This is the day that many of us in RTE thought about over the years, agonised over, dreaded and hoped that, in some miraculous way, would never dawn, Gay's last day in the Late Late office.

Gay will, of course, be in the office today and, as always with this consummate professional broadcaster, he will be in the middle of his devoted programme team, looking at the running order of tonight's show, putting the final touches to it, thinking again and again about how guests are to be handled, and, above all, ensuring The Late Late Show retains its position as the most significant and most popular television show in these islands.

This is how it is, has been and, were he to remain as presenter of the show, always would be. Half measures or "Sure it will be all right on the night" were never part of Gay's mentality or modus operandi. His style of presenting and interviewing were sometimes not appreciated by everyone and, as is inevitable in the case of someone who has been so often in the eye of the storm, he was not always universally liked.

However, nobody can ever take away from his reputation, built up painfully and single-mindedly over more than three decades, as the ultimate professional, the perfectionist, the hard task-master, on himself and on those around him, and the public broadcaster par excellence.

Nothing or no one - family, friends, management, personal commitments, private life - was allowed to get in the way of keeping The Late Late Show at the heart of debate and controversy and, indeed, of life in this country.

He was ably assisted down through the years by successive teams of producers, directors, researchers, assistants and technical teams who were assigned to the programme, and they had to measure up to his professional standards. But the driving force was always Gay. He got hard work, high performance and dedication from those around him because he was the epitome of these traits. As producer of The Late Late Show for most of its long run he interested himself in the concerns of the producer body in RTE. He remains passionate about broadcasting, about its standards and professionalism, about its future development and direction and, above all, about its capacity to educate, inform and entertain and to be relevant to all sections of society. He was never a snob, never elitist, never dismissive, and his feet never left the ground. Of course, he liked, and likes, the recognition of the contribution he has made to public service broadcasting and to public life in general, and is moved by the warmth of the tributes paid to him in recent times.

But he would never go in search of praise or adulation. He would probably be the first to agree with a columnist who wrote in a national newspaper this week that perhaps the tributes to Gay are getting a bit out of hand.

Gay never wished for nor sought comments on his work. He was, and is, content to let it speak for itself. Nor did he wish to be cast in the role of a crusader, intent on changing the world. He was an incredibly gifted broadcaster with finely tuned instincts who was determined to reach a mass audience by stimulating them and entertaining them and bringing them back again and again looking for more.

At the end of the day, I feel that Gay's greatest quality and gift is his profound interest in humanity, an essential part of any serious broadcaster's make-up.

This interest in human beings, their joys and sorrows, their strengths and frailties, manifested itself in his everyday contacts with his colleagues who, if they were in trouble or had personal problems, were treated with concern and kindness and, indeed, sometimes to more than that. If you shared a problem with Gay he would remember the details of it six months or a year on, and express solidarity.

It was this interest, when transferred to the studio floor on Friday nights, which made him the great communicator, able to pry, to lull the guest into a false sense of security, to pass from tragedy to comedy, from tears to laughter with apparent ease. But it was all part of an overriding plan designed to keep The Late Late Show at the top of the ratings.

WHEN Gay felt a show had not worked, everybody around him knew it and was made to know it, particularly at the programme post-mortem the following week. He did not need critics or the public to tell him what was good or bad television. He knew it instinctively, for he had the life-blood of show business in his veins.

RTE is honoured and proud to have had this doyen of broadcasting in its midst and at its heart for all these years, and to have had a programme of such uniqueness as the centrepiece of its schedules. RTE's commitment to public service broadcasting remains strong and undimmed, no matter what the international trends are, no matter how much dumbing-down is going on (and the signs are ominous), no matter how intense commercial competition is becoming.

Thankfully, the appetite of our Irish audiences for this kind of broadcasting remains strong. Gay has been, and is, the quintessential public broadcaster. The Late Late Show, which combines entertainment, current affairs, debate, drama and comedy, which brings together an audience of such social and economic diversity is public broadcasting at its best.

It is for this reason, and for his extraordinary broadcasting skills, that Gay Byrne should not, and will not, disappear from our screens. It is for this reason that The Late Late Show must be maintained, even though, without Gay, that task will be, for future presenters, producers and their teams, so much more demanding.

Gay, always the professional, is of the view that "the show must go on". It is, I feel, the ultimate tribute to him that the programme to which he has given so much of his life, will live on, for it will always be his great monument and his legacy to those who follow in his large footsteps.

Joe Mulholland is Managing Editor - Television at RTE