Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning

There was a huge response to last week’s episode on Universal Basic Income. On Free State, Dion and Joe look at the arguments made in the emails and comments. But as they go through the comments, the atmosphere changes and Free State reaches another crossroads… Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A study after the covid pandemic established that in care homes controlled by private equity firms the death rate was more than 50 per cent higher than in other homes. On Free State today we look at how private equity is capitalism cannibalising itself. Hettie O’Brien, author of The Asset Class, is on with us to talk about how this happened, how governments retreated from the public realm and left...

More than 60 per cent of Irish jobs are in positions highly exposed to the threat from AI. So what do we do in the face of this threat? Give everyone free money. On Free State today we look at universal basic income and how it could transform lives. How does it work and why would it be profound? And why does the opposition to this sound like the opposition to every other great transformations in s...

What does Ireland in 1926 tell us about Ireland today? What do absences tell us about the lives we live whether it is in Ireland a hundred years ago or at a graduation in Gaza today? On Free State, Joe and Dion look at loss and absence. They examine the emotion that can pack a punch from a hundred years ago and the lives that are ripped apart today Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more i...

It would be harder, Jamie Bartlett says, to open a sandwich shop in Dublin than to release a large language model of near infinite power into general public use. On Free State, Bartlett talks about his new book on how to talk to AI and what we are doing when we hand agency to a personality type that is drawing from the worst of impulses. How do we protect ourselves? Is the only winning move n...

What does the world look like when the world has turned away? On Free State today we ask about the loss of faith that will echo through the generations following the genocide in Gaza. We examine how leaders failed and are left taking comfort in the circus of a visit from a king to the court of Donald Trump. We also wonder how far someone can let themselves go that they don't iron their shoelaces....

“I’m getting in touch because I’ve written the attached open letter as a serving Garda,” this email was one of many we received since Sinead O’Sullivan came on the podcast.  “I’ve never done anything like this before,” it continued, “but I felt I had to say something given how things are going. I wrote it out of a genuine sense of frustration with the direction the country seems to be heading...

“The bravest man it fell to my unhappy lot to execute.” These were the words of the hangman who took Roger Casement to the scaffold in Pentonville Prison in 1916. Roger Casement’s final years were lived in pursuit of Irish independence. But was he a driver of rebellion or a hopeless romantic whose brainwaves did more harm than good?  On Free State today, Rory Carroll talks about his book A Re...

What allows a manager to bring a group with them? What is it? How do they possess it and what happens when they lose it? On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at how managers fall to earth and consider how Ger Brennan can make it work as Dublin manager. They look at the power and control Alex Ferguson had and what happens when a manager becomes toxic and indiscipline spreads. They also consider t...

When Sinead O'Sullivan created a graph which she believed illustrated the problems in Ireland, she hadn't realised what would happen next. She found herself in the middle of an argument about data with many including Leo Varadkar. It raged over what Ireland did and didn't do well. But did it highlight the real problem in Ireland today? A defensiveness from the establishment which could be seen in...

As a young Roy Keane headed on the train to Dublin from Cork for a coaching course, he saw some railway workers toiling by the track. ‘Look at them fuckers out there and they’re going like the hammers,’ he said. ‘I have to make it as a footballer.’ On Free State today we look at what drives a man like Roy Keane and how is the boy the father of the man? Dave Hannigan, author of We Need to Talk Abou...

This week Irish life returned to normal and Irish politics resumed its normal parlour games. The resignation of Michael Healy Rae was described repeatedly as a ‘bombshell’ and the political parties shouted at each other in the Dail. Outside protestors and malcontents hovered but will their protests take on those who are really exploiting the ordinary people? Since Israel and the US launched their...

‘Nobody has a right to blockade our country,’ Micheal Martin stated when announcing what the government would be doing in response to the protests that brought the country to a halt. But what does it tell us about the fraying of the social contract that people felt they had to take to the barricades in their country to demonstrate how desperate things have become? On Free State today Joe and Dion...

“It is a low bar to ask that people aren’t killed so that I can fill up my car.” Alex Perry is an investigative journalist who has uncovered an extraordinary story. It is a story where the backdrop is the new imperialism. If the first scramble for Africa was led by the imperial nations in the 19th century, the second has been by the oil companies that have so much power in the world today. In Irel...

How close did the world come to annihilation this week? What will happen the next time Trump parades his negotiating skills and can the world always be sure that Trump Always Chickens Out? On Free State, Dion and Joe reflect on a ceasefire which was a defeat for Trump and ignored by Benjamin Netanyahu. Does this mean peace or does it mean we should enjoy the little things that make life worth livi...

Stalin was reported to have asked ‘How many divisions does the pope have?’ when told of the Vatican’s view on world affairs. On Easter Sunday, Pope Leo addressed the crowds at St Peter’s Square and said, "Let those who have weapons lay them down. Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace." Shortly afterwards, Donald Trump gave his view on world affairs. “Open the F***in’ Strait, yo...

Olivier Norek says he has never met a killer who wasn’t eaten inside by what they’d done. Before he became a writer, Norek was a policeman in the most dangerous parts of Paris and a humanitarian worker in the former Yugoslavia. On Free State today, Norek tells the story of Simo Hayha, the sniper known as the White Death, who fought for Finland during the Winter War when the Soviet Union invaded th...

When a California court ruled that Meta and YouTube had deliberately designed addictive products, many declared that this might be the Big Tobacco moment for the tech companies. The plaintiff was awarded $6 million damages. Meta’s revenue in three months last year was 60 billion dollars. Their share price was unaffected. On Free State today we ask what will it take to make a difference?  If t...

Trust the process has become one of world’s worst cliches. But what if the alternative was worse? What if ‘trusting the emotions all around’ was the other option? On Free State today Joe and Dion wonder why Ireland lose.  The country will not be at the World Cup this summer. How much was this down to the Irish players’ inability to keep their heads and be led by the emotion that was all aroun...

Toby Harnden was sent to Northern Ireland for the first time in 1995. A reporter for the Daily Telegraph, it was an assignment that was not expected to produce much at a time when the peace process was the dominant story. But Harnden became fascinated with the republican movement and in particular how South Armagh had become a place that, not only could not be touched by the British government, bu...

“The White House does not tolerate any administration official illegally profiteering off of insider knowledge, and any implication that officials are engaged in such activity without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting.” Fifteen minutes before Donald Trump posted that there had been ‘productive conversations’ with Iran, $580 million in oil bets were made in a period of 60 seconds. Wh...

When Michael Lyster started presenting The Sunday Game, Ronald Reagan was seeking reelection as president of the United States. When he stopped presenting it, Donald Trump was president for the first time. For 34 years Lyster was the presenter who shaped our summer days. He was the accompaniment to the drama and the tension, the celebration and the argument. It is no wonder that when his death was...

Adam Doyle, the artist known as Spicebag, achieved some notoriety when his art depicting evictions became a talking point in the national media. He is an artist of significance and he is also doing significant work. On Free State today he tells us about the project he is involved where his merchandise has funded a centre for children in Gaza The Ionad Hind Rajab is an Irish–Palestinian solidarity...

Micheal Martin emerged from his meeting with Donald Trump on St Patrick’s Day with the commentariat purring. He had stood up for Europe, for Keir Starmer and, in part, for Winston Churchill but that didn’t matter. He had survived. On Free State today we ask does any of it matter. As oil and gas fields in Iran, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are attacked, oil prices rise and governments insist they will pr...

When the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission threatened to revoke broadcasters’ licences because of their coverage of the war, some complained that it violated the First Amendment, guaranteeing freedom of speech. On Free State we look at what those rights mean in a country where Trump must get what he wants. We go back to what happened in Iraq when the country was broken apart, its r...