Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Brendan O'Connor on RTE Radio 1.
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Good morning. You're very welcome to the show. Let's have a look at the front pages first before we meet our panel. The front of the Sunday Independent is a bit like, you know, there's letters to the Irish Times. I heard a cuckoo. Is this a record? So we're having the budget discussion, it seems.
I think possibly because Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael are trying to, like, you know, get in early with the... With the good bits. So Conal Thomas has tax cuts and targeted measures for older people on the cards, the Taoiseach says. New cost of disability payment. The Taoiseach is talking about alleviating pressures on family.
Another instrument is social protection, various payments, people on low income, pensioners. childcare would be in the frame as well in terms of what we can do. Then Social Protection Minister Derek Leary is here as well. People living alone, particularly in their older years on fixed incomes, we need to support them more. And he does make that point that I know a lot of...
older people make, which is that if you have two people in a household and then one of them dies, you're dealing with largely the same fixed costs, but in a lot of cases, like their fixed income is kind of more or less halved.
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Chapter 2: What are the highlights from the Sunday newspapers?
So anyway, that's the budget. We'll talk about that for the next six months. The Sunday Times is leading with Ukrainians will get Irish payoff on return home. So they're saying they'll receive payments from the Irish government only once they return to their home country. They also, John Mooney has an intriguing story as their off lead.
Verona Murphy, the Keown Corla, was given a rare national security briefing after Garda Intelligence uncovered a sophisticated Chinese influence operation attempting to target her last year.
And the Business Post is leading with that a prominent PTSB shareholder and former board member has mounted an urgent high court challenge in a bid to block the bank's sale to Australian lender Balwag amid ongoing anger among investors at the transaction price. And right from the beginning, people have been saying that some people think that we're giving it away too cheaply. The...
Mail is leading with, remember, Evan Fitzgerald, the Carlos Shopping Centre shooter, as they call him here. They have extensive coverage. of a related court case inside. But they're saying undercover Gardaí had a face-to-face meeting with Carlo Shopping Centre shooter Evan Fitzgerald at the Dublin pub nine days before they arrested him and two friends in a covert sting operation.
And the Sunday World has a story about Michael Mooney who was jailed this week for a campaign of harassment against his ex-partner.
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Chapter 3: How is the budget impacting Irish citizens?
Now, our panel this morning, Brenda Power is a columnist at the Irish Daily Mail and at the Sunday Independent. Moira Trassen-Nichialig is a medical doctor and columnist. Daniel Murray is policy editor at the Business Post. And Ben Tonra is a professor of international relations at UCD. And he is also a non-paid director at the Irish Security and Defence Association. Just FYI.
Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Brendan. Good morning. So, Brenda, we hear there on the news, it seems as we speak, people are being taken off the Hantavirus boat. Why did you pick as a piece on this Caroline Graham in the mail on Sunday revealed the real ground zero where outbreak that's already claimed 32 lives began?
Well, this is it. I mean, obviously, the question is, where does this come from and how contagious could it potentially be? The original suggestion was that they picked it up, these two, I think, Danish birdwatchers, picked it up at a site in Argentina. At a dump? At a dump, yeah, at a dump. Where apparently birdwatchers go to dumps. Where birds would be.
But anyway, the mail is revealing that actually it's much more likely that they accessed it in Patagonia, because the particular breed of rat or strain of rat that carries and transmits this virus is not actually at that dump in Argentina. It's much more likely to be at this Patagonian site.
Not that that makes it any less worrying or any more worrying, I suppose, for the rest of us as to how contagious or otherwise this may be.
It does, though, in relation to all that, we have seen stories all week that it can lead to super spreader events. There was a birthday party. Where 11 people died.
And 32 people apparently have died in Patagonia in the last few months from this. So, I mean, we've been assured that it's only really intense, close and long term contact can spread this. So, I mean, hopefully that that's absolutely true. And there's really nothing to be concerned about unless you're actually after stepping off this boat. Are you slightly concerned?
Well, I was just thinking, Brandon, you know, it sounds like the beginning of one of those, you know, disaster movies where the whole world gets consumed by a pandemic. And the initial soundings are there's nothing to worry about here. This is contained. It's small. It's not transmissible.
Is this trauma, Brenda? Is this COVID trauma?
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Chapter 4: What recent developments are there regarding the Hantavirus outbreak?
Yeah, exactly.
Running a country is easy.
Brendan, we're down to earth now. Or not down to earth, as the case may be. Patrick O'Donoghue is writing in the Sunday Times. more sobering O'Leary tips on bags and booze.
Yes. I mean, this, basically, this whole story that erupted last week when Michael O'Leary called for a ban on airports selling drink outside of licensing hours, six o'clock in the morning. Who needs a drink at five o'clock in the morning, he said, is just Michael O'Leary, I'm afraid, doing what Michael O'Leary always does, which is getting Ryanair into the headlines.
This is, as you say, he suggested last week that because O'Leary up to one flight a week has to be diverted because of drunken behaviour on board, which I don't doubt for a minute, having been on a flight to Alicante recently and seen behaviour that was challenging for the flight crew. In what way?
There was at least two stag parties and a hen party on, and the flight took off before eight in the morning. And those people, while they were in good spirits, I have to say, but they were clearly drunk, and it was very difficult for the flight attendants to give, for instance, a safety demonstration. because they couldn't be heard.
And they had to turn off the recording and say, look, can you please, please stop shouting and laughing and singing while we're trying to give the demonstration. And then, as I was saying, I did a piece on it in the Sunday Independence Day. I said, I'm not a great comforting flyer anyway, a comfortable flyer. And so at one point there was such a queue of men
for the front of the plane, for the toilets. I actually thought we'd been hijacked and that they were queuing up to storm the cockpit. They were all waiting to go to the loo. So if Michael O'Leary wants to put an end to this, what he needs to do is start charging two euros a pop for the toilets. That'll stop people drinking.
Don't give them ideas. Ben, you actually picked Brenda's piece.
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