Radio Review/Bernice Harrison:It could have been the five ensuites, or maybe the sauna or even the two paddocks; whatever it was that pressed George Lee's button (The Tubridy Show, RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday), the economist suddenly came over all Michael Douglas in Falling Down.
In that movie, Douglas, in his glasses and buttoned-up shirt, suddenly flips and, despairing of how society has changed, goes rifle-in-hand on a rampage through LA. Being a more measured chap, the RTÉ economist's version of going postal is a tongue-lashing about how our wealth has turned us into selfish monsters.
Lee was in studio to talk about homeowners trading up to flashier properties and he was his calm self until vox pops from Galway tipped him over the edge. One man boasted about his five bathrooms; there was the bloke with the sauna in the attic conversion ("cheap, only €2,500 for the materials") and the woman with the paddocks and the Aga on herwish-list. That was it: a red mist descended and George railed against builders, the Government and its stupid property tax breaks ("the most generous in the entire world"), our inhumane social housing policy and 40-year mortgages.
"Young people are not free, it's a big brave assumption that you're going to be in a job for 40 years with this yoke around your shoulder and a two-bedroom apartment you paid 10 times the industrial wage for in a place that takes two hours from work to get to." It's "woejus", he said, using what for me was the word of the week - difficult to spell but highly satisfactory to use. "Nobody's standing back to say stop." And why would they with an election looming?
Tubridy didn't quite know what to say to this transformed George, so, with minimal interference, Lee went on: "Unless you lick up to your bloody parents you can't get any money to get on the property ladder." And don't get him started on parents buying property for their 10-year-olds. He's absolutely right, of course, and anyone who heard the programme will be looking at Lee in a different, shining, new light as he stands outside Government Buildings in the rain droning on about pension deficits or budget surpluses.
The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin John Neill (The Right Hook, Newstalk 106-108, Tuesday) described the health service as a "national scandal". It's not, he said, right for people to be so treated. Two voices in the one day, not blinded by stories about our fabulousness but looking at things from a moral, societal point of view.
Pat Kenny left his Dublin 4 bunker and headed for Limerick's notorious Moyross area, and the start of Tuesday's Today with Pat Kenny, (RTÉ Radio 1) sounded like a brilliant, satirical take-off of the Late Late Toy Show. "And what's that under your hoodie? Ooh, a bullet-proof vest, is it Kevlar?" asked Kenny, who, even when confronted with a gang of armed teenagers, couldn't quite stop himself being a techie anorak. "Mmm, pellet marks where someone winged you." And then someone waved a gun. "Put it away before someone gets hurt," he instructed, his voice admirably steady, much to the hilarity of the gang of kids who ranged in age from four to around 16.
There was a heartbreaking interview with Sheila Murray, mother of six-year-old Millie and four-year-old Gavin who were so viciously burned in the family car in Moyross. Her description of the trauma her children are going through on their gruelling roads to recovery was chilling. A psychologist is working with the little boy because of his recurrent nightmares that his hospital bed is on fire. His pain is so great he has to have a general anaesthetic just to get his bandages changed. She'll never live in Moyross again.
"There are two sides," she said darkly. "You have to be on one side or the other if you're living down there." There were inspirational interviews with tireless and hopeful community workers, talk of the considerable achievements of young people in the area and reminders that Moyross has a population of 4,000, so problem families are in a minority. "We're plagued by 40-45 troublemakers and if these were taken out of the area," said one community worker, "it would get the whole thing sorted."
The negative media portrayal was a persistent complaint from the locals but, despite the nearly two hours of productive discussion, mostly emphasising the positive things about Moyross, the image that remained in my mind was the opening one of the semi-automatic Mauser pistol. When you start with a gun-toting teen, it's hard get some balance back.