Purporting to reflect the highs and lows of 2006 as voted for by the Irish people, it instead turned out to be Liveline on the telly, a mishmash of the kind of populist nonsense which regularly gets trotted out and encouraged by Joe Duffy, who also presented the television programme.

Liveline isn't all bad. It often . . . as when it highlighted the double charging of sexual abuse victims by their solicitors . . . does the state some service. But too often it is a forum for the mob to legitimise itself, to coat itself in the kind of respectability available to people who get to speak on one of the country's most popular radio shows.

For every important debate on overcharged victims which is kicked off on Liveline, there are another five, such as that on the age of consent, which are entirely corrupted by the baying, unthinking, hate-filled unreasonable mob.

Politicians are mostly a spineless lot, and they pay attention to the snarling rabble that mostly listens, and mostly rings in, to talk radio in this country. And because politicians . . . with a few exceptions, obviously . . .

are much more inclined to follow rather than lead, particularly in the run-up to an election, talk radio is often the tail that wags the national dog.

Which is not to say that talk radio should be banned, or that only opinions expressed by newspaper editors, or columnists, or politicians or some panel of "respectable" or pre-approved talking heads should be given publicity or airtime. Editors and columnists and politicians are just as capable as anybody else of becoming part of a mob, or encouraging mob tendencies. The debate over the Rossport Five is a particular case in point.

The five men, their battle against Shell, and the battle of the wider community in Mayo against the proposed pipeline, have been the focus of some unbelievably bitter, hateful and idiotic media coverage over the last 12 months. They got a mention on How Was It For You? , in which their ongoing protests were nominated as one of the year's lows. (So was the death of Charlie Haughey, by the way. The taoiseach's "survival" of the controversy about the Manchester payments was one of the highs).

Which is where How Was It For Yo u? really lost the plot. Having asked the mob to vote upon its highs and lows, it then refused to let individual members to have their say, to explain, for example, why they thought Charlie Haughey's death was a bigger low than the demise of the writer John McGahern or the film director Robert Altman, or of Maynard Ferguson, the trumpeter.

Instead, the show's producers asked a range of editors, columnists and "respectable" and pre-approved talking heads for their thoughts on what the mob had said.

It was as though they had become ashamed about having asked ordinary people to have their say and had decided to distance themselves from those opinions by getting a bunch of media folk, comedians and DJs to run the rule over them.

It was cowardly television. Instead of getting to hear what ordinary people thought about the Rossport Five and their campaign, we got some know-nothing DJ explaining that, basically, she had no opinion on it at all. We were also treated to the opinions of the columnist Kevin Myers, who has led the media mob against Rossport for more than a year now.

Myers's knee-jerk, hate-filled rants against the Rossport protestors have become a common feature of Irish journalism. On new year's eve, part of his argument seemed to be that the protestors were in some way driven by ego, by a need to be noticed or seen.

Coming from a newspaper columnist with such a well-manicured selfregard, I thought that Myers's comments were a bit rich. But he did set me thinking about why it is that five entirely ordinary folk from Mayo should produce such hostile reaction in some people of a right-wing persuasion.

Is it that many of these individuals, like Myers, were once of a leftwing bent, until they became fat on their large salaries, and are now rendered squirmingly uncomfortable when reminded of their protesting, agitating, idealistic past?

Is it that the words used by the protestors to frame their campaign . . . community, environment, solidarity, family . . . are all concepts or ideas which are alien to the kind of person who automatically associates progress with profit and the untrammelled right to make money? Is it that one of the Rossport Five seems to have a strong Sinn Fein connection? Is it that the economic boom has been achieved by a quite blatant doffing of the national cap to large corporations and that by placing themselves squarely against the plans of one such multi-national, the Rossport Five are making a deeply . . . and, to many, deeply unacceptable . . . political point?

The Rossport Five have just brought out a book about their recent experiences. I hope it sells well and I hope it raises plenty of cash to help them continue their campaign. But I suspect that the protest is on its last legs mainly because of the unholy alliance between journalists, big business and politics which makes today's Sunday Tribune comments by Michael McDowell about the leftwing bias of the media seem so ridiculous.

This alliance has painted the Rossport protestors as enemies of progress, neanderthal barriers to the achievement of economic success. But contemplate this. The state will make no significant amount of money from Shell's pipeline. No royalties will accrue to Ireland from it, no windfall tax will be levied, no equity share has been entered into.

Whatever it costs Shell to develop the project can be claimed back in tax. When the plant is up and running, only about 50 jobs will be created.

The only people who will make money from this are Shell and its suppliers. The only people who stand to lose are the people of the Rossport area. Are Shell's rights to huge profits more important than the rights of the people of Rossport to maintain the integrity of their communities?

Or has that kind of talk become subversive in the new Ireland? If so, I'm with the subversives.