Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
Well, you're very welcome to The Debrief, where we look back at some of the biggest stories of the week. And today I'm joined by political editor with the Irish examiner, Elaine Lachlan, public policy advisor, Oisín Cotland, and artist, architect and lecturer at TU Dublin, Roisin Murphy. You're all very welcome to the show.
And I suppose we have to start with the story that dominated the headlines here in conversation, certainly in this programme all week, and that was the violence and the riots that we saw in Belfast. What stood out for you, Elaine? Was it the immediate violence itself or what's sitting underneath it?
Yeah, I think this is constantly on both sides of the border, it has to be said, is constantly bubbling under the surface. And immediately after that happened, I was obviously in Leinster House this week and politicians up to cabinet level were quite worried that this might spill over onto the streets of Dublin.
And we did have, it has to be said, quite a small protest outside Leinster House this week. Thankfully went off peacefully and people are entitled to protest and voice their concerns and disgruntlement. It's thankfully we do live in a democracy.
But I think when communities do feel disenfranchised with the political system and perhaps feel like they've been left behind, that it can sometimes allow bad actors to come in and perhaps sway public opinion, as we've seen in Northern Ireland.
into rioting, into violent behaviour and, you know, perpetuate these, what are falsehoods about people who've come to our country, about immigrants who are, you know, keeping the, we'll talk about the health service later in this discussion, but who are keeping the health service afloat, who are doing a lot of jobs that we wouldn't have people to fill if we didn't have people coming with skills and talents to this country.
But a different narrative around that cohort is put forward. And it's a kind of a them versus us, really dangerous narrative, as we've seen in Belfast.
As you say, as we've seen in Belfast, and we saw in Belfast last year when there was those alleged sexual assault allegations, I think in Portadown. We saw it the year before when there was that awful, awful assault in Southport. And we've seen it here in Dublin, haven't we, in City West and, of course, the Dublin riots.
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Chapter 2: What events led to the recent violence and riots in Belfast?
One is there is just racism. Some of it is just racism. There's also, though, bad faith actors who are seeking to exploit real challenges and real issues for either often personal gain themselves in terms of money, but often political leverage, influence, attention. We live in an attention economy. And you combine that with the power of social media. And I say the power, but I also mean
the device of power, as in it's designed for engagement, it's designed for extremism, it's designed for division. And those bad faith actors use it and their messages get amplified and the extremes get amplified.
On top of that, we had an actual owner of a social media company who should have been busy becoming a trillionaire, deciding to spend his time inciting agitation on the streets of Belfast. That's Elon Musk. And then, of course, in Belfast in particular, there is a long tradition of recreational street activity in the summer. So it's a tinderbox waiting to happen in Belfast in particular.
But the more general trends are as we described. I would say it's worth remembering, like the numbers, to get the context here, because there are people who are trying to exploit this situation. I was just looking at the figures. In terms of international protection applicants, it's been about
it got up to about 10 or 12, 13,000 or so as a peak in Ireland, but it's mostly been under 10 or under 5,000. It's like less than 10% of the migrants who come every year as they work in our health services mostly. And it's roughly comparable to how many Irish people go to Australia every year. And we don't see an international consternation about Irish people going to Australia.
And yet we are focusing hugely on international protection applicants coming to Ireland. And there's no evidence that migrants, either international protection applicants or general migrants, have higher crime rates than others. And in fact, there was a RSI study this week saying they claim welfare less often, if not at most the same, as Irish citizens.
So there's a lot of false information being used to try to stoke division.
The problem is that any reasonable conversation that people want to have about whatever fears that they have following on from these really serious attacks and these really serious assaults, they get lost, don't they? Because the oxygen is sucked up by these protests.
And I think people are fearful then of having any sort of a conversation in case they are seen to condone that violence in any way or indeed stoke up that violence further.
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Chapter 3: How do underlying social issues contribute to public unrest?
And on that point, just in terms of migration, it's incredibly important that people realise that we have got a huge crisis in the construction sector. We do not have enough people with shovels. We need inward migration to help solve the housing crisis. So the problem of migration is not the factor itself.
that they keep trying to parse it into a problem with, you know, that these people are getting a house, I'm not getting a house. So there's this completely wrong rhetoric around it. Migration could really help, inward migration could really help solve the retrofit problem, the cost of housing, the provision of housing.
And the problem with the provision of housing is really how it's being provided. It's not the cause of the people and the numbers on the housing list. It's the cause of the economic framework that we are looking at to solve the housing crisis. Sorry, but it's just we have 14,000 people really needed in construction and they can come.
We have people trying to come to our country like let's use them.
Let's move on to one of the other debates this week. It was over private versus public maternity care and the Rotunda Hospital eventually reversed its decision on private practice for consultants who are on the new public only contract. Elaine, was this debate really about choice?
I think it was for many women who have gone through perhaps complicated pregnancies, who have had miscarriages, who perhaps have had a real struggle to get pregnant in the first place. And I think the issue here is Sláinte Care is a decade-long transformation of the healthcare system that was agreed cross-party.
And it really would give us the type of healthcare system, if introduced completely, that everybody, I think, could aspire to, where no one... is treated differently based on whether you have private health insurance or whether you can pay.
The problem is here that I think the maternity services are in a unique position that they will become null and void privately because of Solange Care, as opposed to you'll always have your private hospitals for if you want to get your cataract done or your hip replaced, etc. regardless of whether Sláinte Care is in existence or not, that will always be there in tandem with it.
And also people are concerned that, yes, Sláinte Care does represent, I suppose, a utopia. And in order for it to work properly, I think you will need to level up services rather than come down. So if...
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Chapter 4: What role does social media play in amplifying conflict?
They can't afford insurance.
So it's the end, really, of private health care, maternity care. Well, not in the short term.
Not in the short term.
term because there's lots of doctors are on are on lots of doctors are still on the old contracts but the issue is as elaine said we need to get to a situation where everyone has the right to the same health care because the the master was saying oh everyone gets the same care in the in the rotunda there's there's no difference really and then saying but everyone's safer if some women are paying for private health care which did not make sense who actually do you think holds ultimate accountability about decisions being made in the hospitals
Well, you can see that definitely the consultants and the masters have a lot of clout when it comes to decisions. But unusually, I think this week we did see the minister coming out. And I think previously, perhaps they were little kingdoms across the country where, you know, as I said, masters of hospitals rule the roost.
But Jennifer Carl McNeill does seem to be coming out strongly now and setting down the rules and saying, making sure that they are adhered to. She's made enemies now with the Master of Maternity Hospital, with consultants, with pharmacists, with the board of the Mater Hospital, and she's only been in there a short time.
It remains to be seen, though, whether she has chosen the right battles and whether perhaps... she will make an enemy of herself on behalf of the general public for the betterment of the health service. I think it's too early in the day to see whether, as I said, she's picked the right battles there.
Just before we go on this, I know you wanted to mention, because there was some breaking news while we were on air, the wonderful, iconic British artist David Hockney has died 88 years ago.
Yes. Oh, he's such a legend. I mean, I think everybody remembers we were talking about outside was the swimming pool one where it's just he described that kind of L.A. sunshine, the two bodies in the pool. And then his my favorite was Mr. and Mrs. Clark with Petulia, which is that. painting with the two guys. It's an interior one.
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