The bounds of delicacy

Marian Finucane, RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday and Sunday, 11.00 –12.53 am

Drivetime Classics with Niall Carroll, RTÉ Lyric FM, Weekdays, 5-8pm

Last Saturday, Marian Finucane interviewed Sandra and David Conroy, the parents of Celine Conroy who was recently murdered in Spain while her three children were in the house. Her partner and the father of her three children, Paul Hickey, has been remanded in custody in Spain and he denies murdering her.

Marian handled the heartbreaking and horrible story sensitively and gently and Sandra had already told her story to the media. Sandra and David knew their daughter's partner, Paul, "since he was in crèche, since he was a baby". Celine hooked up with him at about 14 or 15 and started taking heroin. Attempts to get her away from Paul failed but she gave up heroin and had been on a methadone programme. Sandra wanted help to get Celine's body home – she is due to undergo treatment for cancer and doesn't want to embark upon it and risk being unable to attend to the funeral details. It was heart-wrenching stuff.

But the interview drifted into very strange territory when Marian started to question Sandra about the children. The oldest, a boy, was quoted by his grandmother as saying, "Me daddy's in prison for hitting me Mam". Sandra recounted him telling her that the police had put himself and his sister in different rooms for questioning. He was reticent about what he saw but volunteered that his younger sister "told them something. She seen all the red guts coming out of Mammy's mouth and screamed at Daddy to leave Mammy alone."

I don't know what the legal situation is with such a discussion, but one would feel sure that it has passed RTÉ's own legal test. But where is it morally? A child has his private conversation with his grandmother about the killing of his mother broadcast for the nation on a Saturday morning, right after Mooney Goes Wild on One. In turn, he quotes his younger sister. By the programme's end, help was being offered from various quarters to get some information as to when Celine's remains would be brought home. But was there no other way to achieve this?

"I want to go to Spain. I am constantly thinking of her over there on her own. We want to bring our baby home," said Sandra. And Marian didn't say to her "But your daughter is dead". You are even ashamed for thinking it. Saturday's interview should have come with some kind of health warning: 'Suspend thought and judgement, all ye who continue to listen'. Maybe it's unfair to expect Marian Finucane to buck the Joe Duffy trend, but she's Marian Finucane, and I do. Time was when she forged her own radio formula and it was magic. And if she plucks up enough courage to tell Jimmy Magee, and his not quite concealed condescending attitude towards her, to go sling his 'ook, it's fine with me too.

A perfect radio interlude came on Lyric FM on Friday evening. I was halfway between Cratloe and Clarecastle and would normally be getting teary-eyed over the diddleye and dropped h's on Clare FM, but Niall Carroll's Drivetime Classics on Lyric FM claimed me. It ended with a classy little spot marking the 50th Anniversary of the passing of Count John McCormack. There was a lot of lovely talk about his voice and plenty of the magnificent voice too, and a nice anecdote: McCormack, meeting the great Caruso, greeted him with "And how is the world's greatest tenor today?" "Since when have you become a baritone? replied Caruso. Makes you feel better, just thinking about them.