Perhaps it was both.

A phone-in radio programme can rarely have sparked so much in one small and constantly plaintive country. "Liveline is reality radio these days, and it has the same problems as reality television, " said one radio worker. "Joe produces the producers, " said another. "Very few people have as good a sense of story as Joe, but his producers are much less experienced than he is. That type of show can go wild. It needs producing."

Despite the energy and spontaneity of Liveline, at this point it is worth asking what a complex, sophisticated man is doing at the helm of one of radio's simplest programmes for the ninth year in a row.

"I love being involved in society, " says Duffy. "I love being involved in the issues."

A television career has not yet started for him, and he is 50. Perhaps he is content with his wife and their three children and his prime-time radio slot? "Oh, I'm not settled, " he says. "If I'm settled, I'm bunched.

I'd love a two-hour format in the morning [Gay Byrne's old slot] but I'm aware of the realpolitik."

"Joe's no fool, " says the radio producer who, like all radio producers, wishes to remain anonymous. "He's seen what's happened to Ryan [Tubridy]. They won't give commitment to that sort of show anymore."

When asked what he would like to be doing when his kids turn 21, there is a pause before he says: "Well, there's always politics. I don't lie awake, but hardly a day goes by when I don't think about it." He has been approached by both Fianna Fail and the Labour party.

His friend Patrick O'Dea, who also attended Trinity College and worked with him in the probation service for five years, characterises him as "a very moral man.

There's the social justice thing, he can't get away from that." He also remembers Joe covering the winter solstice at Newgrange for RTE television, and talking the whole way through it, because there was no argument to broadcast.

As soon as O'Dea met Duffy, he was struck by "the energy and the restlessness of a very ambitious person. It's like having the energy of six people in one person."

According to O'Dea, Duffy "lit up" the probation service, at that time even more underfunded than it is now, and about which it was once bitterly said: "You'd get better results working at a hospice."

He still has many friends from his social worker days. At family gatherings, it is they, and his relatives, who predominate. He does not see a lot of his mentor, Gay Byrne. "I see him at openings.

He drops in to the kids on their birthday [they are triplets] and at Christmas. The one I talk to most is Pat Kenny. I'd talk to him most days, shoot the breeze and gossip."

Duffy characterises himself as a team player, holding post mortems after the show in the style of Gay Byrne.

Not everyone agrees with this. "Very cranky and moody, " says one producer who worked with him.

Against this his friends say that he is remarkably generous and thoughtful. He wrote to thank the priest who had conducted the untimely funeral of Patrick O'Dea's wife, Maeve. The priest was amazed.

Joe Duffy is a mass goer, though not a regular one.

He believes in a personal God; liberation theology was a big influence on him in his youth.

"I'm regarded as very cranky at times, " says Duffy frankly. "I walk around saying 'we need the magic call'. I know how fickle this business is. At times I might be harder than Gay, but then Gay didn't have 28 local radio stations to compete with."

The experience that haunts him is being dropped by the then head of radio in RTE, Kevin Healy, from the Gay Byrne radio slot, where he was anchor two days a week in what proved to be a brief experiment.

After he was dropped, he did not even have a desk in the radio centre. He came in one Sunday to try and clear a space for himself, to save embarrassment during the working week. From such humiliation is iron determination forged . . . sometimes.

Duffy proved himself a very able reporter, but he was never tempted by a news career. He monitors radio day and night, and starts listening at 6.45 in the morning. He reads all the time, having just finished Gene Kerrigan's Midnight Choir, which Joe Duffy launched, and Ronan Bennett's Havoc In Its Third Year. He prides himself on having spotted two Booker winners, DBC Pierre and John Banville, before the shortlists were announced. He predicts that Bennett will win this week's IMPAC prize.

In all these things, he is a much darker and more complicated person than the repetition of "Go way" down the microphone requires. He's a good giggler. He carries worry beads. He names the main influences of his youth as "The Public Library in Ballyfermot and Ballyfermot Tech". He did not attend the latter, but went there to improve his Leaving Certificate results. It was at Ballyfermot Tech that he met teachers Vincent Salmon, Stephen O'Connor and Janet Ryan, got involved in the Catholic Youth Council and through that worked on summer projects in Ballymun.

"Running stuff in Ballymun made me want to improve myself."

"I'm evangelical about education. Any school that asks me to do anything, I will."

"I think he's a fulfilled man, " says Patrick O'Dea, which is something that Duffy does not say about himself. He is certainly a busy man, what with his fear of failure and his frustration at RTE bosses not promoting radio as he thinks they should. Also, he says, as the father of three 11-year-olds, he has not seen an adult film in years. "I bring them to fire stations and libraries and museums. They're camouflage for me, because really I want to see a fire station."

As a broadcaster he could do many things, besides sending mobs to the castle. Not that that's all Liveline does, far from it. Its more meditative programmes are frequently the best. If only RTE management were curious about Joe Duffy and about the licence payers, maybe we'd get a bit more variation in our national radio programmes. But no one is holding their breath. "The phone-in is the growth area of radio, " said an RTE insider wearily. "And it will continue to be."

C.V.

Occupation: Broadcaster
Age: 50
Married: To June Meehan, three children . . .Sean, Ellen, Ronan, all aged 11
In the news: He came close to running the country