Radio: Matt Cooper’s sober style brings perspective to storm in a pint glass

Traditionally, January is a time of abstinence, a welcome opportunity for people to take a break from the steady flow of drink that customarily washes down holiday season fare. But if one is to go by some views airing this week, the country is still awash with alcohol, consumed mainly by work-shy ne’er-do-wells.

By most standards a bar offering cheap pints on a midweek night is hardly the stuff of national news, but the outrage attracted by the Welfare Wednesday promotion at Liz Delaney’s, a pub in north Dublin, is down less to competitive pricing than to the target market.

That is at least the impression one takes away from Senator Catherine Noone's two cent on the matter, which she gave to Matt Cooper on The Last Word (Today FM, weekdays). Having described as irresponsible the pub's use of the Social Welfare logo on its signs, the Senator then embarks on a line of argument that suggests her own tuning to others' sensitivities might be shaky enough.

She stresses that her concerns are “not about being anti-social welfare or about people having a good time” but nonetheless appears to suggest that the two concepts are mutually exclusive, at least during the week. Noting that the pub’s intended customers are surely “jobseekers”, she contends that “if you have even a few on a Wednesday you’re not going to be on your top game for looking for jobs the next day”.

Cooper picks up on Noone’s schoolmarmish attitude, likening it to the advice of the famously unsympathetic Tory minister Norman Tebbit that the British unemployed of the 1980s get on their bikes and look for work. The host adds that “there aren’t necessarily jobs for people to go targeting every day”; he, at least, is alive to the fact that Coolock isn’t coming down with work opportunities.

But his guest doesn’t appear put out. “At the end of the day social welfare is paid so people can seek a job,” she says, effectively framing the dole as a gift for the less fortunate, although, mercifully, she draws the line at Cooper’s mocking suggestion that the unemployed be given controllable chip-and-Pin cards rather than cash.

It’s a lively exchange but also one that indicates a glaring disconnect between politicians’ rhetoric and most people’s reality. It also speaks of Cooper’s ability to frame subjects in a wider context in a low-key but effective way, a gift that can get lost beside his instinct to constantly press guests for answers, to diminishing effect.

As to whether one ill-judged poster deserves such widespread attention, there's little doubt on the part of Gary Payne, the publican at the centre of this storm in a teacup – or, rather, pint glass. Speaking to the reporter Louise Byrne on Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays), he says "there's far bigger problems in this country", comfortably winning the award for understatement of the week.

Payne sounds both chastened and bewildered that his “value-based promotion” should spark such controversy, but he admits he was wrong to use the word welfare. There is obviously some self-interest in his assertion that his pub is trying to give people who are short on money a chance to socialise, but he is surely right in noting that, when it comes to encouraging the poor and vulnerable to binge drink, the sale of alcohol at supermarkets for “pocket-money prices” is a bigger problem.

Compared with some of the alarmist chatter heard during the week, it’s a sober assessment of this particular incident.

The most nuanced take on the issue is provided by Henry McKean's report for Sean Moncrieff (Newstalk, weekdays). McKean's vox pop highlights the futility of expecting a neat verdict on the enduring issue of the Irish and drink. One pub customer, unemployed and living in a hostel, tells McKean that what he does with his dole is his own business: "It's my money," he says. Almost in passing, however, he mentions that he has children who are "well looked after", to the tune of €50 a week, although sometimes that sum can fall to €20. The man says he can afford his "four or five" drinks, but whether his family can is another matter.

Elsewhere, a woman from Coolock adopts a coolly realistic stance, saying that those who want to drink will do so regardless. Still, it is notable that all the women McKean meets are walking in the street, while all the pub habitues are men.

As always, the most enjoyable thing about the report is McKean himself. As he talks to his subjects he projects a courtly but slightly absent-minded and other-wordly persona, as well as a self-deprecating honesty. (At times the latter can be poignant. During Wednesday’s report on the mockery suffered by plus-sized women, he makes several references to his sense of vulnerability when he was overweight, including the hurt he felt when his mother gently made fun of him when a boy.)

But beneath his wide-eyed questioning style lie well-tuned antennae. The problem, he muses, may just be that “we don’t want to admit people spend social welfare on alcohol”. It’s a typically modest yet beguiling contribution, quietly reminding us that people are still people, no matter what their situation.

Moment of the Week: Last word on free speech
In a week when free speech has come under unspeakable attack, Matt Cooper does his bit on The Last Word to uphold that embattled principle. After Wednesday's horrific massacre of the staff of Charlie Hebdo he talks to Dr Ali Selim of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland, who is forthright in his condemnation of the "atrocities" in Paris but says the murdered cartoonists made a "mistake" in persisting with caricatures mocking Islam. It is a highly contentious view, to put it mildly, which Cooper contests. But ultimately he allows his guest his say. Not all of his audience feels the same. "Some of you are getting in touch to say we shouldn't give air time to Ali Selim," Cooper says afterwards. "Which is quite ironic."

radioreview@irishtimes.com