Browne gave a detailed outline of the facts in relation to the conviction of Adam Keane for the rape of Mary Shannon, which culminated on 12 March in a suspended sentence.

The programme included a reenactment of defence and prosecution submissions to the judge, Paul Carney, and finally, Carney's ruling and his reasons for it.

What emerged was a scenario in which Carney was attempting to second-guess the Court of Criminal Appeal.

In a previous case, with certain similarities to the Keane case, the appeal court had suspended a custodial sentence imposed by Carney. His ruling in the case before the court in Ennis seems to have been guided by that.

The judge has long been critical of his sentences being adjusted by the appeal court.

This could be down to an overdeveloped ego, or it may be due to a serious sense of professional integrity.

Either way, the inconsistency of the appeal court, which operates with rotating judges, needs to be urgently addressed, if public confidence in the system is to be retained.

But nobody reading or listening to the media in the week following the sentence would have identified inconsistencies by an appeal court as the nub of the issue.

In a world of 24-hour media, with ample input from anybody with access to a telephone, complicated facts are too much hassle. In place of cold analysis, there is an outlet to let off steam, to give vent to rage, the default emotion in Irish life these days.

The soft-judges line was trotted out. Some callers to talk shows suggested the sentence was a charter for rapists.

There were calls for mandatory sentences, a regime that ignores all facts and circumstances in a case beyond the actual verdict. Proportion went out the window.

One columnist in a mid-market paper bracketed Keane with Robert Mugabe, a tyrant who routinely tortures and kills thousands of his own people. Keane committed an appalling crime of deception and violation on a young woman. He did not perpetrate physical violence on her. He did not offend before and was deemed unlikely to do so again.

Some of the rage could be attributed to sympathy for the bravery and plight of Keane's victim, Mary Shannon. But beyond the veneer, there is little real concern in this society for the victims of crime.

Politicians feel plenty of pressure to be tough on crime, whatever that means. They feel little pressure from the electorate properly to cater for the victims of crime, and thus little is done.

The rage on display has far more to do with a societal condition currently in vogue. In the absence of time to digest facts, let's get mad. So it was last summer with the statutory rape crisis. A crowd gathered outside Leinster House to express rage. One woman told the TV camera that she was afraid to walk the streets. The facts suggested that, even in the legal vacuum that prevailed, the law still provided protection. Who cares? Why pass up the opportunity to get mad?

A headline in last Thursday's Examiner illustrated the fashion. "Outrage as more than 3,000 inmates released early", it blazed. Nobody in the accompanying story expressed outrage at prisoners getting out a week or two before the completion of their sentence.

But the default emotion was invoked. Get mad and feel better.

As with other things, it's difficult to discern whether the media is leading or following, tapping into an appetite for rage or generating more of it.

What was most noticeable about the presentation of the facts on radio last Wednesday was the timing. Just 10 days after the verdict sparked rage, it was already yesterday's scandal. The caravan of rage had moved on to the next town.

The facts were no longer important.

All that mattered was that an outlet had provided temporary relief to express societal rage. What room is there for facts when everybody is too busy being mad as hell?