Given it’s a programme imbued with a reliably relaxed atmosphere, guests on The Anton Savage Show (Newstalk, weekends) probably don’t expect to be put on the rack, even if they were once ferocious interrogators themselves. But so it is on Sunday, when Savage gives a lesson in proper roasting to the famously tenacious broadcaster Seán O’Rourke. “To the most important issue,” Savage says, shaping up to the former RTÉ presenter, “you realise that an air fryer is just a small oven?”
Cue much laughter as the pair merrily debate the merits of the kitchen appliance, which the host confesses they have chatted about off air. Of course, such levity is par for the course with the perennially arch Savage, but it’s arguably the toughest question he puts to his guest. Having prompted O’Rourke to recount a jolly anecdote about being insulted by Donald Trump, the host gets serious. “Do you ever feel pressure to pull a punch?” he asks, showing listeners how it’s done.
Savage then wonders whether O’Rourke, who retired as host of RTÉ Radio 1′s Today show in 2020, wishes he was still behind the microphone. His guest admits he occasionally does but is unsure he’d want to resume his old schedule “if Claire Byrne was run over, perish the thought, by the 44 bus”, imagining a curiously specific fate for his successor.
The collegiate ambience is unsurprising, as O’Rourke is on the show to plug his interview series on Oireachtas TV. But Savage cannot ignore the infamous Golfgate affair – which saw RTÉ cancel O’Rourke’s television projects after it emerged he socialised with various pols at a golf bash during lockdown – and he eventually grasps the nettle, tentatively at least, asking if the presenter was treated unfairly by Montrose management, particularly in the light of the network’s recent woes.
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O’Rourke is ruefully philosophical: “Different strokes, different times.” But he’s more animated about the political pile-on aimed at RTÉ over the Ryan Tubridy scandal. “Did you need the punishment beatings that were administered to executives who had served the organisation and the public really well?” he harrumphs. It’s a slightly overwrought characterisation but also a bracing glimpse of the old O’Rourke, who in his heyday was less concerned with air fryers than dragging unco-operative guests over the coals.
With his naturally flip demeanour, Savage is a less fiery presence, sounding comfortable when conducting buzzy conversations such as Saturday’s chat with the actor Victoria Smurfit. But he has his ways of keeping political interviewees on their toes, politely but firmly pressing the Green Party leader, Roderic O’Gorman, about claims for his party’s achievements in government. Equally, when he quizzes the Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan about the resignation of the TD Brian Stanley from the party following an internal investigation into complaints against him, the host doesn’t hound his guest but picks up on any hint of spin.
So when Boylan expresses disappointment that the Stanley “didn’t allow the process to finish”, Savage immediately jumps in: “What is the process?” Boylan’s vague reply about answering questions “like in any organisation” doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence. Similarly, when she decries Stanley for putting out “half a story”, Savage sharply asks her to explain what she means, again with unconvincing results.
As is generally the case with the winningly wry host, there’s no real rancour to the exchange – he graciously notes Boylan was already scheduled to appear on the show’s newspaper panel before the story broke – but it shows that Savage’s broadcasting skills extend beyond critiquing cooking devices.
Still, Boylan has an easy time compared with other Sinn Féin colleagues who come out to bat on the airwaves amid the party’s mounting woes. Appearing on Monday’s Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) Mary Lou McDonald sounds tetchy and defensive while harried by Mary Wilson on the Stanley issue. Things don’t go much better for the Sinn Féin TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn on The Late Debate (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday-Thursday), as he deals with yet another controversy, namely why the party didn’t reveal that its former senator Niall Ó Donnghaile had been suspended for sending inappropriate texts to a teenage boy.
The programme’s presenter, Colm Ó Mongáin hears his guest outline how Ó Donnghaile had “significant mental-health problems” when he sent the texts. The messages led to complaints that resulted in his suspension last year, though the reasons behind the senator’s eventual resignation were concealed until Tuesday. Mac Lochlainn frames the party’s silence as compassion – “from a human perspective we were concerned” – but the host is dubious, pointing to the party’s “effusive” statement when Ó Donnghaile stepped down: “The net effect of it was to conceal from the public the rationale for his departure.”
Ó Mongáin is likewise sceptical about McDonald’s Dáil revelations about the rumbling Stanley case: “Why was it suddenly okay to talk about the internal workings of this confidential process?” Not unreasonably, the host suggests that Sinn Féin’s troubles point to a lack of transparency. Other guests agree. “When something looks like it’s a pattern, people look at that in a different way,” the Independent TD Marian Harkin says. “When you’re explaining on three or four different fronts, you’re in real trouble.”
That said, another of Ó Mongáin’s panellists also lands himself in hot water. The Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard clearly revels in Sinn Féin’s problems – he cites assertions made under Dáil privilege, only for the host wisely to shut him down – but his gleeful Shinner-baiting eventually gets the better of him when he speculates about the oft-cited Stanley inquiry: “I’m not sure what the outcome would have been. Would he have been kneecapped?”
Upbraided by an alarmed Ó Mongáin, Lombard realises he has shot himself in the foot. “I withdraw the statement,” he says sheepishly. Now that’s getting fried on air.
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