as if it was the relocation of the World Bank instead of the opening of a lot of shops - and yes, he did go into a lot of detail about that car park.

In fact several shows on both RTÉ Radio 1 and Today FM featured the new shopping centre - last week's Rattlebag (RTÉ Radio 1, Thursday) even did a perfectly pointless and highly tenuous piece about its art-related features. Whoever the centre's PR people are, they deserve an industry award. The worm started to turn only on Thursday, the day the centre opened, when RTÉ's Dublin correspondent, Orla O'Donnell, reported (Morning Ireland, RTÉ Radio 1) on the negative social and commercial impact of the massive, all-consuming centre on what was a small southside village.

A person who was busy consuming his foot was the Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen, interviewed by SeáO'Rourke (News At One, RTÉ Radio 1, Monday) in the most entertaining piece of radio all week. O'Rourke quizzed the Minister over Dublin Bus's contention that it was underfunded. "The money's there," said Cullen, repeatedly, coining a handy new phrase to replace the old "the cheque is in the post". "Where, Minister?" asked O'Rourke several times. "I've been asking you the same question for the past three minutes and I still have no answer." He sounded exasperated - but I have a sneaking suspicion he was enjoying himself in the same way Jeremy Paxman did in his famous Charles Kennedy interview on BBC's Newsnight.

"I'll try one more time. You say the money's there, Minister. But where is there. Where is the money?" "The money's there," replied Cullen, ill-advisedly sticking with his original line and sounding more than a little strained. It was such an example of a politician floundering that the comedy team on The Last Word (Today FM, Tuesday) tried to satirise it, but there was no beating the original.

Cox returned to Dundrum Town Centre on Thursday for its opening (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ Radio 1). "We'll keep an eye on that place over the next couple of months and see how it copes with the numbers," said Kenny. I'm not quite convinced radio listeners need so much retail therapy.