In some arguments, both sides are right

WHAT will we fight about next Easter now the alcohol ban on Good Friday is being removed? Newstalk’s The Pat Kenny Show provided the answer, as Pat raised the rather histrionic spectre of a drunk father beating his wife and “abusing his children”.

Alcohol creates social problems, but it doesn’t only do so on Good Friday, so that’s no argument at all either for or against imposing a ban on any particular day.

But fear not. There’s always another row round the corner. As one texter asked: “Can we get rid of the Angelus next?”

Failing that, there’s always that old staple of radio discussions — the urban/ rural divide. That one reared its head again on Liveline this week with a discussion on water charges. Callers who live in the countryside and have always paid for water were incensed at “people that have nothing better to do, marching up and down the streets, looking for free water”.

Nuala from Castlebar was a widow who’d recently faced a bill of €10,000 to drill for water after her old well collapsed. A grant covered a fifth of the coast; the remainder had to be borrowed from the Credit Union. “There’s no public supply for us,” she told presenter Alison Comyn.

Dermot in Dublin had a different take: “I would love to live in rural Ireland, but I couldn’t afford to... it’s a pleasure for those people to be lucky that they’re not living in cities, stuck in traffic jams.” Houses outside the city were also half the price, he pointed out. There was no way to reconcile these views, because they’re both right.

Most arguments are like that, but tradition demands they be presented in a binary way, with a winner at the end. It was the same when Newstalk Breakfast asked if children get too many Easter eggs.

Endocrinologist Professor Donal O’Shea thought they did, reminding listeners that Easter used to be preceded by a period of privation, so the chocolate eggs were a treat to break a fast; but who gives up anything for Lent any more?

Then it was over to novelist Amanda Brunker for the counter argument. She laughed: “And you want me to come and say Easter eggs are great, they’re fantastic, just eat those?” There’s a woman who knows how the media works all right.

In fact, she simply wanted to suggest that we’ve become a bit “obsessive about the obesity crisis” and that people were “zoning out” from too many alarmist warnings. Again, they were both right.

On Today FM's Last Word, the issue was whether Dail proceedings should start each day with a prayer. Michael Nugent of Atheist Ireland throughout not; Michael Healy-Rae TD begged to differ.

Healy-Rae has such a satisfyingly rich turn of phrase that it's no wonder Matt Cooper invited him on. He didn’t disappoint, saying of TDs who disapprove of the prayer that “you’re not asking them to say five decades of the rosary”. But there was no possibility of a meeting of minds between his two guests. They might as well have been speaking different languages.

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