TV review: The Seven Ages of Noël Browne

The RTÉ documentary features contributions from the late politicians family, as well as interviews recorded shortly before his death 

Noël Browne and his wife Nula Suchet.

There have always been two opposing visions of the former Minister for Health Dr Noël Browne: a tortured but compassionate genius, or a crank who argued with everyone.

The truth lies somewhere in between. Browne was certainly a challenger of consensus, driven by a passion to reform our health service. The trouble was that he never learned to play politics, even when it might have saved him and his Mother and Child Scheme, a radical programme that drew the wrath of the medical profession as well as the Catholic archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid.