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24 April 1997 Edition

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Television: Telling it like it is

By Michael Kennedy

For smug, polished, facile pointscoring, Questions & Answers (RTE1, Mondays, 10.15 pm) is usually close to the nadir. The programme now has a set-piece feel to it. The questions are fixed, chosen in advance; the answers are predictable; and the whole thing is pre-recorded, for fear that something of which RTE does not approve might go out live.

Which is why this week's show was a welcome departure.

It's not that the programme was more exciting for viewers - it was grindingly dull as usual. It's just that, for once, the political centre of gravity shifted away from the relentless incest of Leinster House and towards the streets outside.

Not counting John Bowman, perhaps Montrose's most pretentious and navel-gazing presenter ever, there were four panelists.

Two could be termed usual suspects; Charles Flanagan of Fine Gael, and the marginally-less noxious Willie O'Dea of Fianna Fail. But two journeyed from outside the political pale; independent TD Tony Gregory, and Carolann Duggan, the SWM woman who almost beat Jimmy Somers to the post of SIPTU general secretary.

The first question was about the Dunnes payments tribunal. Readers should be aware that this was on the first day of the hearings, and what we knew about Mr Dunne, and party funding in general, was really quite scant.

All we were aware of was that Michael Lowry, the coalition cabinet minister had avoided paying tax on payments from Mr Dunne, that he had received a £100,000-plus home improvement given to him by Mr Dunne, that, according to Mr Dunne, Charles Haughey's accountant received £1.3 million from him as some class of favour, that Labour's Ruairi Quinn got a cheque from Mr Dunne, that Alan Dukes and John Bruton got cheques too, from Mr Dunne.

We know that, seeing as Mr Dunne was at no time a member of the KGB, the government of the Soviet Union, or the politburo of the Communist Party of the USSR, he is unlikely to have had anything to do with the cashflow of the Workers' Party.

Both Willie O'Dea and Charles Flanagan seemed to regard this much as being almost total ignorance - certainly not enough, you understand, for anyone to draw any conclusions about bribery, or the corruption of our political class.

But Carolann Duggan challenged this: ``I'm sorry, I don't know what world people here are living in, but I don't know anybody that hands around money like that. I don't believe anybody hands out hundreds of pounds or a million pounds, to anybody, without getting something back.''

As the others whinnied in horror, Tony Gregory backed her up.

``I think you'd have to agree that £1.3 million, for anyone, even Santa Claus...is a lot of money.''

The pair did little more than state the obvious, but it shone the harsh light of reality into a particularly dank and obscure corner.

Later, the balance nudged again towards the real world, with a question about communities taking action against drug pushers and joy riders.

Tony Gregory explained how drug peddlers virtually controlled parts of our capital city, and how the Gardai did nothing.

Until ordinary people stopped them, the Dublin TD said, ``pushers were standing on traffic islands, on footpaths, at corners, sitting on bikes, waiting to sell any drug''.

John Bowman and Charles Flanagan bleated about ``Republican involvement and infiltration'' and Republicans ``using young people for ulterior motives''.

But, by now, they sounded hollow even to themselves.


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