While driving home from an Aware meeting last night, I missed Vincent Browne on RTE radio.
Instead, there was some acoustic music programme broadcast from the Limerick studio.
Only then did it hit me how much I feel I’ve lost something important, by not being able to listen to Browne’s report from the Tribunal. Yes, I can read about it in newspapers but that’s no substitute for the audio reconconstruction.
I think Browne has been reporting on, and analysing, the work of the Tribunals for about 10 years. Now we have lost the radio programme. The woman responsible for RTE radio programming has struck again. She got rid of Rattlebag: I was disappointed and angry. Now, she’s got rid of a serious public service broadcasting gem: I am shocked at how little public reaction there has been.
The last line in Vincent Browne’s column in The Irish Times today says
"If we don’t care a toss whether our politicians are honest or not why bother with tribunals at all?"
He seems to be weary of the public disinterest in the tribunals. I feel despairing of the public interest. It’s as if public opinion is narrow, domestic, parochial and lacking in any nobility.
But it’s probably that I’m tired today and drained of the energy I need to rise above everyday mediocrity.
Browne’s off to write a biography of Charlie Haughey.
I suspect he’s swapped the enthusiasm he used to feel for rooting out public corruption in return for an opportunity to exercise his artistic side.
Meanwhile, where will that woman from Radio Foyle stike next?
