Amongst its lyrics are the following: "Now we're fussin'/And now we're fightin'/Please tell me why/I'm feelin' slightin'/And I don't know/How to make it better/You're datin' other guys/ You're tellin' me lies/Oh I can't believe/What I'm seein' with my eyes/I'm losin' my mind/And I don't think it's clever/You're way too beautiful girl/That's why it'll never work/You'll have me suicidal, suicidal suicidal" That last, thrice-repeated word is the reason FM104 has banned the song, according to a spokesman quoted in the Irish Independent on Friday. "With the rate of suicide among young Irish people at an alltime high, " said programme director Dave Kelly, "I decided to take action. While I accept the song is popular and catchy, as a responsible company, FM104 has decided to take this song off the air."

A few days earlier, RTE (from whose playlists 'Beautiful Girls' has also disappeared) issued an apology to people who might have been offended by last Friday week's Late Late Show. The programme carried a segment on people who had been bereaved or affected by street violence. They included a mother whose son had been murdered less than a fortnight previously, a man who had been thrown through a shop window and two sisters whose brother had been rendered brain damaged during an assault.

RTE journalist Paul Reynolds was then interviewed about crime in Ireland. Following this section of the programme, Pat Kenny interviewed a women boxer, Aisling Daly, who is from Dublin and who dropped out of college to try and make a living in her chosen sport, called cage rage. For those of you who missed it, cage rage is a frantic mix of wrestling, boxing and martial arts, and is increasingly popular. The interview was preceded by some clips of Daly in action. She clearly had the upper hand in the fight.

Some people were offended by her appearance. Joan Deane from AdVic, an advocacy group for victims of homicide, said it was "probably insensitive" to broadcast the feature about boxing immediately after speaking about violence. As a result, the Late Late's producer Larry Masterson apologised to viewers who might have taken offence. "There was a gap after the violence segment, " he said. "But nevertheless, I take full responsibility if it was insensitive to show boxing after an emotional item. I misjudged it and I apologise."

While obviously well-meaning and genuine, both the decision to ban Sean Kingston's song and the apology from RTE were ridiculous consequences of an increasingly and pointlessly politically correct society.

The row over Aisling Daly was particularly stupid as she is a professional sportswoman, who fights under the auspices of a professional body. Her fights take place in a ring . . . a cage, to be more accurate . . . under the supervision of a referee, who implements a very long list of rules. She believes her sport should and will be part of the Olympics one day.

Although Daly gave her opponent one hell of a beating, the level of violence seen on her Late Late Show appearance wasn't a whole lot different from that we witnessed in boxer Bernard Dunne's most recent bout. What Daly does for a living is as far removed from mindless street violence as 10-pin bowling is from throwing stones at gardai.

This was an item about sport, not an encomium to gratuitous thuggery. That people should take exception to Daly's appearance at that particular point in The Late Late Show is an all too typical manifestation of a society in which offence is too easily embraced.

Instead of issuing abject apologies, RTE personnel should be standing up for themselves in the face of this kind of hypersensitivity.

The decision to ban 'Beautiful Girls' is a more worrying development because of its utter pointlessness. It is premised on the belief the song in some way glamourises suicide and will therefore encourage young people to kill themselves. Fine Gael TD Dan Neville, the president of the Irish Association of Suicidology, backed FM104's decision. In the light of the "copycat" nature of some suicides, he suggested, it was better to err on the side of caution.

Neville has done great work in the area of suicide prevention, and I am loath to disagree with him too sharply. But if we err on the side of caution in relation to 'Beautiflul Girls', where do we stop? Do we ban 'Everybody Hurts' by REM (the lyrics of which, incidentally, were once used by the Samaritans in an anti-suicide campaign)? Do we ban Harry Nilsson's 'Without You' because it contains the lyric "I can't live if living is without you"? Do we pick on poor old Gilbert O'Sullivan and never again play his 'Alone Again (Naturally)' because it contains a reference to jumping off a tower?

And are we to be more sensitive about the books we allow our young people to read? Do we ban the sale of Anna Karenina to under 21s because the heroine jumps under a train? Is Madame Bovary to be outlawed because it depicts a suicide? Should Hamlet be banned from Leaving Cert English because Ophelia drowns herself?

Suicide is clearly one of the great problems of our time but of all the ways we can solve it banning pop songs is not one of them.

With or without FM104's intervention, young people will continue to kill themselves in alarming numbers and if we want to stop them, we should spend a lot more on research into the causes of and cures for depression, particularly where it affects young boys and men. Anything else is tokenism and gesture.