Radio: The pulse of the nation

Feel like the government is ignoring you, that you're being mistreated and that no one will listen? It's time to talk to Joe. Joe Duffy has created a cult space in Irish media (Liveline, RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays, 1.45pm). Many people too disillusioned to try any other route to justice are voting with their fingers by calling, texting and mailing Joe.

Over 320,000 people tune into Joe each day (the highest listenership at any time of the day except for the 7-10am slots) and he is still catching the pulse of the nation. It may not be everybody's pulse but it's certainly a significant one. News stories are broken, injustices are emphasised and some days, he just lets the listeners talk.

On 31 October, Hazel O'Neill's da rang in to tell about his daughter's experience – she was kung-foo kicked in Ballymun, in what is known as a 'happy slapping' incident. Happy slapping is the phrase given to violent incidents that are videoed on a mobile phone then widely circulated from phone to phone and put on a website where people can view them free of charge.

Hazel's da first found out about the incident when a neighbour showed him the video. The incident took place in February but despite formal complaints and the fact that the perpetrator was known and easily identifiable on video, nothing had happened since. Within two days of it being the focus of Liveline, a file was sent to the DPP, the video was removed from the YouTube website and the tabloids were running 'exclusives' on the story.

Another story persistently covered by Joe over the last few years is the poor conditions in A&E and public-hospital care. On 6 November, the programme opened with news that Janette Byrne, the founder of the Patients Together lobby group, had received a detailed letter from the Mater Hospital's solicitor challenging what she had written in her book If It Were Just Cancer.

Byrne's book is an account of her cancer treatment and the deplorable conditions she and others experienced in A&E. She is a champion of patients' rights and the inequalities experienced by those who use the public health system in Ireland. Byrne is an effective thorn in the health services' landscape, but that's no reason for the Mater Hospital to waste time and public money hiring big-wig solicitors to censor her hospital journal. (The specifics in the letter were challenging the filth in toilets on her ward and the view from her ward!)

Joe took calls from Jeannette's sisters, partner and fellow patients who all vouch for her integrity.

Joe points out how the volume of calls to the programme about conditions in A&E had decreased. And then a man whose father had died that morning called. He spoke of how his family had brought their father to the Mater A&E at least once a week for the last six to eight weeks and how he was consistently sent home despite a deterioration is his condition. When they sent him home on Friday last, the family begged the hospital to let him stay. He returned to hospital on Sunday evening (5 November) and died there the following morning.

This is Joe Duffy the social worker at his best and while his choice of Goliaths to take on is not universal, when he does it, he does it with gusto.