Irish actors can more than hold their own against the best in the business . . . so why do Irish politicians seem to suffer by comparison with their counterparts in the US and especially the UK on the political stage?

I wouldn't say that they compare badly with all of their Westminster counterparts. Look, for example, at John Major, who was awful, or at Margaret Thatcher, who was not only awful, but false.

Of course there are examples of good speakers, such as Tony Blair (who is a speaker rather than an orator), and Bill Clinton. But, with Clinton, while anyone who hears him speak is blown away by his charisma and his warmth, nobody really remembers what is actually said.

In general, I would say that the use of oratory by politicians has decreased . . . for example, they don't understand periodic statements in the manner of JFK or Churchill. But much of this is down to the fact that there are very few great speech writers who really know what they are doing at the moment - compare what is available today with great writers such as Peggy Noonan (speechwriter for Ronald Reagan) or Arthur Schlesinger (who worked with the Kennedys).

But look at something like Prime Minister's Questions in the UK . . . we don't have the same theatre as the House of Commonsf It is true that there is a very low pattern of repartee and heckling in the Dail, and we tend towards vulgar abuse rather than the genuinely witty.

So can you teach a speaker to be lucid?

My company started because Bunny (Carr) used to sit in the Merrion Inn and listen to the politicians discussing their performances at RTE. Sooner or later, he would hear a person say "(that interviewer) didn't get much out of me" . . . how can a person misuse the capacity to reach people so badly?

But communication can be taught. Give me a speaker of any intelligence and diligence, and give me a good speech, and I can turn them into a great speechmaker . . . one who can connect with the audience and deliver chunks of information that people will actually pick up on. You can't train charisma, but you can make a speechmaker.

Is it a question of learning certain techniques that give a veneer of lucidity, or can they actually learn to be better speakers?

You can teach people to use shorter sentences. You can teach them to build up ideas rather than concepts, because concepts don't work in the spoken word. They can learn how to speak about things that connect with the emotions, and they can learn a delivery that gets people rising to their feet . . . I can predict the applause points during any speech before it is made.

Instead of doing this, politicians have an instinctive liking for tricks rather than learnt skills (Prone is adamant that, despite media reports to the contrary, she did not train politicians to say "I'm glad you asked me that question"). They like to learn power words, and how to dress, etc.