How did you begin your broadcasting career?
I began by listening to the radio every day. My mother had a radio in every room in the house and even in the garden. It was part of my existence. I started doing book reviews for a children’s programme on Radio 2 on ‘Poporama’.

I went to college and studied arts in UCD and then I started doing little bits and pieces of reporting for different radio shows until the ‘Pat Kenny Show’ asked me to be a reporter for them and I went on from there.

Do you have a preference for radio or television?
I love them both. I think if I had to call it, radio would be my natural home for a number of reasons, not least of which would be my physical appearance, making me more palatable on the radio and that’s a help. It doesn’t matter how you look or what you wear– you can go on the radio and have a laugh and it’s only a matter of what somebody’s saying and not what they look like. TV is like a bungee jump– it’s a very swift one-hour adrenal hit. It’s a very different media but I prefer the radio, it’s great fun.

Are you the same person off the air as you are on it?
I’d say I’m possibly more like myself on air than off air than many presenters. There’s a bit of exaggeration but that’s part of the job. By and large I am more or less the same on or off air. Maybe a bit darker off air.

How do you relax outside of work? Have you any hobbies?
I walk Dun Laoghaire pier all the time and I eat Teddy’s ice cream. My cob-web clearing, head resting time is the pier and I love that.

I also love disappearing into a cinema with popcorn and Coke on a quiet afternoon, turning off the phone and watching a good film. I love reading history books, visiting museums, watching history and all of that. I am fascinated by the past.

I believe your wife Anne Marie works in RTE.
Yes, we met here in RTE. She was a documentary maker at the time and I was a junior reporter looking for a job and she was going into the studio one day to do a piece and I was coming out and my head turned. I thought: ‘she is very attractive. I’d like to see her again’. I had to do a lot of pursuing and it paid off.

You come from a very famous Fianna Fail family. Do you have any political ambitions?
None whatsoever. When you come to RTE you leave your politics at the gate and that’s very much what I do. While I am intrigued by politics and enjoy following current affairs I’m not a political person.

Do you have a favourite restaurant in Dublin?
I think my favourite restaurant is probably the Trocadero in Dublin. It’s a bit of a cliché for people in this business. I like the way it’s run, I like the fact that it plays Tony Bennett music and that it has a full bar and a relaxed atmosphere. It’s right in the heart of town and it’s got plush couches and seats and they do a nice steak and mushy peas and that suits my very very simple palate.

What’s the best thing about being well-known?
I suppose that sometimes you are probably more inclined to get a table quicker. But then I don’t go out as much as I’d like to. It has its benefits. They’re small but they’re nice. My interest is not in being famous but in being good at what I do.

And the worst?
When you’re hungover. People will come up and say hallo to you. There’s a myth that Irish people don’t come up and say hallo but they do. They are perfectly entitled to and I welcome it because I think that if I didn’t want that to happen I would go and work in the bank. I don’t mind it at all except when I am hungover and I am occasionally and it is very hard to focus on the people in front of you let alone a complete stranger who wants to have a big chat with you!

How do you cope with criticism?
It makes my slightly annoyed because I think a lot of it is snipey and a lot of it is unconstructive. Sometimes it borders on the vindictive, but you have to take the side-swipes with the head-pats and I think it’s a business that lends itself to resentment in some ways. You are in the business, your head is above the parapet, you take the shot but you wear a helmet so it’s not fatal.

Of all the people you have interviewed who has stood out the most?
The chef, Richard Corrigan, always impresses me. He’s a Meath man who owns a posh restaurant in London and I love him because he doesn’t talk rubbish and he gives really good factual interviews. I love talking to Eddie Hobbs. Burt Baccarach was a pleasure to interview and more recently Jamie Oliver was very nice.

It’s fascinating to get to talk to all these people and it’s a real pleasure for me to interview them. It’s probably why I’m in the business. But you could equally get a fascinating interview out of someone who nobody knows but they’re just interesting people.

What ambitions do you have left in broadcasting?
I’ve loads. I would love to do a history programme that is accessible to people broadly speaking and make history more interesting. That’s going to be my pet project when everything else goes pear-shaped.

Otherwise, I am very happy where I am on TV. I really enjoy the chat show, I thoroughly enjoy the radio show and they are both so young and fledgling that it would be crazy to want more than that. I have reached a very nice place to be at the age of 32.

If you were Director General of RTE, what changes would you like to make?
Less sport. I think there is plenty of sport and I think I would just go easy on it, certainly on the radio. I would have more history programmes and more music and I would increase Prime Time’s length to an hour. I would make the six o’clock News one hour even during the summer when the world still rotates.

Where do you see your career going in the future?
I don’t know. I would be very surprised if it wasn’t on this island. I really achieved a lot of things I wanted to achieve. The nine o’clock slot on a week-day on Radio 1 for a lot of people is the golden fleece of broadcasting and I am really happy there.

The live chat show on a Saturday night is a real pleasure and we are doing really well on it. The figures are good. It was a gamble taken by senior management and I’m glad to say it’s paying off. It’s too early to say what’s next. I’m at what’s next. My heart and soul is in the two projects I am doing at the moment.