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Its that time of year again. Dark evenings beckon and award ceremonies on a weekly basis for every sector and activity. I’m waiting for the ‘Best Aunt’ competition which is probably the only one worth winning. But in the meantime there’s the PPI Radio Awards in Kilkenny in October when the radio industry prove that some of us (a very rare few) have faces as well as voices. Its a big ticket affair with lots of frocks, alcohol and just an element of in house bitching (and that’s just Tony Fenton..polishing his array of shiny toys). But it’s also about radio and some really great radio from features and documentaries to music shows and news & current affairs. For that we love it - since it celebrates radio. And once again we’re happy to have one of our radio babies of 2009 acknowledged and recognised. Tower Songs our music radio documentary for RTE Lyric FM in February is up for an award in the music special along side some other great documentaries. We’re happy to be on the shortlist and to be in good company. Tower Songs was special for lots of reasons. It’s about children and teenagers in Ballymun telling their story through the power of music. It’s about a dynamic and inspiring music teacher Ron Cooney and a talented composed called Dara O Toole as well as the charismatic, duracell bunny that is RTE conductor David Brophy. It is also special because of the people who worked on it Niamh Kinane, researcher and Lochlainn Harte, sound engineer and editor. But most of all it is special because my mother Rose died while we were editing it and we dedicated the one hour piece to her memory and love of song. It remains our favourite documentary of the year and it gave us the chance to work with, and get to know incredible people. So to make the shortlist is sweet and nearly as sweet as making the documentary.
Good luck to everyone in the awards shortlist (including Tony Fenton….!).

The climate is already turning cold. It’s windy and wet outside. The late promised heatwave has not broken through the cloud-storms and the radio news continues to pile red figures upon red figures. Climbing debt and unemployment. Namarama. Those of us running our own businesses and looking to the future are projecting a difficult winter and hoping for some respite in the late spring. That may be optimistic. But working and planning for the future and for future growth and development is what businesses are all about. It is against our nature as a media company to get involved in the midst of a public debate and against my journalistic core to take a public position on something we’re going to vote on but it is time to stand up and be counted. We’re not involved in the Lisbon Treaty campaign on either side, nor am I covering it, so in the midst of what is a challenging month for our society perhaps it is time for those of us we are not politically affiliated, and who are deeply concerned about our future, to use their voice.
Outside my window on Thomas St, in the heart of a piece of the city which felt little of the so called Celtic Tiger boom, there are posters claiming the minimum wage will fall to 1.84 and that Lisbon will somehow make the 1916 leaders rock in their grave. Maybe that is the language of desperation but there is a danger than once again lies, damn lies and rather weird statistics are used in the public debate. It seems the anti-Lisbon campaign has run out of headlines on abortion and gone for a whole new list of creative, alternative realities. Let’s be clear. The defeat of the Lisbon treaty first time round has to be seen as a failure by the Government to even bother to read the thing. Second time round if we reject Lisbon again it is a failure by us the public to engage with the facts and figure out what is in our own national interest and in the wider interest of Europe.
A young colleague tells me that many of her friends in their 20s are voting No for ‘nationalistic’ reasons. ‘We’ll lose power’, one said. Hmm imagine how much power we’ll lose when we’re on the slow track in the EU and being cold shouldered by Brussels. The image of our wet and windy little island (or our bit of it) going it alone, face firmly to the Atlantic, raising credit from Iceland, clinging to our flimsy cloak of ‘national power’ is hard to shift.
A Polish colleague in Warsaw complains we took the good times and the cash flow and now seem unable to face our responsibilities in terms of the continent. A French colleague in Paris says ‘we’re waiting anxiously for the Irish so things can get moving again’.
Those who are thinking of voting No because they are quite rightly cross with the Government have to think who is going to help us work our way out of the mess our own national policies have created; in health, planning, urban development, housing, transport and education? The EU helped shaped Ireland as a more equitable society for men and women. It has opened us up from some of the insular thinking which had previously defined us. It has allowed our national pride to find its home within a European context; a context which has respected our language, our traditions and our culture. The mess we are in can not be blamed on the EU, that’s something we have to own ourselves, but the way out of this mire is surely not isolation, going it alone, but by being part of a vibrant and diverse community which we have helped shape and which we will continue to shape and influence by saying as Molly Bloom did. Yes.