You'd almost forget that what he was actually doing was making the ideological and cultural decision to take a woman's programme off the air. And . . . of course . . . his promises didn't materialise.

I saw the same sentiments quoted about Rattlebag. Henceforth topics of interest to lovers of one or other or all the arts will be everywhere, it was said. The familiar Rattlebagwill hardly be missed, apparently, such a profusion will there be of arts items in programmes all over the schedule. And meanwhile . . . as if that glowing prospect isn't enough . . . all a person interested in the arts has to do is stay up till 11 at night and turn their radio on then.

Ana Leddy says that by going out at that time mental, cutting-edge-type things. As if that had been the problem all along. As if she's solving something by guaranteeing Rattlebag a smaller audience than any it has ever had. Not to mention, as if cutting-edge artists have only been awaiting RTE Radio One's middle-ofthe-night attentions to thrive.

She knows better than anyone that not many people will be listening at that time.

And she knows . . . and this is the important point . . . that when you shunt a subject off into the wilds where only aficionados will pursue it, when you fix it so that a subject, such as what's happening in the arts, needs to be sought out, and so is sought out only by people already interested in it . . .

you are wounding that subject. You are cutting it off from converts. The afternoon audience for Radio One isn't huge, but such as it is, it comprises all kinds of people. Daytime radio is available to all kinds of casual listeners. Not often, but sometimes a person who didn't know they were interested in the arts must have been struck by a Rattlebag item. I know I was transfixed, waiting to be served in a shop, by a radio somewhere playing a riveting interview with John McGahern.

All that stuff about cutting-edge experimentalism at 11 at night implies that there is a specialist type of person, a cult member, who is interested in the arts, and then there are the rest . . . normal people. But that's not so. An affinity for this aspect or that of one art or the other is potential in almost anybody. We have to hope that cultural gatekeepers, such as media editors like Ana Leddy, agree with that, that they take a generous view of what a human being is and might be. But though I welcome her . . . hell, we went to the same school . . . and wish her well, I'm afraid now that that's not her kind of vision. To cancel, as her first act, a programme that addressed, however mildly, the interests of the people who support the whole structure of the traditional high arts in Ireland!

To cancel . . . not one of the fatuous airportmusic programmes, but John Kelly's, which was never less than a learning experience, and often a thrilling one! To make those changes and no others, when both consciously and unconsciously people absorb the value system behind the decisions to which RTE lends its authority. How is that a good thing?

It is no argument to say that Rattlebagwas, in the all-purpose word, 'tired'. What you do in that case, if you believe in the programme's mission, is give it new blood and expand its resources. You don't imply that an arts programme is too minority and middle class and middle-of-the-road to deserve a daytime presence. Rattlebag at present attracts 176,000 listeners.

But I suppose they haven't the right profile.

I suppose they're not young. I suppose it is the young audience that attracts the advertising that attracts the money. Maybe this is about money. We don't know because we don't know the reasoning behind RTE's decisions. That's not shared with us.

But what RTE wants . . . never mind deserves . . . money for, if not to look after the widest possible spectrum of the interests of the Irish audience, I don't know. Especially the interests that reach beyond radio to the general cultural health of this society. With its right hand, RTE is enormously supportive of that culture through things such as the orchestras and the short story awards and the recent Beckett recordings. So why, with its left hand, is it swiping the arts off the most popular radio channel? Soon, most people will forget that Rattlebag ever existed, that once upon a time someone important in RTE had liked the arts sufficiently, and considered them sufficiently interesting, to give them a nice, casual place in the ordinary life of an ordinary day on national radio. I enjoy Derek Mooney, up to a point.

He certainly livens up a place. But I could do with half an hour less of him for the sake of the unique challenges and rewards of the arts.

Eleven o'clock at nightf Next time you hear that mantra about RTE supporting the arts, look around for a grain of salt.