He may have made his name as a current-affairs broadcaster, but did Pat Kenny (Newstalk, weekdays) miss his calling as a consumer affairs advocate? The attention to detail that is the veteran presenter’s trademark when dealing with news stories goes out of the window when the subject is shoddy workmanship, even of the hypothetical variety. On Tuesday, as he discusses the new statutory register for builders, Kenny grows ever more outraged as he doubts its practicality. “What’s the point of this register?” he asks grumpily.
It’s a question that Hubert Fitzpatrick of the Construction Industry Federation cannot answer to his host’s satisfaction. Fitzpatrick explains that all builders will be required to prove their insurance and tax compliance for the new list and that it will be an offence for unregistered contractors to offer services. Kenny is more interested in what happens if a registered builder botches a job.
“If they turn out to be a cowboy,” he asks, “where am I, what do I do?” His guest replies that such contractors will be struck off the list, but this cuts no ice with Kenny. “That means they can’t offer services to somebody else, but, for me, I’m high and dry, I’ve lost my money,” he says, growing ever more annoyed by the imaginary injustice of it all. “What about me, as the client? What recourse do I have?” Fitzpatrick repeats that offenders will be struck off the register, prompting a dubious murmuring from the host.
Conjectural though all this is, it’s clearly something of a bugbear for Kenny. He has already put the same question to the builder Peter Finn (from the RTÉ TV show Home Rescue) on Monday, albeit less indignantly. Kenny, who has had his own, well-publicised tussles with planners, also shows his impatience with unhelpful officialdom during an item about Dublin Airport’s passenger cap, when he commiserates with a Fingal county councillor, Cathal Boland, about the vagaries of An Bord Pleanála. After hearing this, any putative contractors will surely think twice about diddling Kenny on construction work.
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For the rest of us it’s another reminder that the presenter’s capacity for peevishness often makes for entertaining radio. True, his continued dedication to covering serious topics is both obvious and admirable. He’s typically thorough when interviewing the former Israeli hostage negotiator Gershon Baskin about the Gaza peace negotiations, and deserves credit for never letting up his focus on the Ukraine war, as in his interview with the journalist Emmanuelle Chaze. But, as ever, his propensity for unexpected asides is the secret sauce that lifts his show to enjoyably jaw-dropping heights.
Accordingly, Kenny asks Stephen Donnelly, the outgoing Minister for Health, about his recent general-election defeat in chirpily blunt manner: “What do you think went wrong? You didn’t make a total hames of it.” (For his part, Donnelly seems to regard his exit from politics with equanimity.)
Similarly, as he discusses a new HIV-awareness campaign, Kenny is well informed and sympathetic. But when Prof Fiona Lyons of St James’s Hospital mentions that more than 10,000 home-testing kits for sexually transmitted diseases are distributed in Ireland every month, Kenny can’t help himself. “It looks like Ireland is very sexually active,” the host says, chuckling suggestively. “We would not be here if it were not for sex, Pat,” his gobsmacked guest replies. Still, so long as Kenny is in this kind of ham-fistedly inspired form there can be few complaints about being bored.
A mix of heavy-duty material and light relief has prevailed throughout Sarah McInerney and Cormac Ó hEadhra’s stewardship of Drivetime (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), though in their case the humour is generally intentional. It sometimes falls flat, though. “How many Gen Z adults does it take to change a light bulb?” Ó hEadhra asks on Monday’s show, by way of teeing up an item on declining DIY skills: “None, they hire a professional instead.” Oh, my aching sides.
The punchline delivered, the duo talk to the ubiquitous Peter Finn, who affirms that younger people are losing basic practical abilities: “We need to know simple life skills.” But rather than descend into why-oh-why griping, the item offers practical advice – Finn recommends that every household have a toolkit – as well as self-deprecating anecdotes. “I had to put up a curtain rail,” Ó hEadhra admits. “I couldn’t do it.”
It’s McInerney’s turn to be self-effacing as she addresses the Welsh concept of hwyl, currently used to promote tourism in Wales. “What does it mean, will it work and am I pronouncing it right?” the host asks with a sheepish laugh. The former rugby referee Nigel Owens charitably deems McInerney’s pronunciation as “not far off” before defining the word as fun, enjoyment and warmth, not unlike the Danish notion of hygge or, closer to home, the craic.
Ó hEadhra, a Gaeltacht native, starts a potentially intriguing conversation with Owens, who speaks Welsh, about the connections between the Celtic languages, only to overplay his hand (as he sometimes does) and instead gently slag his guest that the Irish name for Wales is An Bhreatain Bheag, or Little Britain.
After such high jinks, Wednesday’s comprehensive coverage of the newly unveiled programme for government comes as a welcome break. McInerney adopts a quietly sceptical air as she combs through the incoming administration’s ambitious housing targets with the Fianna Fáil TD Dara Calleary. As well as highlighting a lack of detail in plans to provide 60,000 new homes a year, the presenter pointedly notes that the outgoing government had promised 40,000 new homes in 2024 but delivered only 33,000. (Perhaps they should have got Kenny on the case.)
The discussion is calm and polite, but there are a few barbed moments, as when Calleary snipes that McInerney “had many of the same scepticisms” when the previous coalition took office in 2020. After an incredulous laugh, she shoots back: “And you’ve missed many of your targets.” Talk about a direct hit.
Moment of the Week
As the Los Angeles fires rage into a second week, Tuesday’s News at One (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) carries vivid testimony from Colm Tóibín. The Irish writer, currently living in the city’s Highland Park neighbourhood, describes his ominous hillside view on an ostensibly beautiful California day: “At any moment, with wind, that hill could go on fire.” Though he feels safe, Tóibín has packed two bags in case he has to flee, adding that he hasn’t ventured outside in a week. He also muses on the fear that will linger in LA long after the flames are extinguished. But he is at his most striking when describing the sky at the height of the inferno. “The sun turned into this extraordinary livid red. It seemed to me to stay longer in the sky just to mock us,” he says. “With this thick fog all around it, but it was shining red, and God, I thought it was the end of the world.” It’s a suitably apocalyptic image from a characteristically eloquent eyewitness.
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