Doorstepping out with Matt and Royston

Radio Review: The Matt 'n' Royston roadshow hit the streets on Tuesday night and provided the best value radio of the week. The Today Fm drivetime presenter got tired of the candidate's refusal to come into the studio to discuss his policies on Europe so he went on the campaign trail to doorstep him.

In Ringsend, at the opening of a sports hall, Cooper shoved a mic under Brady's nose and asked him to talk to the programme's 150,000 listeners. Instead of saying, "No way, Matt, I know you're only goin' to ask me tricky questions like the likelihood of a constitutional treaty for Europe or where Brussels is," the Lord Mayor tried a bit of repartee. "From what I hear you lost listeners in the last results", he said, sounding petty instead of media savvy. "I've nothing to say to you," he repeated like a mantra, "nothing to say". He didn't have time. "There's only one door into this building," said Cooper, enjoying himself, "I'll be waiting."

Cooper then collared Minister John O'Donoghue and asked him, as director of elections, could he persuade Brady to come out and talk to the listeners. "You've a very fine programme, an excellent programme in every way," bumbled the Kerryman. Brady, he said, has his own way of doing things. Cooper tried again as soon as Brady emerged. But no dice. The man who, up to a few short weeks ago, couldn't name the accession states during a radio quiz but who now wants to go to Europe to create legislation on their behalf, wasn't prepared to let the mic trip him up again.

Having listened to Newstalk's new afternoon programme I can't help wishing that its presenter Sean Moncrieff was as reticent about going on air as the Lord Mayor - or at least until the programme gets some resources. As it stands Moncrieff has to fill the two-hour programme pretty much on the strength of his supposed gift of the gab. There are contributions from a roving reporter, Henry McKean, who shouldn't really bother, and the whole thing is a shambles.

The reason why Gerry Ryan is paid shedloads of money is that he can talk animatedly for literally hours on end, sometimes on the thinnest of subjects. He makes it sound easy, but Newstalk's afternoon programme shows how difficult it really is. It was bad enough on Monday having to listen to the vet going on about canine colitis while Moncrieff, who for the entire two hours had an air of thinly-disguised desperation, tried to think of questions that would stretch the item, but the phone call to the infamous Las Vegas escort agency website was the final straw. The boys thought it would be a wheeze to phone up on the pretext that they were Irish bankers planning a trip to Vegas. Their sniggery and long-drawn out attempt at smut was met with the professionalism of the woman for whom the whole business of organising escorts is as mundane as booking a flight. It was toe-curling stuff.

In the interest of giving the programme another chance, I tuned in on Tuesday just in time to hear Moncrieff say, "so what is it about tantric sex, then?". Talk radio is expensive and the afternoon is a graveyard shift but really there has to be a better way.

The man who always thinks he knows a better way is Michael O'Leary, who told Matt Cooper (Today FM, Tuesday) that he's not interested in politics because "we want European domination and when we're finished with that we want world domination". The airline chief executive seemed unusually interested in the Taoiseach's body parts, referring to his balls and backbone - or, in O'Leary's mind, his lack thereof; but why, when he is referring to Bertie Ahern, does the Mullingar man persist in calling him the Prime Minister. I don't know which is more offensive - the anatomy lesson or the flagrant disrespect for the office.

Not a single word of this kind of chat would have been heard on the airwaves in the 1960s when, according to A State Beyond Religion (RTÉ1, Wednesday), the Catholic Church's influence permeated virtually every sphere of life. The first in a six-part series presented and produced by Doireann Ní Bhriain got off to a fascinating start with a look at the rise in power of the Catholic Church in Ireland during the 20th century and its steady decline since the 1970s. In 1968, the ratio of religious to the population was higher in Ireland than anywhere else in the world and, in the 1970s, 50 per cent of Irish people went to confession every month.

From this short distance in time it's virtually impossible to imagine the power that the church held over people's daily lives from the bedroom and beyond - but this series is setting out to explore the consequences on Irish society of the decline in that power and influence. Worth listening out for.