Newstalk’s Ciara Kelly and Shane Coleman are a panto act. All that’s missing is Pat Kenny as Widow Twankey

It’s long been customary for presenters on Newstalk Breakfast (weekdays) to begin the show with a stagey argument about a given topic, a practice that current incumbents Shane Coleman and Ciara Kelly continue with commendable theatricality. But while their bickering can sometimes sound a bit contrived, they also deal with the burning issues of the day. Literally in the case of Wednesday’s show, when the two hosts go head-to-head on whether solid fuel fires should be banned in the Government’s new Clean Air Strategy.

Given everything happening in the world, this matter might not appear especially urgent, but Coleman and Kelly’s exchanges get increasingly snappy. Kelly is against a ban: she enjoys the “primitive and communal” quality of an open fire. “It would be a loss to humanity to give it up,” she says, possibly a smidgen overstating the significance of such a move.

Her colleague disagrees, suggesting that just as smoking was banned in pubs, so people will eventually come to see that we shouldn’t have fires in homes. But things really heat up when the pair argue over the data behind the plan. Coleman says he trusts the science on the subject, but Kelly is more dubious, particularly about the official figure of 1,300 fatalities caused by emissions on burning solid fuels.

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“When I walk around, the air is fresh and clean,” she says. “But it’s not,” replies an exasperated Coleman. The pantomime atmosphere is further heightened when Kelly asserts that Irish people have the world’s greatest longevity. “We don’t,” Coleman responds. “We do.” “We don’t.” And so on. All that’s missing is Pat Kenny turning up as the Widow Twankey.

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It’s worth noting that the presenters are at this stage arguing over hypothetical scenarios rather than actual proposals. Heads are cooler on Tuesday when the duo debate the more pressing issue of housing, perhaps because they have concrete information to dissect. Or maybe it’s because everyone agrees the accommodation crisis is so dire, there’s little prospect of the situation improving any time soon. Neither anchor is optimistic that the Government’s latest package will produce the desired aims.

Anything vaguely related to the culture wars, on the other hand, is dependably inflammable material. So Wednesday’s debate between Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín and Green Party TD Neasa Hourigan on new recommendations to drop the three-day limit on abortion is predictably fractious. Tóibín is outraged that the legislation introduced after the referendum might be expanded: ratcheting up the emotion, he equates the 8,500 abortions in Ireland last year to the “228 classrooms of children”. Hourigan, in turn, claims Toibín doesn’t accept the outcome of the 2018 poll. As she interrupts her fellow TD, Coleman struggles to keep things on track.

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In comparison, the discussion on teaching gender identity in the new Junior cycle curriculum is less acrimonious, but it’s telling that the topic gets roughly the same coverage as housing, with its far greater impacts. Similarly, the Clean Air Strategy, aimed at improving health and reducing carbon emissions, is effectively characterised as an attempt to destroy hearth and home. Admittedly this impression is reinforced by Professor John Sodeau of UCC, a supporter of the plan. “All solid fuel should be banned,” he says bluntly. As Kelly and Coleman well know, somes issues generate more sparks than others.

Full-blown arson

The prospect of Adrian Kennedy discussing such matters doesn’t herald fireworks so much as promise full-blown arson, such is his reputation as one of Ireland’s pioneering shock jocks. As he stands in for Andrea Gilligan on Lunchtime Live (Newstalk, weekdays), hearing Kennedy on the airwaves has a Proustian effect, if Proust had been a habitué of Celtic Tiger-era Dublin nightlife. Anyone who took a nocturnal taxi in the capital at that time will probably recognise Kennedy as the host of the FM104 Phone Show, which was seemingly de rigueur listening for cab drivers then. Along with co-presenter Jeremy Dixon, he invited occasionally well-lubricated callers to comment on contentious matters, with frequently lurid results.

If nothing else, Kennedy’s presence would seem to portend controversy, the reserve currency of any phone-in show. So it’s a bit of a let-down when the presenter does his best to be fair and balanced. Far from expertly coaxing callers into on-air meltdowns or ill-judged rants, he hears their views and moves on.

True, there is the odd frisson of excitement, as on Tuesday when he asks, “How far is too far?” But far from daring listeners to push the envelope, he’s actually inquiring about the limits of public protest, following a demonstration outside the home of People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy. He talks, respectfully but inquisitively to Murphy’s partner Jess about what happened. When callers such as Alan speak in favour of such protests, he gives them the floor, before inquiring why the demonstrators had their faces covered and suggesting “they achieve absolutely nothing”.

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It’s an interesting exchange, but hardly compelling. Kennedy gets more action on – of course – solid fuel fires, with one caller asking if the Garda would “kick in my door and drag me to prison because I light a fire”, a proposal strangely missing from the clean air plan.

Still, it’s tame stuff compared to Kennedy’s previous incarnations on FM104 and 98FM. Possibly he works better in a more unbuttoned setting than Lunchtime Live, with its national daytime radio guardrails; in her deceptively quiet way, Gilligan stirs up more spiky debate. Kennedy has a resonant timbre – he’s occasionally done shifts as a newsreader, incongruous as it seems – but his delivery, with its why-oh-why undertone, is something a throwback to an age when DJs portentously held court on the airwaves. Though a past master at stoking the flames of controversy, Kennedy can’t kindle the same reaction this time out.