Last rays of sumer guff

Radio Review: If it was any other week, Bill Clinton (Today with Pat Kenny, RTÉ, Monday) would have been the radio guest to top all others - even if he is on a promotion tour to flog his book and he's prone to describing himself as being "a full-time citizen of the world".

(Which does rather beg the question what, apart from death, is the alternative?) But this was the week that started with the cheek-burning national shame of Cornelius Horan, in full Irish dancing kit, wrecking the gold-medal chances of the Brazilian runner, Vanderlei de Lima, in the Olympic marathon.

It was the story that made for the most compelling listening because the team on Liveline (RTÉ1, Monday to Friday) had lined up the main protagonists.

On Monday, Cornelius Horan's brother, Michael, was on air. "On my bended knee I apologise unreservedly to the Brazilian runner and the Brazilian people," he said, his Kerry voice sounding small and shamed. "The family feel awful sorry." Cornelius is motivated by "a crazed notion about the bible and the end of the world", he said as he tried to explain his brother's actions. In another call, a Special Olympics volunteer said Horan had run on to the track at one of that game's races causing confusion and upset among the athletes. Over a year later, it sounded an even more disturbed thing to do than the Athens stunt.

The Brazilian Ambassador, Stelio Amarante, smoothly absolved the nation of any blame. "It is just an accident that the man is Irish, there are so many deranged people nowadays," he said. "He is not a bad man, we in Brazil are not emphasising that he is Irish." Then the debate broadened out to the painful area of families coping with mental illness. By the end of the programme, having heard other harrowing stories, it was possible to feel sorry for Horan and even a bit guilty for ever hoping for a long jail sentence for him in some hellhole of a Greek prison.

But just a day later, that glow of sympathy was extinguished when the man himself turned up on Liveline. No, he wouldn't apologise, or he would, but only in a very limited sense - "no cause can be judged until later on", he said, with the arrogance of a true zealot. He didn't mean to crash into the "very small little Brazilian". The problem was that once he'd changed into his costume at a roadside café he hadn'ttime to get out his big banner, so he had to do "something", otherwise he'd have "looked like a right fool". The gulf between his perception and the reality of the situation grew to Grand Canyon proportions.

Joe Duffy, who normally has the patience of a Brazilian ambassador, grew testy particularly when he asked Horan about the Special Olympics stunt. "I didn't disrupt it," snipped Horan. "Were you competing in it then? Don't treat me as if I'm stupid," snapped Duffy, echoing this listener's impatience with the religious fanatic.

By Thursday there was what sounded like the satisfying click of closure when de Lima himself came on the programme and through an interpreter said that Horan was already forgiven.

A running story this week on Pat Kenny (RTÉ1, Monday to Friday) was the plight of asylum seekers. The show did what radio does best - it went behind the scenes to hear from the people involved. On Tuesday, Angel Aduba, the woman who left behind her baby when she was deported last week, was on a crackly line from Nigeria. She said she presented herself to the immigration office to get some papers signed only to discover she was to be deported that night. She had left her 18-month-old son with a friend, with two nappies and a tin of beans. She said she came to the Republic while pregnant because she believed that once her baby was born, it would be killed in a sacrificial ritual - something that does happen in parts of Nigeria apparently - and she still fears that.

Kenny is always a strong devil's advocate - "Anyone could make up a voodoo sacrifice story" - and he teased out Angel's plight with Tanya Ward, from the Coalition against the Deportation of Irish Children, and Superintendent John O'Driscoll from the Garda's immigration unit. By the end of the piece, the story had as many sides as a hexagon and it was difficult to decipher the truth - other than the fact the State's policies have resulted in a tiny baby being left alone without even one parent or any long-term plan for his care.

So, RTÉ's top presenters came back for a new term to the same old formats, and it was mostly serious stuff. Even Marian Fincuane (RTÉ1, Monday) kicked off the season talking about murders in Ireland - it was is if they all wanted to distance themselves from all that summer guff and make it clear the silly season is truly over.