Brigid Laffan

speaker

206 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 20 Sep

Brigid Laffan’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

Brendan O'Connor · Newspaper Panel · 28 Jun 2026 podcast

The experience I got in the 1970s, I worked for six months during the first Irish presidency in foreign affairs as a student.

It formed my life.

So I do think that engagement with the outside world during the degree, internships, placements are really important.

But I don't think two-year degrees are the answer.

Oh, I think it's a great story.

And it links us to the World Cup in a way, given that we don't have a team.

Yes, and that is, if you think back to the Brexit negotiations and how hard we fought to keep a soft border on the island of Ireland, I think this is indicative.

And what is it telling us?

So there are still a majority oppose this, oppose a hard border, but 36% saying they would support enhanced border control between the north.

and the Republic that to me is a symptom of concern about migration in the society and it's over a third and that's a big number given how sacred the lack of a hard border is

And now I do think that the question was to strengthen migration controls, but the subtext of that is illegal migration.

And so it tells us that the shift in Ireland on this issue is significant and it's holding.

And the question then is, for us as a society, how we respond to that, how our political system responds to it.

But those numbers are big numbers.

A third is a big, 36% is big.

Disappear.

But the other thing that this shows us is that the political continuum in Ireland is stretching.

Because if you look at the independence into an independent Ireland, there's a bulk of voters there.

Sinn Féin have a bulk of voters.

So it's a much broader... The distance between left and right is much wider now than it used to be, which makes government formation, again, not just the fragmentation...

Showing 121–140 of 206 · page 7 of 11