The Newspaper Panel

0:00Good morning, you're very welcome to the show. Before we meet our panel, let's have a look at the front pages. So the business process is leading with revealed. State consultancy spend triples to 519 million. That's half a billion to you know the usual suspects, Deloitte, Roy, Accenture, etc. This Sunday times budget to ease heating costs for thousands families benefit, but welfare and pensions face squeeze and they have as other papers do a number of things we can expect in the budget then we look at them in a minute. The Irish Daily Mail is leading with the headline is I want to resign over naming whistleblower Defiant Minister Helen Mackinty yesterday insisted she was not going to consider resigning in the face of what they're calling John Lee writing mounting political pressure. The son on Sunday has the story that is also in other papers that Cartel Chief Christie Kinahan has been ordered to leave the UAE by September 29th he has had his visa cancelled apparently and that seems to be the Sunday times are kind that also in conjunction with Bellingcat who have done very good work on all that so that sounds quite credible.

1:20The Irish Sunday Merer is leading with Nikita my fight for survival and that is an account of the interview Nikita and gave yesterday on this show and the Sunday time Sunday independent a beg your pardon leading with a budget story teen set for a hundred euro culture allowance as budget talks heat up a voucher to be spent on arts events and they also have a number of other budget measures in that story as well okay. A panel this morning Bridget Laffent is a mergers professor at the European University Institute and coin is political correspondent at the Irish Times. Finian McGrat is a former independent TD and a former Minister for State for disability issues and Dr. Barrow entry is an economist at Trinity College Dublin. Good morning everyone. Finian you like the 100 euro culture allowance for the kids. I saw the teen set to get a hundred euro culture allowance as the budget talks heat up a piece written by Colonel Thomas and Sarah Collins basically what's

2:24what's going to happen is in the budget all 60 year olds will be given 16 year olds sorry 16 year olds will be given a hundred euro voucher to spend an hour some music events next year under the proposal set out to be included in the budget and the move the move has been toured as well as as a cost of living measure to help young people but I'd be very strongly supportive because I think the arts in a lot of secondary schools and primary school could be much better there's a very strong emphasis and sports in a lot of schools you were a teacher I was a former teacher yeah what kind of a school did you do well I I taught in a desk school which would be a disadvantaged school but I noticed when I took over a principle there that there was a lot of soccer gale like football hurling and then the kids the rinse and arts and music and all that word and drill yet the races so we changed I changed the whole policy in the school to bring do guitar lessons do percussion lessons bring in artists painters everything and then all of a sudden we had a core of kids then they were in that space and those kind of kids were a bit more alternative and maybe a bit more likely to get into trouble there are so the kids are more likely to join the band and exactly I mean I can think of one one of my past pupils I taught them a few cards and six classes

3:3612 and about 15 16 years later I was out in in Hottie called the hotel in Port Marnaq where he still got to dances and disco so I can't remember the day before my time oh yeah yeah he was playing in the band at the gig sounds at sounds hotel good map that's what you're showing your age somebody somebody ordered air yeah sounds I'm just making the point was when Durham was up the stage I didn't recognize that I hadn't seen him since he was 12 yeah then he came down off the stage during the break and he said oh you Mr. McGraw how you doing all that so he said this is my band and then he said to me I heard you became principle of the school since I left and he was congratulate me and then he says to me I'd say no I'm getting three times your wages because I'm getting four gigs a week with the band yeah and I just said but what he took off just saw the seed as a young person fantastic I'm going to have Glenn Hanser telling me that he went in the one of his teachers I'm not sure he was the principal yeah brought him in one day and said if this is what you're

4:37into like you know off you go I remember yeah and I remember introducing I remember introducing percussion as well for kids that weren't particularly good at keyboards or guitars and they haven't set the drums in the school and bring in in drummers into the school to give them classes after school and you step the throw the board of five six o'clock yeah huge diversion we talk about that's the ultimate huge diversion hundred quid probably isn't enough and just for sixteen oh yeah well see in front in France when you're right in France it's you get three hundred euro and the overall cost of the budget is going to cost the the extra care at seven point five million but there's more to go but it is a start and it's a recognition very interesting little blue sky idea to throw in there isn't it it's pretty it's very small fry it's I think it's a nice thing that grabs headlines but I'm not as sure to do much to encourage cultural participation we amongst particularly kids from the type of schools of phineon talk about where he worked I think that requires the type of thing that you mentioned it's a it's a principle that someone who's really involved kind of getting in and helping them just giving you something that would help them I don't think so I think most of our museums are free

5:38right and we know that the people who go there are not the kids from disadvantaged backgrounds so having a card loading up a money is more likely just a transfer to middle class kids who are already doing this I think you need much more structure things like egg and lung lines going into the schools having all the problems and lots of that does happen right but it's this is the type of thing that I think you see before budgets when there's some kind of shiny new card of a voucher being raised out and again it's small fry it's on the front page but it's absolutely miniscule in terms of or an ambitious you'd say well it's not even an ambitious it's the real the priorities in a budget see that's the problem no for me it's a start it's a recognition that you want to do something for the artists and music and all that's it sure but it's a small record of course I mean but the other people looking for other resources for no I'm just a way more I don't think I don't need to particularly effectively maybe spending money to get people in for your own education like do you like the trust to this idea so I think I mean I think the French is France is one of those countries that has managed to protect its culture life better than many other countries

6:38and the French engage in a lot of these different kinds of schemes in terms of also payment for for for for creative people so I think it's worth the try whether it's purely symbolic remains to be seen how much how much does it cost so that let me ask you a question how much does it cost a year to educate a middle class how much does it cost the state to educate a middle class person going to university who's on a particular track on economics accountancy whatever how much should a year it can range from about 8000 to the very expensive programs like medicine and veterinary veterinary is about 50 thousand a year so yeah so we plenty more need to spend on those kids yeah Alan will you give us there's a lot of other measures across the budget across the papers on the budget today will you give us a bit of a roundup on what we know now today short so we're just a little bit over two weeks out and we can see from a lot of the coverage today that fuel is

7:42probably going to be a major issue there's a lot of concern in government about the cost of kerosene home heating oil a lot of politicians were talking about it at the plowing and the sunday times is reporting this morning that the minister for finance Simon Harris is considering if home heating oil could be taken out of the future increases to carbon tax we know we're tied to these carbon tax increases up to 2030 that would be quite complicated and it's not set in stone but home heating oil is definitely being considered the business post is talking about the prospect of vat on home heating oil being caught but that sounds like it was shot down at a finagale press conference yesterday a lot of the papers are talking about the fuel allowance either being increased by five euro to forty three euro a week or also maybe increasing the the net of people who benefit from the fuel allowance it's currently around half a million households it's not correct and it's a targeted measure so it's for older people and those who are most vulnerable but I think the business post was talking about consideration maybe being given to kerosene other people who might

8:43qualify as well at the other side of the energy issue um dara obrine is considering more grants towards more um solar renewable energy we obviously have the 100 euro voucher that's mentioned to recording the carbon tax which is the budget for those grants but we're raising those grants yes and I think that with the war on Iran the big theme that the government was talking about is the fact that they are so vulnerable to external forces we've seen that obviously with the decision to keep to not restore the exercise on petrol and diesel which is not a budget measure but which is going to cost over four hundred million between now and February if they even press ahead with the plans to restore it yeah but that's this year's morning so yeah yeah yeah so yeah and then I suppose aside from what's in the papers today we know that there is going to be something on child care not just on increasing affordability we're still very far away from that promise of two hundred euro a month they've also been talking about increasing accessibility but we don't have detail yet

9:45on how that will happen and the teacher can I come back to you on that in a second because I know that you know a lot about child care and I want to actually get a clear picture from you over can I come to you Barra so those fuel measures I presume you would approve of them given that they are targeted and everything rather than you know you know well the fuel allowance is more targeted than the other stuff they're good or the exercise extensions that's not it's and again there's a Israel worked during the year showing how mistargeted it is that a lot of actually the expenditure if you look at the cost of that the more than a hundred million do you think they shouldn't be those ongoing exercise courts it's very hard to come to revenge you're going to back out of them they're very expensive they're over a hundred million a month and again most of that cost is going towards households who are quite well off fuel allowance is better targeted but actually it misses quite a lot of low income families who are really struggling with their energy cost again the estimate was over the year about budget her only budget herda families who spend a lot of their income on energy costs get the fuel allowance so expanding the eligibility for that certainly makes sense and but you really have to worry about the scale of the all these and how we're going to

10:48eventually draw the map because again we're not we're not sure when petriplice is going to come down again and so there's some talk that you know the the misrefinance is thinking about some way that the exercise duties will be linked to the price of fuel but that that that that is really recipe for huge spending increases this talk it's kind of loose talk about that diesel could hit 250 yeah do you buy that like looking at the international scene who knows I mean it's down to whatever goes on the Middle East and it's very hot like who can predict that yeah but but tying ourselves to that doesn't seem like a good idea it's not it's completely out of our hands again we're just poorer as a country because petriplices have gone up and we need to work out how to distribute that we can't put ourselves on the hook for kind of open-ended subsidies which is what the government are doing by having this all will extend it by a few months and a few months so people should have to suck up the pain of increased petriplice certainly higher income people I think we just like we're poor as a country that we don't we don't produce lots of petrol we're never going to produce lots of petrol so we are poor we need to work out who bears the burden and I think what really runs the risk of doing is compounding the sense that government spending

11:49isn't in control and not not just in this area but we have the fiscal council during the week pointing out more than two billion of overruns are likely this year okay that's what we get into yeah we go through various aspects of that the piece you picked just briefly because I think you've kind of set out your song but John Drennan in the mail is already that there's a warning that the fuel crisis will derail budget tax cuts plan which suggests the government are going to make difficult choices do you believe that if they were to stick to their plans it would derail them I think you're not going to stick to their plans so it won't and they'll just do it anyway but but there is I mean the number of tax cuts that are floated just today let alone what's happened the last few weeks yeah again thinning do you think people should be paying the going market rate for petrol and diesel or should they be insulated well it's people are finding very very difficult at the moment and with the with the price increases so I would say that we have to have some sort of support for them particularly for the regular consumers and also industry and also healthcare workers they're using their cars a lot so I would say yeah but there might be a

12:52way of identifying cohorts Ellen they are not going to make people pay full whack for fuel anytime in the near future are they well no I mean they said a very difficult priest in for themselves now and I think it's quite difficult when you have a lot of public funding going towards very noble ideas like they're talking about new financing for electric cars and obviously stuff in the paper today by grants but it's difficult to see why people would change their behavior and try to move towards I know electric cars are very expensive when the government has obviously shown that it will bend over backwards to make sure if possible that people don't have to pay more than two euro at the petrol pumps and I think it's also makes them so the hostage to fortune because as Barra said the government has no control and is not to blame for the international fuel crisis but it's very difficult when you make yourself in the minds of the public responsible for keeping fuel low when it's something that you can't really control yeah Bridget yeah it's the big challenge

13:52for Ireland is it appears to me that government goes to the visc lever all of the time now it's seen as the way of managing very difficult trade-offs and in the end underlying all of this is the biggest one of the biggest single strategic issues for Ireland is to get the hell out of fossil fuels as quickly and as effectively as possible because we're hostage to all of the things that are happening outside the island and this idea that government expenditure is out of control that limits are that they can't maintain the limits that that they establish the fiscal council is banging that drum and has been banging it now so how we how we manage to get trade-offs back into Irish politics but it's extremely difficult when you're governing at a time of not potential discontent but what a lot of opposition in the society and populism and populism so the date the trade-offs are the difficult trade-offs are never put before in the people and

14:56underlying this is just corporation tax right this is the reason that we don't have to every you know there was meeting with the European finance ministers this week in Dublin and we saw some shots across our bails from the French finance minister despite his donniegold marriage and in life he was kind of pointing out that I think his example was corporation tax revenues are a European pay and cake not an Irish cake was when the line you kind of tried to get in yeah but meanwhile for us decay keeps getting cake year 36 all day all day profit yeah so 36 billion is forecast for this year which is about six and a half grand per person manwoman and child that's phenomenal you don't see that almost anywhere else and it is really that that that that that is at the heart of letter so we're saving one in six you're one of eight so yeah so yeah so yeah it's actually be saving uh far far more of it's probably about half okay again if we're if we're to be sensible but you know in one sense this wouldn't be sure you don't have to get elected if the good well I don't have to get elected but this wouldn't be such an issue if the government weren't ramping up spending and cutting other taxes at the same time again this is a

15:56bridge okay it's just the there is no trade off here governments have to make decisions that will eventually and it's going to be painful if they do so and then can I come back to you on on Charlie Care so all this money slashing around and there are still a generation being fairly crippled by Charlie Care so what what is the scene at the moment for people with young kids what what are they they're paying less than they then I would have been paying in my day yeah but like how much less well I mean the going rate if you're lucky to get a place is probably 1,200 euro a month for five days of childcare and there's a lot of difference have the government measures made in the last couple years I mean they have made some difference like it's quite complicated once you calculate the subsidies that you get under the national childcare scheme but you're still talking about a lot of households that could be paying around 800 euro a month there's obviously an accessibility issue like a lot of people would have to pay deposits of 800 euro or more to even secure a place in the first place and a lot of crashes know that the demand is there there's some

16:57crashes that are unfortunately now threatening to pull out of the government scheme so for all the good that it does there are some parents who are now paying way higher fees because the childcare providers are saying that the government subsidy isn't enough so they're pulling out of it all together and the accessibility issue is is also emerging I mean the government puts over a billion euro a year in each budget into the childcare sector but it is largely a privately run sector through your subsidising private businesses we have a dearth of publicly funded childcare in this country and it's something that I haven't really heard anybody talk about in the context of this budget but if the government wants to meet its commitment which are promised everybody promised does in November 2024 that it would reach 200 euro a month it's kind of hard to see how that is achievable when you are overly relying on private providers and is this a hot-potent issue for your peers and generation like is this something they could rare up about at some stage? It is I mean if you're not in it it's hard to understand how existential it is but I know loads

17:58of people who are putting off when they have their second or third child because they can't afford to have two kids in childcare at the same time which is a really big deal when you consider the fact that people are having children later just in general like mothers are getting older in Ireland so you're really talking about interfering in the destiny of people's family and people's family planning if people feel that they can't have children as often as they want because the childcare costs are so high and also as has for in fairness been identified by the government a lot of women are being forced out of the workplace by high childcare fees because if their salary happens to be lower than their partners it can't compete with the monthly cost of childcare it's not paying them to go to work so it is a really really big deal but there was very little done on it in last year's budget and I think people who who believed that 200 euro promised in November 2024 are starting to feel that if and when it's delivered their kids will be well into private well into private. I will be for someone else at that point meanwhile Finneon at the business post front page state consultancy spend triples to 519 million down in mori is writing.

19:05That's in relation to the costs of also the assistance different departments and different ministries. I just think that well I think we have to keep a close eye on this amount of spending that's gone on in relation to other people coming in giving advice to the departments and I think there's a view within the government and within the doll that this is kind of spiring a little bit of auto control and we need to kind of move on that. No, it advises it advises if they're just coming in kind of you know offering chats but like they are doing IT projects for them and all that kind of stuff and it possibly is expertise yes that is sometimes it's better to get in that expertise and one or two faces pay for it and get rid of those people again rather than hold that expertise constantly on your payroll. Well that's yeah and that's that's a legitimate argument to make but if you look at the figures and the overall spending it's kind of gone a little bit out of control and I think it's Albert Donald in the Galvatiti did a bit of research on this issue.

20:09He's running this very good website. That's right website. Keep an eye on this. So basically what I'm saying is it's kind of gone a little bit out of control. Of course we need consultants give advice etc but the bottom line is I think that'll have to keep an eye on relation to public funding and public money because it's a very important issue. You worked across various sectors right. Has a culture developed in the world a lot of the time in private sector it's managers who are afraid to make a decision calling the consultants or who don't introduce them to or calling consultants. Is consultants becoming the giant vampire squid now that has its tentacles everywhere? So I think in the Irish context of a very generalist civil service and a lack of technical skills within the civil service with big infrastructure projects and digitalisation it's almost automatic now you go outside so I firstly I would say Shapo to Albert Dolan that's a really excellent development he's shedding light on Irish public

21:11expenditure. Also if Ireland is to deliver on the major infrastructure projects it's going to have to enhance the in-house capacity across across all of this range in you have to because otherwise you can't even judge what the consultants are telling you. So countries that deliver big projects well on budget and to time always have more in-house expertise than external expertise. In Ireland we tend to have predominantly external expertise and the difficulty then is how do you judge the quality of what's been given to you? So you're we've got to strengthen the center. And we are renowned for our fine civil service always maybe the 21st century requires a really good what constitutes our civil service. And what how you married the generalist expertise in public policy with real hardcore specialism and technical expertise? We have to.

22:13Yeah one of the problems it isn't necessarily that we aren't getting the technical expertise coming in at the start but I think essentially for those people to progress and we see a lot of our graduates coming out of economics right for them to actually progress in their careers in the civil service they have to become generous they have to essentially abandon the technical training really given them because there's nowhere to progress if you want they can't become a you know a super senior economist within the department of finance even right there's much more of the positions around generalism and this is our civil service which we inherited from the British and just that model and there's always been concerns about that but that really is the type of thing that you need to change and it's not again it's not just in the department themselves right it's in infrastructure and picked or we know this is a huge issue that we don't essentially have the experts in house that can do something like a Metro link because we're not we're only doing them every once every 30 years or whatever we keep canceling them so if we're doing like they have in Denmark or in Spain where they're doing much more steady kind of increases in a metronome you know a new metroline here over this five years and then another one here in our case that can be Lewis lines right but if we're doing that you can actually build up that technical expertise.

23:15Yeah I've read a lot of you were looking at a piece about the Metro link today and the idea that actually if we get started and doing one we might do a bit more of it as well. Yeah no and I don't want decades. They're kind of making the point that when the childcare comes at things. Yeah. Exactly when we live in this utopia but when other countries did this like some of them a century ago you know the first line kind of led to another one I think it is interesting because obviously the government knows that this is like a referendum on its its ability to function as a modern country like can we actually do big infrastructure projects in Ireland there does even with the departure of Sean Sweeney seem to be a lot of momentum behind the metro at the moment like the decision to buy those really fancy houses in Dartsman Square the Sunday independence reporting today that there's a plan to repurpose those and use them for all the workers that we're going to have to bring over to try to get the project done there'll be a separate proposal. And they be so locked towards it. Yeah and like they've retained and they were quite efficient with that and I think you know buying the site on O'Connell Street as well there does seem to be a degree of efficiency and urgency and I think what's kind of most important and most different is after the

24:18era of you know the children's hospital and everyone getting sticker-priced shock about how much everything costs in this country even when the government came out last week and clarified that the cost of the metro could go up to 17 and a half billion euro they hope it would be more like 15 I think people are kind of saying yeah get on with it I don't think you've taken this soup on this one you because definitely the the interviews with the head in the metro today if you believe to do it all you be going Jesus is the best thing ever it's going to transform everything if you live in Dublin you know that it's actually not a situation where you have to just burn another bite there a lot of the growth and the consultancy spend basically has to do with the infrastructure so I think what I believe the government are trying to do is bring bring more of these staff into the departments themselves pay them well and let them get on with it but there is room there to to to keep an eye on the budgets and kind of reduce some of the spending yeah okay barra you've picked two pieces today on uh another one of these big budget stories that's been

25:19announced and announced again and talked about again and again is the the investment account scheme and I think I've heard you talking about this you have strong feelings on it but the two pieces you picked today are will you be saying that in the Sunday Independent that this could explore savers to risk at the worst time and Ferglo Connor also in the Sunday Independent uh business section I think Harris has been to trick and risk diverting millions away from startups yeah and so this is one of the big I don't know how many times Simon Harris has announced this new scheme at this stage but we're still waiting for some key details but it has been the thing almost every week we've heard an announcement about now we're hearing today that it'll be 1% tax rate only on the amount over the threshold we do not know what the threshold is but it presumably work out better than dirt tax for most people which will be fees actually depends right so so this is one of the things then and we myself and a colleague from UCD and a harigan and pointed this out in the roctor's committee evidence a couple of months ago but in taking that approach which essentially lifted from the Swedes um what you end up doing is

26:20if you have an investment that makes a loss you're still going to pay tax some years now in other years when you make a big gain you pay a very low rate of tax so it isn't I don't think it's a very sensible system to introduce I can see why many of the people are loving for it but it's predicted for people isn't it that they they they know it's predictable but that's not the predict predictability isn't the only thing that we should be looking for here we show what we should be looking for as a system that doesn't necessarily distort the way that people save as well and as so what this system is is very very generous to those people who are good at picking stocks and a lot of people are good at picking stocks right they tend to be hiring people a lot of wealth and I think what we're going to see as a result of the scheme is those people shift their savings which they already do into this new new scheme and it's going to work out very well for them there's going to be lots of people for whom it doesn't work out so great for because again if they make a loss they're going to still pay tax on the amount of the investment not the beside the fact that they made a loss on the investment and I do think that has that has the potential to really not be great for many people and then also on top of that what what we're ending up doing with this scheme is actually we're making it less attractive for people to invest in new startups which is

27:23something being highlighted again in the in one of the papers say one of those articles that you mentioned and also in their own businesses because suddenly now and their own pension as well right you've got you've got so we've got this system whereby we now have all these distortions around how people save and it isn't coherent at all and do we not have a very very tax-efficient system for most people which and we are trying to encourage we've just brought in a national scheme to encourage everyone to have a pension most people a lot of people in the private sector do not have any pension and it is extremely tax-efficient in that if you put in the AVCs or whatever it will grow yeah tax-free and it's a very sensitive system it's a no-brainer to put your money into your pension before you get involved in the same thing now it depends right okay this is the right but it's not so predictable right now you have all these different ways of investing in money so that would have been a good way to follow because what that ensures is that you only eventually pay income tax down the line if your investment turns out well right and you pay so if you're if your investment triples in value well then you'll pay more tax then if your investment only increases by a couple of percent right and so that would have been a better way

28:26to go but the government decided it didn't I think I wish you a lot of the energy and attention on this scheme has come from the lobbyists and I think there's you know something more to be done around that are just looking well just how much the sector is looking for this and why are they looking for it it's what will you do you talking about today in the paper it's because of fees okay to get good so if the sector are excited you would say that they we should be concerned okay Bridget just to the broad note in politics slightly really briefly six key issues that will dominate the political agenda the dollar return so with the budget um watch where the others uh the the energy and the budget for the others but but but then in terms of in addition to that there were the danger of public sector strike corporate tax irish unity and the presidency okay but the the big one there is the danger of public sector strikes in the autumn because it looks as if the paid negotiations are going to they're going to have to wait for after the budget the unions are looking for indexed wage indexation to inflation which is something

29:33that probably the government would be very concerned about so where is there a lot of fingers in our ears like about this because it's not getting a lot of attention it's not getting any attention but but there are ballots ongoing in the in in the public sector unions so we could have a winter of discontent i think the government is probably hoping the budget will quell some of that but let's see those are not going to be easy negotiations precisely because of all of all that we discussed in relation to the pressures and public expenditure okay we we'll take a break on that cherry not Bridget laughing elinco infinity magra and dr barra rontry staying with us welcome back Bridget laughing elinco infinity in magra and dr barra rontry still with us elin just before we leave politics we won't get too into this but the front page of the mail on sunday is Helen McInty under a bit of pressure here she could be this is always a dangerous area for justice minister there's questions being asked of her in relation to the handling of a protected disclosure made in 2023 from a guard of whistleblower you know that Alan Kelly has been on this issue

30:37for a long time claimed in the doll on thursday that Helen McInty correctly referred it to the office of the protected discloserous commission who tried to send it to the department of justice and then Kelly alleges it was then sent back to the guard but Helen McInty was at a doorstep yesterday where it seems from the papers today um journalists were putting her under pressure about it she said she's absolutely not considering her position she was very clear that she followed the law and she says that when you're talking about issues around protected disclosures there's a limit to what she can discuss publicly but as we've seen previously in the department of justice this can be a thorny area for justice minister so this story will go on into next week it can be a slow burn yeah yeah okay um now finian what drum-toward did you in the papers today about Ed Sheeran well first of all the whole debate about um uh about the uh the the the the the the the the concert and the people drop an out so i just i just want to say that i'm very very disappointed

31:37by the stance of Ed Sheeran i would have been i would have been a big fan of his and i just think that what happened there was he decided to sit on the fence when it comes to issues like gaza and genocide and i was kind of a little bit disappointed that that's some of the people like Aaron Roe and bioga for the there were there were there were strongly back in uh mac and boar in in relation to the issue so i think no i don't know i think it has been very clear that he thinks Ed Sheeran is the wrong target here and the right target is cross-pavilion air and things have changed over night as well yeah Ed Sheeran spoke at that concert and he did uh he he he did outlawing his his views on it yeah but i still think though that in relation to the whole gaza issue that uh that he should should have been stronger now i know he he amended his comments left at one of the gigs last night and i think that he's very uh very severely damaged because he wasn't strong in the very beginning

32:43i think he made a mistake and then he also came out and said that he didn't normally get involved politics now he's no problem with the musicians or artists not getting involved in politics but see Ed's background though he was very supportive of Ukraine he was very supportive of of Jeremy Corbyn and he also opposed Brexit so he has form on political issues so i just felt very disappointed as a fan of what happened in relation to the way these other artists were thrown under the bus okay um Bridget you see people will say well like does everybody have to come out and make a statement about this and if they don't are they suspect for not caring enough and everything but equally Ed Sheeran's and people are saying no our Ed Sheeran's been cancelled over this Ed Sheeran's fans like Finian have a right to make a choice don't they that he we thought this he was a particular kind of person he portrayed himself as a particular kind of person he's not the person i told he was therefore i'm disappointed in him so i don't think we could a cheeron as a

33:47Bruce Springsteen who go you know who heads on politics so he's not that kind of artist he was and Ed Sheeran in her piece today argues that there should also be the right not to express an opinion on a contentious issue but it really doesn't matter because the minute that craft intervened and there was no way he was ever going to allow the billionaire the billionaire steady who wanted Maclmore the support act off the tour because Maclmore had been saying free Palestine and talking and I think Maclmore we should also remember he did on a stage once where he was the caricature Shylock on stage and he said afterwards it was not intended to portray you but anyone looking at it i'm afraid would want to be blind not to say it was the caricature he had the no prosthetic nose and everything so craft is a hardcore supporter of

34:48Israel he observed Shabbat he he was never going to allow Maclmore onto the his the stage and his arena so for Ed Sheeran the question then was should he simply have withdrawn all together yeah and that's the that's where it comes down to and I think it's sorry and I think Woody should he have but I think the interesting thing is apparently Ed Sheeran is friendly with both these both crafties he sang at craft's wedding yeah just right but he also Maclmore he knows well and has in it so I think he got caught in the middle of something he completely misjudged the impact I think it has been extremely damaging to him I'm not sure he'll recover from it but I think we also and this is I worry a little that one is it's assumed that you're complicit unless you openly declare position on things that are highly highly he was saying he was saying

35:49that he never gets involved in politics but I give you three examples do you have a position of Brexit he did yeah you've got to say yeah I said yeah yeah yeah yeah so if an artist or stuff then and you're in the middle of a genocide you have to speak out basically and a lot of artists and musicians have done that so I'm personally to the point because I like I like to do music for a long long time but the but but the bottom line is oh sorry so bar is this the question of free speech brand is a very important as well so bar is it market is it market forces here right that Finneon is entitled to say I don't like Ed Sheeran anymore and apparently they're saying there were tickets for say for sale belong face value for the gig last night a lot of people decided Ed Sheeran's not the person I told he was and disappointed in him yeah I'm on it is crafty fiends the stadiums and this is how he feels equally allowed to say I don't want this going on in a stadium I own like are people allowed to have different opinions and make choices based on them well I'm we think and we can all agree or disagree I think the problem for Ed Sheeran here is that

36:50he's trying to walk the political neutrality rope and that's a very difficult one is Anton Savage's piece in the business post office that's a very difficult act to kind of maintain and I don't think I mean craft is fairly obviously very political in like not just on on this to mention right he there's beyond the New England Patriots there is you know he has lots of involvement and he's a billionaire he throws his weight around right is he's not used to that so I mean I don't know it seems a tricky situation for Ed Sheeran big financial cost and I suppose it comes down to how strongly he might feel about those issues I didn't think his speech last night we had kind of look at us who's gone around this morning he was reading lots of lots of auto-cute in field like he was I think crying at some bits later on so he cried he seemed to have cried at the end as far as I could understand it for what he did at the start of the gig which was he said I'm sorry to have had to be politically at the beginning and the start of the arms he was upset but he clearly knew we had to make that statement at the beginning and then he did say what happened on October 7th was wrong the reaction to it is wrong and it's completely disproportionate

37:56and disproportionate and I don't agree with the you know the killing of women and children having it's not enough I think it's over complicating things to talk about what burden do we play some pop stars to be political or a political the fact of the matter is Ed Sheeran is doing a tour in a country that has a very proud first amendment right to freedom of speech and what happened here is a billionaire's personal politics were allowed to decide who is and isn't allowed on stage the Gillette Stadium which is owned by Kraft has previously and in the future will hold Chris Brown who's had allegations of domestic abuse against him the other stadium owners who rode in behind Kraft to pressure Sheeran to drop Macklemore have also hosted and will host Kanye West who has denied the Holocaust and expressed his admiration for Hitler so I think I'm sure the quantity said he was having a breakdown and apologize for all that yeah but it's clearly far more objectionable than some of these saying for Palestine and his feet were Macklemore actually spoke to Jewish people in the audience and was conscious to say that Chris is criticizing the Jewish brothers and sisters I'm not talking about it. It's a freedom of speech

39:00issue it's not about you know should we expect pop stars to be experts on international justice and genocide yeah yeah broad question about has rock and roll all who has not been about people saying things being anti-establishment and I know and saying things that not every one agrees with and all of that kind of thing is it is Macklemore not just in a tradition of that absolutely absolutely but a cheerenist is really not a Bruce Springsteen that's how I would say you know he he he is someone despite it the fact he has taken positions he isn't known to be a highly politicized artist in the way that Bruce Springsteen is oh yeah Bruce Spring is Bruce Springsteen is at a different level but can I just say in relation to Aaron Roe that he's he makes the point which I totally agree we should also focus on Robert Kraft because if somebody says free Palestine that's not anti-Semitic and I think people should calm down a relational those

40:00issues but the other issue is the right of free speech to Macklemore that's the one that I was concerned about as well and the other are the other actors to pull out I'm fair player to beoga and the other artists to pull out and support of them so the essential thing here is there was also free speech what kind of say it's worth saying is that there's Irish acts who pull out there are a lot of people who can say in the music world a lot of people can say free Palestine yeah I pay any price those people that that is really pretty good there there this is an enormous opportunity for them and they and they walked away from it and their principles were to be brought to the board those gigs when they happened but I also think very simply I think Ed himself because I mean I was a fan I mean disappointed him as the word I do was it but the bottom line is he should have apologized properly rather than just saying both them were unjustified I'll throw up the seventh and the gaseous issue they were a big barn they they both aren't yes yeah they're 100% yeah but the

41:00thing I'm saying is he should have apologized in any statement and the second thing then is he should have to who and for what to who know for his stance to Macklemore and the other artists for put that position and also okay but the other issue is I didn't think he's he's a step and last night when far enough I mean when you see the Michael Lollieri's apology in relation to the the flights and the road about rib Michael Lieri come on I know it was a week later but it was full blooded apology I didn't sense that from Ed so he might be done enough to assuage the fans like you who are disappointed in him okay on other international issues Bridget there's been this murmuring is all week it's in the Sunday Independent today Putin gets ready to launch his hybrid war in Europe yeah is this happening so the only thing that's wrong with that with that headline is he's getting ready to launch yeah because it is happening and we saw in the last week there was an attack

42:06on a train literally one mile inside the Polish Ukraine border and it was an attack on a train a drone attack a pre literally 20 minutes earlier a train had passed same place same area which included all of the security chiefs of the major European countries who believe and Boris Johnson yeah so it's at every level it's at the level of cyber it is there was a we had flares for the Danish the trains the attack on trains there there was an attack on a train in France this morning that was clearly sabotage apparently the the issue with hybrid wars it's always got to have plausible deniability yeah so no the words don't ever know attacks I've seen them called yeah non-indexive yeah okay and and that the Russians can always deny as they do always and they use local

43:07hard phones often don't they intend to do these things they will use local they'll use operatives they use their security services it it is a continuation of a very old Soviet playbook but it's very serious now and he's testing he's testing because the Americans are threatening to withdraw troops he's testing because he wants to see just how united Europe is and he wants to punish Europe for continuing to support Ukraine so people may have to pay more of a price back to paying a price for your principles it may be more of a price to be paid for supporting Ukraine now I think the most important thing that Europe can do particularly continent Europe is to strengthen its intelligence and deterrence capacity okay just to make it harder okay barra the other kind of geopolitical big news of the week was Canada and the EU yeah and there I guess well two two things that go quite well together make like maple syrup and pancakes but no look I think

44:10what was being proposed there was kind of unclear because there was this talk of this associate membership which doesn't really exist and but the idea of greater partnership between the it's a vibe is it though it's very much vibes there's definitely no deed yeah I saw enough ginseng at the other right in the news he was great saying he was almost Trumpian this is a big beautiful idea we work on the detailed later but this is you know history and it but it's it's going to like I think it's the thing that very much is rooted in again Marcarne used to talk about the middle powers coming together to try offset the Trump but not just being a nice phrase here a kind of bigger alliance with better manners was not not just being done but it's going to pose lots of problems both domestic and international if if something does come up and depending what does come one is that well if there's any well we've got seat us still we're ratifying it as a process this is the trade agreement so and that was quite contentious for different reasons here in Ireland if we're going to go something beyond that you've got trade coming into things again and trade agreements are always difficult in Ireland we're objective when they involve agriculture you've got I feel if all off kill was here he would say look it's a

45:13big beautiful idea you will work out the detail that Bridget is going anywhere oh no it will yeah it will and it'll deepen on things like rare minerals there in energy power so in fact there's more compatibility there and on the trade side the trade is liberalized significantly in CTA anyway so I think it will go somewhere yeah I see that I see that a big Irish Angolan it was oh we can send our young people to Canada that's her first thing actually could we send some young people there possibly he's those in crisis there is a focus on what Marcarne he said and I always felt he was one of the good guys and it was a decent decent kind of all-fashioned type public serving guys but there is a focus on young people and students and also the fact that Caron himself criticized the weaponization of trade links and the erosion of democratic values values which kind of fits into to what a lot a lot of young people are saying so I think this huge potential this because he's been a really strong voice against Trump in over the last number of

46:16years or yet yeah but we should make it clear this is not against Trump everyone's been very here I just make him the white thing and don't pour that there kid he's provided the spring of the international incident no no no no okay Bridget Laffanell and coin Finnie and McGrat and Dr. Barron tree staying with us we'll take a break welcome back Bridget Laffanell and coin Finnie and McGrat and Dr. Barron tree still with us Finnie and you're very keen to mention would if you could just do it briefly enough about but it is important yeah I conference you were at yesterday I meant I meant to mention early on in the budget discussions but essentially there was a an excellent conference in the Helix Estuary for parents and families of people with an intellectual disability but the focus was on the 70 year old parents that are worried about the future of the rather children intellectual disabilities it was one of the biggest meetings I've been at and disability in 20 years and I just want to commend there before we die a group but basically the bottom line is yeah they're lobbying for residential places for and prioritize the

47:19parents that are over 70 to make sure that they're their young their adult children have residential places for that not to happen just when or after they do it suddenly it needs to be a gradual process and they're not a cliff at the moment for those people yeah at the moment we have 9,022 residential places at the moment but we need another five or six hundred over the next per year over the next three years okay if we want to we try and unresidential places a little bit but they have their place and there is a more modern natureation well I'm talking about the other residential places means community settings you're usually housing four or five others it's a broader picture but the bottom line is what I'm saying is there's a very strong focus on the over 70 families that originally lead the long term care and these people are sick and they've never seen yes and also can I make one final thing a respite for adults with intellectual disabilities who have major physical needs as well that is a priority so I'm kind of doing the pitch at the moment

48:19on that particular issue okay um Ellen you were looking at the the murder today and it's in some of the other papers as well and Nikita and speaking out and her book yeah so Nikita's book is coming out I know she was talking to you at length yesterday I just think it's amazing for all of us that saw her flattened into this two-dimensional figure walking in silence in now to those court court hearings a number of years ago to actually get to hear her talking in her own voice with the nuance and all the complexity of everything that she's been through over the last number of years I know the Dublin Raid Crisis Center have been standing by her side and have spoken at Great Lent about what an incredible role model she is I think that it's probably one of the most grueling examples we have of the costs of reporting an allegation of sexual violence and obviously her position was unique in terms of the abuse that she continues to get today but I think that obviously you know the book is going to speak for itself in great detail but I think the fact that

49:21she's now actually able to talk in her own terms is an amazing thing to get to witness as well do you think we have lots of watershed moments around all this and have had in the last years does every time something somebody as powerful as Nikita speaks so powerfully does it move the dial slightly do you think with young men with young women I mean you can measure it you can see anytime there's a Nikita hand with bravery to come forward the reports to Raid Crisis Center's go up it's obviously a massive positive example because we know that one of the greatest things blocking people reporting the one of the most serious crimes on the statute book is the fear of the alleged perpetrators reputation their power whether that's as a so-called pillar of the community at a local level or the power that they have at an international level as maybe a sports star or somebody who enjoys that sort of reputation so it's the most feminist David and Goliath case I could remember in recent memory and I think that the book as you said yourself

50:22it's not just for women and girls but it probably has sort of the greater purpose for men and boys as well. I just think she's a very very brave woman and I think some part to say as well that a lot of men strongly support her and I haven't listened to yesterday the interview I think that a lot of young men as well would want to be very very careful in relation to social media but I also think this has been hammered home again and again by women over the last few years this is not just their fight this is men's fight and a bright Northern relation the your interviewer's sermon I think the Nikita's reaction to the Christy Moore sing in the song I just thought that was beautiful and I when you heard the impact a song had on Nikita I just thought it was very good yeah yeah okay but just before we finish up the Irish priest serving as a spiritual advisor to a Irish talking day during wettler today and the Sunday independent and I did I've spoken to myself he's an impressive guy yeah yeah no and I graduate of Trinity along with some of his

51:2612 11 other sibling members from Bray now based in Los Angeles then he seems to have set up with some of his runs before tech companies really sounds like really ancient guy and he is giving advice to lots of the spiritual advice a lot of the engineers working around those AI companies there in Silicon Valley so it's really kind of striking interview and and I think one of the things in the paper to if you're looking for long read this weekend there's just it's just lots of things I wouldn't have talked about about the intersection of AI and religion and bust again there's a paper and technique of course there's a there's a problem there in that like they're coming to him for advice and everything but a lot of them believe they're building the new god so there's there's this like dilemma yeah and he talks about that about kind of advising them on that and again like there seems no bigger ethical issues than than those if you're what should you do if you're think you're involved in creating a god yeah you want to get you want to get some advice from a priest I think absolutely okay thanks very much to my excellent panel this morning Bridget Laff and Ellen coin Finnie and McGraw Finnie and I know you had a lot on your mind about Charlie

52:31Spencer that you wanted to talk about we didn't get to come in again and you have very if I were to get to that issue and Dr. Barrow and Tree thank you all very much