Why do you bother? That’s what some of my friends ask me when I appear occasionally as a guest on the Brendan O’Connor Show on RTÉ Radio 1. It’s a question I often ask myself.
For I invest the majority of a day’s work whenever I appear on the programme. There are the preparatory phone calls with production staff teasing out likely subject stories. I want to be fully prepared for all of the issues likely to arise, with their attendant arguments and counterarguments. So, I invest a lot of time preparing notes, setting out lines of arguments and supporting facts.