Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Good morning. You're all very, very welcome. Dervil MacDonald with you this weekend. As always, our panel have been very, very busy picking the best and the rest from this morning's newspapers. But before I introduce them to you, let's have a quick look at today's headlines. By election, woe rocks Martin and MacDonald. That's the lead story for the Sunday Times.
which reports that the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin are facing significant internal backlash in the wake of poor results in the Dublin, Central and Galway West by-elections, the latter of which is still underway.
The Sunday Times off-lead focuses on RTE, reporting that Patrick Donovan, the media minister, is prepared to bring forward legislation that will allow RTE to publish the salaries of all of its top 100 earners, not just its presenters.
It comes as Senator and former RT presenter, Ivana Hewlin, has accused RTDG, Kevin Backhurst, of gaslighting the public by claiming the broadcaster is being punished for its transparency.
That story is in the Irish Mail on Sunday, which leads with remarks by Antishek Micheál Martin that he is happy that so many of his Fianna Fáil Cabinet colleagues want to succeed him, following two historically poor showings from the party's candidates in those two by-elections this weekend.
Ireland has unexpectedly emerged as a leading global conduit for critical Taiwanese AI technology as imports of the next generation hardware have surged to unprecedented levels.
That's a splash for the Business Post which says that the fact that Ireland is now playing what it describes as an outsized role in the most sensitive supply chain in the world is being monitored by the Department of Finance and was also raised by IMF officials who visited Ireland during the week. Rural homes to be eased in bid to lure back emigrants.
That's the main story for the Sunday Independent.
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Chapter 2: What are the main headlines from this week's newspapers?
The paper reports that rules restricting one-off homes in rural areas as well as building new one-off houses on existing sites could be relaxed as part of a campaign to entice Irish emigrants home, especially those needed for construction and nursing. Thank you very much. They wanted us to suffer.
That's a splash for the Irish Sunday Mirror, which reports that hundreds of people gathered at Dublin Airport yesterday to welcome home Irish activists and members of the Freedom Flotilla who were deported from Israel, among them being Dr Margaret Connolly, the sister of President Catherine Connolly. My favourite headline today is inspired by the off lead in the Sunday World.
What should do about nothing is the headline on its coverage of that by-election in Dublin Central University. beside an image of failed candidate Gerry Hutch with his hands raised in a boxing pose. Across the Irish Sea the Observer leads with a cracking story which asks whether the CIA poisoned goalkeeper Gordon Banks to sabotage England in the 1970 World Cup.
Author Gabriel Gatehouse who has written a book on the conspiracy theories that brought Donald Trump to power says that he initially thought the political football story was a conspiracy theory but now he thinks it could be true. The coming storm I think is a the name of Gabriel Gatehouse's book. I'll have to go have a little look at that.
With me in studio, doing all the hard work so you don't have to, are Dan Mulhall, former Irish ambassador, Gillian Sherratt, disability advocate, Ashley Maloney, political reporter with the Irish Independent, and Gerard Howland, Irish Times columnist and public affairs consultant. You're all very, very welcome.
So looking over this weekend, the Dáil lost one Fine Gael TD, Pascal Donoghue, and one left-wing independent, Catherine Connolly. And in our infinite wisdom, Irish voters look to set to return one left-wing party TD, Daniel Ennis of the Sock Dems. And although counting is still underway, it looks likely that they'll return one government TD, Fine Gael's Sean Cain.
Ashton, you were there yesterday at RDS. I suppose we really should start with the winners, first of all.
Yes, indeed. So the Social Democrats came out on top in the Dublin Central by-election with their candidate, Daniel Ennis. Now, this was kind of much anticipated win and a very hyped candidate, I would say.
But a very transfer friendly one too.
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Chapter 3: How do recent by-election results reflect voter sentiment?
So it's gone in other ways and it's fractured, as we mentioned. So that assumption is looking weaker with every election. As it goes, maybe that dissatisfaction goes to the right in some cases and to the left in others. And that's something that even when I was out on the canvas with Daniel Ennis, like we go out and write colour pieces on what they're saying on the doors.
And I was out one day with him and I was saying like, you know, what are you saying to people when they talk about dissatisfaction with government? And maybe they're looking at maybe right wing candidates like Gerry Hutch or Malachy Steenson in Dublin Central. And he's like, well, I'm trying to persuade them to come our way. And so there's that persuasion or that vote up for grabs.
You talk about the middle class vote, but there's a broad dissatisfaction with government vote that is fundamental.
fracturing in loads of different ways but could be persuaded in one coherent way and it usually has been and I suppose that's something that you picked up on already Gerry about the fact that if Malachy Steenson and Gerry Hutch were one candidate that their vote would have been incredibly credible and get over the line and the election of one should it ever happens depends on the other being present and strong
So these synergies are actually incredibly important. They can't succeed against one another because only one can win, but without the other, the other won't win.
Because one of our listeners, Gerard, says, anyone who says immigration in Dublin Central wasn't an issue is wrong. The Hutchins-Steenson vote proved that. The Hutchins-Steenson vote was up, which it was, on the general election. Official Ireland and mainstream media, it says, Ben, seem to be living in a parallel universe.
Well, I live in the constituency. I've been there for 35 years. including over a decade, right in the heart of the north inner city. I'm only as far away as Dublin 7 at the moment. No place in Ireland is more changed because of immigration than the north inner city of Dublin. It's an area with a lot of problems. It's a littered black spot.
This morning at 8 o'clock, this morning, it looked like a kip, frankly, right? There were flat complexes and streets with tricolours pinned to the lampposts, which is not welcoming, frankly, to me, at least, right? But we are absolutely transformed for the better because of immigration, because of the new people, different people in our community.
It's not just that they're providing so much useful work that we cannot do without. They are good people providing us with a better quality of life because they are nearby and present. And as somebody in the middle of it for 30-odd years, I believe in it, I want it, and that's what I have to say about it.
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Chapter 4: What role does local candidate recognition play in elections?
And independent Ireland is well set because of him, who are doing well otherwise. And it does pick up on a feeling out there, which I don't share, frankly, but it is a feeling. Lots of people do. It's articulating something that I think needs to be managed very carefully, very sensitively. But it's also very worrying because I don't feel comfortable in the country that Noel Thomas wants.
Thank you.
Thank you for your contribution. But a lot of people do, Dan Mulhall.
That's the point. I mean, Gerard made the point there. Manage. We have to manage. Public policy is there to be managed. There are challenges all over the place. You have to manage them. Ireland is not going to go back to what it was when I was growing up in the 1950s and 60s. We have a different Ireland now and we have to manage that country. And we either manage it well or we manage it badly.
If we manage it badly, we all suffer. If we manage it well, we develop the country further and we achieve our full potential.
Gillian, you're nodding your head in agreement there. What does managing it well look like?
No, it was just it reminded me there was another piece actually in I was just going to look for. There was a piece here in the Sunday Independent and it was actually kind of on that topic. It was racial tensions will not be diffused until we learn to listen to each other. This was Colin Murphy's opinion piece in relation to the death of Eve Sikila.
But in it, he's kind of talking about how we need to be able to have these open conversations so people feel like their opinions are actually being heard and they're not just being dismissed. But there was a school, Larkin Community College, that took an initiative where they went into Fishamble Theatre and they had artists from diverse backgrounds of socioeconomic disadvantage.
And they brought them in. They had a group of first year students come in. Two of the first year students would essentially interview These people and they could talk openly about, I suppose, the difference in cultures, their different backgrounds and create that open conversation. And it says here over the course of the sessions, the children spoke with growing assertiveness and frankness.
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Chapter 5: How are the Social Democrats positioning themselves for future elections?
We don't even get that much, you know. Yeah.
And to go on those points, I suppose, particularly I was in the UK this week with the president. Catherine Connolly was doing her first official visit to the UK. Official, not a state. Yeah, not a state visit. No, no worries.
We got that right.
Don't worry. Yeah, absolutely not a state visit. There's far more pomp and ceremony associated with a state visit, which I would love to cover as well. It was an official visit. And, you know, so and I think there's actually a piece in the Sunday Independent from Eilidh O'Hanlon about, you know, that it was quite boring.
And I think she said, actually, I'd rather you could stay at home defleeing the cat. And I said, that's mean on the cat. I would only love to spend an evening with my cat. But the, yeah, Catherine Connolly did make a couple of speeches while she was there and a lot of them were kind of repeating the same thing.
But one thing that she touched on that I thought was interesting and I think it's really important for us to remember this when we talk about immigration and we talk about, you know, those people being in our community now is that Irish people for years went away and she talked specifically about the reports that were done, I think it was in the 90s or the late 80s into the Irish diaspora in London and how the Irish diaspora in London had a, had a,
shorter life expectancy than any other immigrant community that went to London and that this, they were, you know, suffering essentially and that there wasn't responsibility or a handout from the Irish government and the Irish state official Ireland looked away, she said, and that they didn't get help from Ireland.
And that, you can see it in the story we're reading about Eve Sikila, you know, about his life, you know, To take out his death out of this, which is, you know, and we saw the video was tragic.
And but tragic details of his life, you know, coming to Ireland from Congo, I think 20 years ago when he was a young boy, essentially with, I think, in the custody of his aunt or living with his aunt and that he had sponsored him. Yeah. And that he's. you know, he was living in a hostel up to recently, had issues with addiction.
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