If Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, who plays Nidge in Love/Hate, is looking for insight for his new RTÉ drama role as former Fianna Fáil spin doctor PJ Mara, he should read a transcript of the old bruiser's pithy contributions to a meeting this week of Caribbean politicians and business leaders.

Wearing his Digicel director's hat, Mara displayed some of his old venom when he addressed the topic of "parasitic" internet telephony (Voip) operators at the Canto telecommunications conference on Paradise Island, the Bahamas.

Digicel has a beef with Voip providers such as Viber, who eat into its voice revenues because Voip calls do not result in the normal network termination fees collected by operators like Digicel.

Mara described the situation using the analogy of an oil well: “[Imagine] some hobo came along and said ‘I’m going to pipe into this tank, take your oil, pay you no money, because I have got customers that I want to sell that oil’.”

Voip providers, he snarled, were "parasites. They are not genuine operators like Twitter or Facebook, who have invested significant funds." He then called them something else that no sane lawyer would allow me to print, before rounding off: "There isn't any milder way to put it . . . These people make no contribution to your societies and it has to stop."

At 72, Mara’s days as a sexegenarian might be behind him, but becoming a father again recently is clearly helping to keep the blood flowing – and at high pressure.