Broadcaster Gay Byrne yesterday defended RTÉ's decision to pre-record the New Year's Eve television special which as a result had no mention of the Asian tsunami disaster.
The veteran broadcaster went head to head with the main critic of RTÉ's decision, Labour TD Mr Tommy Broughan, on the Liveline radio programme.
The politician had described RTÉ in a statement as having "breathtaking arrogance" and "staggering disregard" in going ahead with the New Year's Eve programme which was recorded on December 16th.
However, Mr Byrne said most of the shows shown over Christmas were recorded.
"It seems to me opportunist when there is such a disaster to say that in some way we should have foreseen it," he said.
Mr Broughan, the party's communications spokesman, said he had not known the show was recorded.
New Year's Eve was a time for reflection and he would have thought a live show would have been the way to do it. On the BBC there was a live show and they even had a minute's silence.
"We were all pretty traumatised by the events and it is one of the worst disasters of our lifetime," he said.
Mr Byrne said it was not just him that was involved in the show but all the other staff as well. They were entitled to New Year's Eve off.
He asked Mr Broughan: "If the tsunami had not happened would you have been aware that it was not live?"
Mr Broughan said when he saw Robbie Keane he realised it was not live as the footballer would have been playing matches within a few hours of it.
"No one could have foreseen the calamity and with all the news programmes most people were up to speed on the tsunami and perhaps they could have done with a bit of relief from that with the New Year's Eve programme." he said.
Asked by host Joe Duffy if when he watched the show, he felt it was out of synch, Mr Byrne admitted: "Absolutely, but you can't run a business on that basis. If it wasn't for this appalling thing - you can't run it on the basis that something like this might happen."
He added that a live New Year's Eve Special was difficult and not workable.