Inside Politics with Hugh Linehan

Pat Leahy and Sarah Burns join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:The Dail was dominated this week by debate over the Government’s proposal to end the Triple Lock. It’s a substantial political row with contradictions and ironies on both sides of the argument.The attention of terminally online people all over the world was drawn to Ireland this week when a video published by the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre went viral. The ad, part of a campaign “aimed at informing, educating and engaging the public about all forms of consent”, depicted a girl’s discomfort at receiving a hug from her grandparents. Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan swiftly denounced it. Did he need to?Minister O’Callaghan is at the centre of this week’s other big story: the ongoing battle between the State and the legal profession over fees. as the consequences of the dispute for the functioning of the courts deepen, the stakes for O’Callaghan are high.Plus the panelists pick their favourite Irish Times articles of the week including Kathy Sheridan on the enduring role of the Catholic funeral, Justine McCarthy on Andy Burnham “declaring war” on inconsiderate commuters and Fintan O’Toole on antisemitism.

The scenes at Drumcree in recent weeks revived memories of one of Northern Ireland’s most enduring disputes between unionist and nationalist communities.But while the immediate controversy centred on a short stretch of road in Portadown, loyalist activist Jamie Bryson, who has spearheaded the campaign to secure a return of Orange Order members to the largely nationalist Garvaghy Road, believes the implications reach much further than a single parade.On today’s podcast, Bryson tells Hugh that the unionist tradition has been “under siege” for decades and argues that it is time to “go on the offensive”.“We’ve constantly been on the defensive and, in my view, that has emboldened an ever more aggressive nationalist push in terms of advancing their culture and their objectives,” he says.Bryson has long been at the centre of debates over identity and culture in Northern Ireland. He came to prominence during the protests that followed Belfast City Council’s decision to limit the flying of the Union flag at City Hall, demonstrations that were marked by significant unrest.More recently, he has been a vocal opponent of Irish-language policies and the introduction of dual-language street signs in parts of Belfast, which he argues have been imposed on unionist communities.The Drumcree controversy, he says, reflects a broader struggle over culture and identity. “We’re going to do to you what you have done to us,” he says.Bryson insists the ultimate objective is not dominance by either tradition. “Nationalists are not going to dominate unionists, and unionists are not going to dominate nationalists” he says.“Eventually we will all come to the table once we’ve fought each other to exhaustion in a culture war”.Presented by Hugh Linehan. Produced by Andrew McNair and JJ Vernon.

Democracy rests on the promise that political institutions should reflect the people they serve. But in an era of growing social diversity, persistent inequalities and political polarisation, that promise is being contested.On today’s podcast, Hugh heads to the Royal Irish Academy to speak to Pauline Cullen, Professor of Sociology at Maynooth University and Tània Verge Mestre, former Equalities Minister in the Catalan government in Spain.Verge Mestre highlights the gender quota’s introduced in Spain in 2007 requiring political parties to have no less than 40% of either gender represented in its candidates.Cullen said “we have some of the most imaginative forms of governance across Europe”.“When we think about diversity in an Irish context and we think about gender equality, migrant integration, or traveller rights, we silo them in different government departments and we give them different funding streams” she added.“We don’t create the conditions to think about these things in a joined up way”.So how can politics be more representative? And why is Ireland lagging behind international comparisons?Presented by Hugh Linehan. Produced by Andrew McNair and JJ Vernon.

Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:Thursday evening in Brussels saw much wrangling over the EU’s proposed €1.6tn budget. As holders of EU presidency, Ireland has a neutral dealmaker role to play - but as one of the net contributors to the pot, will Ireland benefit given the greater focus on security and defence spending? Budget 2027 reaction has been pretty much unanimous, with many experts pointing to the precarious nature of the current corporation tax bonanza. But wielding all that cash can be difficult if nobody is certain how much the tax receipts will add up to month-to-month.And two candidates have emerged ahead of next month’s Seanad byelection for the seat vacated by Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne. Academic and lawyer Maeve O’Rourke is planning to run as an independent, while former Lord Mayor of Dublin Ray McAdam will run as Fine Gael’s candidate. An electorate made up of TDs and senators will vote.

Leinster House today was filled with sympathy for Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan who took ill during an EU presidency meeting in Limerick on Tuesday.On today’s podcast Hugh speaks to Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy and political correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones about the mood in the Dáil.Fellow politicians “understand the stresses and challenges” of the job, Pat said.They also discuss today’s public sector strike and the likelihood of another next Wednesday.“Both sides have staked out their territory” said Pat.“The government has shown its willing to let people go out on strike, the unions have shown their prepared to go on strike” he added.Unions say the threat of larger scale walk outs in the dispute over the public sector pay deal aren’t off the table.Jack Horgan-Jones said “generationally no one in politics or the unions has dealt with something of this scale before”.He added, ”though we haven’t reached the point of confronting what a full scale public sector and civil service walk out would look like and the disruption it would cause”.

In less than a month US voters will get a chance to express their feelings about the direction of the country in elections for seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate. While president Donald Trump is not on the ballot, his unpopularity is weighing his party down. Polls show a "blue wave" looks likely, with Democrats favoured to win back the House and possibly the Senate. But many races are still very close. Washington correspondent Keith Duggan has been visiting some of the key battlegrounds to find out about the candidates and the issues.

Pat Leahy and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:The fallout from Budget 2027 has been minimal, save for Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan’s eleventh-hour decision to cut State subvention to RTÉ by €20 million. Having seen his department pre-budget demands not being met, the Minister warned that the Government – not just his department - “will renege on the three-year funding deal agreed with RTÉ in July 2024”. Unlike O’Donovan, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers saw his political capital augment this week. It took a giveaway budget of €8.5bn to avoid putting anyone’s nose seriously out of joint, but at least he kept to the 6 per cent spending margin for 2027.Public sector pay demands will see industrial action rather than negotiations in the short-term but perhaps the Government and the unions will sit down and talk before both sides become entrenched.And once lobbied by property developers like Johnny Ronan, former minister Simon Coveney now lobbies on his behalf. Ronan is redeveloping the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend with up to 3,800 apartments planned. Dublin City Council are now urging Coveney to honour affordable housing plans for the site, drawn up while he was housing minister.

Ireland is politically and economically stable, as Simon Harris pointed out in his Budget speech yesterday. But keeping it that way is getting more expensive. Increased capital spending, increased day-to-day spending, tax cuts - yesterday’s Budget delivered the lot. Is this sustainable, with our reliance on multinational tax receipts? Or wise, with our healthy level of economic growth? To look at the big picture, Hugh and Pat are joined by Barra Roantree of Trinity College Dublin.Barra Roantree is an Assistant Professor in Economics at TCD.

Last year Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor co-authored an essay in The Guardian with a provocative title: The Rise of End Times Fascism. In it they argued that a new alliance was emerging on the political right, made up of Christian fundamentalists, Silicon Valley billionaires and hardline ethnonationalists, bound together by a vision of the end of the world as we know it in which only they would survive.That essay has now become a book, End Times Fascism and the Fight for the Living World.On today’s podcast Klein and Taylor talk to Hugh Linehan about their thesis and why they believe the term fascism is justified. What do they believe unites believers in the Rapture, cynical tech oligarchs and the far right? And how should the rest of us fight back against those whom Klein and Taylor call “traitors to creation”?Naomi Klein is the author of many books including No Logo, The Shock Doctrine and Doppelgänger. Astra Taylor is a documentary filmmaker, co-founder of the Debt Collective, a union for debtors which emerged out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and author of The Age of Insecurity.