For some reason, I got to thinking about Gerry Ryan while reading the extensive newspaper coverage last week of Neil Prendeville, the Cork dj who finally discovered what Cara in-flight magazine is for. Prendeville, in case, you've been hiding in a wardrobe from the International Monetary Fund, is to be questioned by the local constabulary after committing what we'll politely call a 'sex act' on a flight from Heathrow to Cork while sitting next to a reporter from the Irish Examiner. Although he claims to have been out of his head on a potent cocktail (sorry) of alcohol and Nurofen, he had the presence of mind to try and cover his activities with a copy of the nearest Cara, his flexible friend. Still, it was clear what he was up to, even if people are still confused as to why. Perhaps, in his drunkenness, he tragically misread an itinerary which said his trip to England was to showcase Cork.

Gerry Ryan, I thought, would have had a field day with this story, although not in a judgmental way because, whatever you thought of him, he wasn't the kind of person to cast the first stone. He would have found both humour and seriousness in what happened, in the sheer insanity of the act, and the absurdity of some of the subsequent media coverage. He would have raised the obvious questions about Aer Lingus's behaviour in all of this, why it let Prendeville on the plane in the first place, why it didn't ask gardaí to meet the flight on the tarmac as it has done in less serious incidents, and whether its sudden interest in justice now is to deflect attention from its own mishandling of the situation. He would have enjoyed the fuss and the controversy, the jokes and the bad puns (of which this column is no less guilty than anyone else), and while he clearly wouldn't have given Prendeville a free pass for the incident, he would have left the judging to other people.

The problem for Neil Prendeville this weekend, as he attempts to save his broadcasting career, is that had the situation been reversed, had it been Gerry Ryan who was auditioning for a role in the sequel to Snakes on a Plane, he would have been shown no such mercy. Prendeville lived, and thrived, on the high moral ground in Cork, doling out daily dollops of denunciation of whomever met with his disapproval. He had a newspaper column too, in which he once wrote that female victims of rape and sexual assault had "been made to feel like criminals in Irish courts of law. There is a shocking statistic that sticks in my head: 10% of all rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the gardaí and 3% of those result in a court appearance. In all too many cases the convicted rapist or paedophile (or both) refuses to ever admit wrong, denying the victim total innocence and complete vindication." Young people, he said on a separate occasion, "have no values" anymore. "Their behaviour is becoming increasingly antisocial and they have no manners."

Yikes, and yikes again. Prendeville's mea culpa last week, in which he cast doubt on whether the incident had happened as reported, skirted close to the kind of routine denial he attributes to other wrongdoers. And whatever you think of young people, what with their unmannerly trips to Dublin to protest against education cuts, they do tend to zip up their mickeys when they're on aeroplanes. By not giving enough respect in his public comments to the humanity of other people, and the capacity of us all to do ridiculously stupid, hurtful, careless things, Prendeville makes it very difficult for us to sympathise with him or argue his case when he does the same. He has been hoist by his own petard. Which is not a pun, or a smutty allusion.

Even while agreeing with the Rape Crisis Network that indecent exposure is a crime and that women (men too, presumably) should be allowed to go about their business "without having unwanted sexual behaviour put upon them", I find it hard to demand that Prendeville lose his job. In these economic times, it's difficult to suggest that anyone (government TDs and senators apart) be fired. But his position as Cork's leading shock jock does seem untenable, even if he's not arrested, charged and convicted with an offence over the coming weeks and months. The 100,000 Cork people who have been tuning into Prendeville every day for insights into the correct way to live their lives will presumably find it difficult to take lessons from a public masturbator, and will find other founts of local wisdom around which to congregate.

In the end, therefore, and cynical and all as it might seem, it could come down to simple statistics: 96FM, Prendeville's radio station, which has thus far been silent on the issue, will not continue to employ a man who is losing listeners hand over fist. That seems true even if Prendeville escapes a conviction. And that, unfortunately for his wife and children, who will suffer the consequences of his stupidity longer than anyone else involved, seems less and less likely this weekend.

A good story, but no conspiracy in gilmore wife deal

At the start of the last decade, a middle-aged Irish woman inherited some land from her mother. Some years later, she sold it for €525,000, a beneficiary of the huge increase in the price of land throughout the noughties. The only interesting thing about that story, the only thing that separates it from many other similar occurrences before the economic collapse, is that the woman involved is Carol Hanney, wife of Labour leader Eamon Gilmore.

That's why when the Sunday Tribune broke the story last Sunday, we put it on Page 9 and not Page 1. Seeing conspiracies where none exist, however, the Irish Independent put the story on its front page for three days on a row and yesterday, they flogged the dead horse again with a two page feature.

They really should leave it. There's no conspiracy, no lack of ethics. Hanney did what hundreds of thousands of Irish people have done throughout the generations: she inherited some land and sold it on. She's not a property developer. Most people will say good luck to her.

ddoyle@tribune.ie