So set in train the events that led to Bryan Dobson interviewing Ahern on Six One on 26 September, in which the Taoiseach gave a performance that is regarded as masterful, one which extracted him from the manure that was closing in around him. The interview also did fine things for Dobson's profile.

This was the scoop of the year and, for a man involved in journalism for over 25 years, it represented a pinnacle of sorts.

"Like everybody else, we had a request in for an interview, " Dobson remembers. "Then I got the call while I was out here in RTE.

The one thing they were concerned about was time. Olivia Buckley asked me could the Taoiseach have eight to 10 minutes, which was long by our interview standards. As it turned out, we did nearly 25 minutes."

Classic The interview was a classic of the genre, certainly from the politician's point of view. Cornered, he came out not so much fighting like a wild animal, but jabbing and feigning, turning ducking and diving into an art form.

It took place in Ahern's constituency office in Drumcondra, St Luke's. Ahern told Dobson and the nation about losing his home after his marriage collapsed at the time he was getting dig-outs and loans and whip-rounds and what have you. Cue doleful expression. He didn't add that at the time in question he was well into a new relationship and comfortably ensconced in a tastefully decorated apartment upstairs from where the interview was taking place.

One excuse for the dig-outs he cited was having to shell out for his daughters' education. Cue doleful eyes and emotion. Yet he managed to slip in that he had stashed away 50 grand in St Luke's over the preceding years, keeping it somewhere unspecified, a biscuit tin maybe, or a dirty sock, or perhaps under his pillow.

He threw in the detail about a separate eight grand from a whipround outside the jurisdiction. Cue those beseeching eyes, that Jimmy Dean vulnerability. Yet he never specified who passed the hat or who threw in the few bob, or when it occurred, or whether or not the money could actually have come from a single whipping boy.

The performance was class, sheer class, the ultimate triumph of style over substance, of emoting over the provision of facts. He didn't just walk tall from the corner he was in, but probably ran halfway to victory in the next election.

The brilliance of his performance got an oblique airing a few weeks later in the Dail when Pat Rabbitte was questioning the Taoiseach and added: "Don't give me those Bryan Dobson eyes, " referring to the doleful look that had served the Taoiseach so well in his cry to the beloved nation.

None of which was a reflection on Dobson. He had a job to do.

There were questions to be asked, answers elicited. Ahern threw details about the eight grand and the nicely rounded 50 grand at him from leftfield. And he had to negotiate a minefield when the taoiseach threw his personal life into the mix.

"He [Ahern] was nervous to begin with, " Dobson remembers.

"After it was over though, you could see there was a certain relief. I mean, let's face it, he was fighting for his political life. It was different in other ways too. Normally, in an interview, you have some idea what the interviewee is going to say. Here we didn't, apart from a few leaks to the papers over the previous weekend, " he says.

"I've never done an interview like it before and I doubt if I ever will again."

While the viewing figures were high . . . half a million . . . the communicated reaction to RTE was below what might have been expected. There were less than two dozen calls to the station, which, according to Dobson, broke down evenly between those who felt he was too hard or too soft on the Taoiseach. "I think on the whole people just watched it and made up their own minds, " he says. "If you look at the opinion polls, people said it was wrong to take the money but it wasn't a hanging offence. I think that's a sophisticated analysis by the public."

Exciting Interviewing the powerful is one of the more exciting aspects to Dobson's job as presenter of the Six One News. He's the man on the editorial team charged with chasing down the subject every weekday for the interview that is broadcast around 20 minutes into the bulletin. More often than not, he also poses the questions.

"It's an element that we've built into the programme, " he says.

"We found that our viewing numbers are higher after 6.15pm, more people are arriving home. So the interview gives us a chance to revisit the top story at around 20 past. We often have trouble getting people because the very ones you want to talk to are those who don't want to come on air."

He is a man happy with his station in life. For over eight years he has been anchor on the Six One and it's a gig with which he is hugely comfortable. His dulcet tones, the countenance that conveys sufficient gravity and his well-scrubbed appearance make him ideal material for the brief. He debuted on the flagship bulletins on the nine o'clock slot, but prefers his current role.

"I find it more stimulating, more challenging, particularly with the breaking-news element and taking the programme out of the studio and going on the road with it.

And, of course, you get to go home at seven o'clock as well."

Journalism had got under his skin before he did his Leaving Cert in Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock. Born in 1960, he was raised in salubrious Sandymount.

On finishing school, he attended a media course in Rathmines College of Commerce . . . "I didn't have the honours English required for the journalism course" . . . but like many who went on to greater things he didn't even finish the course, opting instead to work fulltime for one of the bigger pirates.

Radio Nova gave him a grounding, but was to prove an impediment when he applied to RTE for a job a year later.

"There was a lot of tension around the pirates at the time and RTE wouldn't hire from them. So my chance was gone but I was put in touch with people in the BBC in the North and moved up there." A move to the early morning programme focused his desire to return home and when a position came up in RTE he was already on the road south.

For eight years now he has been part of the daily staple of RTE television news. There was a minor controversy a few years ago when it emerged he had been giving advice to state-body personnel on how to approach media interviews. It's sensitive territory and he doesn't want to go over that old ground, saying he dealt with it at the time. And that's off the record.

His status on the national consciousness has even earned him the ultimate media celebrity badge, a character in Today FM's Gift Grub sketch, which captures excellently the dulcet tones. "I think it's great, " he says. "In fact, when it first came on, a friend of mine thought it was actually me.

He rang me up saying he thought I couldn't work for commercial radio because I was in RTE."

Ambition is an alien word in his vocabulary at this stage of the game. He's 46, married with two daughters, happy at home and in his work. There are no plans to apply for a number on RTE's starmaking production line.

"I hope it doesn't sound smug but I have found something I seem to be able to get away with and I still enjoy doing it. Interesting days come along often enough. I do joke that when I get to my 50s I'd like to take a gap year and travel around the world, but we'll see."

According to the notorious Wikipedia online encyclopedia, he presents a couple of sideline programmes on RTE Two, Fishing While Wearing a Tutu and Sing Along With Dobbo. Of course it's rubbish, and Dobbo says he has no intention of ever trying to foist any of his hobbies or special interests on RTE's viewers or listeners.

For the foreseeable future, though, he'll continue to be the man with the news.