Sean Defoe
speaker
707 appearances
8 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 23 Jun
Sean Defoe’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
The Claire Byrne Show · Reaction as the government wins its confidence vote last night · 15 Apr 2026
podcast
His speech, and we had all been on alert that Danny Healy-Ray was very likely not to support the government and to vote no confidence.
And what seems to have happened, I suppose, there's different versions of events.
If you take Michael Healy-Ray's version of events, as he put it to us, first of all, was that obviously he was in these talks over the weekend.
He was involved in negotiating the half a billion euro deal.
package of supports for hauliers and farmers and the excise cut that was voted through last night.
And speaking to ministers who were in that meeting with him and some of those meetings, they said they had no inkling really that he wasn't going to back the government.
And that was their impression coming out of it.
He'd negotiated the deal and therefore he would vote for it and stick with the government.
But Michael himself says that while that was ongoing, he was speaking to people who were on the protest line, speaking to people in Kerry and with his own background, as he would say himself, of
being a digger driver, of a truck driver, of owning a plant hire business, that he had a great deal of sympathy with them and felt that the government wasn't giving enough and wasn't going to give enough to satisfy them.
He was also quite critical of Micheál Martin's leadership of the entire thing, but of the government in general, saying he has grave reservations about Micheál Martin as Taoiseach.
Now, the other track that was going on here is Danny Healy-Ray.
And as we said, the expectation was he wasn't going to vote with the government.
There was obviously meetings had
within the two sides of the family, the Danny side and Michael's side.
And ultimately, there is a feeling that there couldn't be a split in the empire, if you like, that there wasn't going to be a case where the Healy Rays would have one member in and one member out of government and try to campaign on that basis.
This is a
A grouping, if not a party, that sends out leaflets with both of their faces on it, joint leaflets telling people in different parts of Kerry what way to vote.
Vote number one Danny in this area, vote number one Michael in this area and give your twos accordingly.
And that the subsequent split, I suppose, wasn't worth the ultimate damage electorally it could do.
Showing 641–660 of 707 · page 33 of 36
← Previous
Next →