In The News

Please note, this episode contains discussion of suicide and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Last Thursday, a Spanish woman called Noelia Castillo, died by euthanasia at the age of 25. The case made headlines in Spain and beyond, because the young woman had spent the previous two years fighting a legal battle against her father, over her right to end her life. The case went all the...

Dublin City Council is keeping up the pressure on the Government to legislate for a tourist tax administered by local authorities. The level of the tax, also called a bed levy, city tax or accommodation tax, has not been pinned down but €5 per room, per night has been mooted. There could be a sliding scale depending on the standard of accommodation. With 21 out of 27 EU member states having such a...

The scale of the fake medicines in Ireland has been made worryingly clear with the latest figures from the State’s drugs watchdog. The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) seized more than 750,000 units of illegal and fake medicines over the course of 2025. As has been in the case in previous years, anabolic steroids top the list of fake imported drugs, with erectile dysfunction medication...

Clifton Collins (55) had a thriving business growing cannabis in rented houses around the country. The Crumlin man and expert beekeeper was known for his award-winning honey but his real earner was the fortune he made from years of dealing drugs. He operated under the radar so when gardaí came across him parked in the Wicklow Mountains one night, they had no idea their search would eventually resu...

Stephen McCullagh (36) thought he had created a cast iron alibi for himself when he planned the murder of his pregnant girlfriend Natalie McNally (32) in December 2022. An avid gamer he was, he claimed, at home playing a video game live at the time she was killed. But as the PSNI was able to prove, he had in fact pre-recorded hours of himself playing the game. Police found that when he hit “play”,...

A new investigation has shown the supply chain link between Russian missiles – ones used to deadly effect in Ukraine – and a factory in Limerick. Aughinish Alumina was built near the Shannon Estuary in the 1980s to make alumina using raw bauxite from Guinea and Brazil. A major employer in the area, it changed hands in 2006 when it was bought by a company called Rusal which at the time was controll...

The newly-formed Women’s Coalition on Immigration i s calling on the Government to publish crime statistics broken down by country of origin and ethnicity. It argues – without supporting evidence – that there is a link between the increase in reported incidents of sexual violence against women in Ireland and im migration . The coalition was established in December by The Countess, a campaigning gr...

Three victims of the IRA’s bombing campaign in Britain have spent the past four years building a legal case in an attempt to prove that Gerry Adams was a leading member of the IRA during the Troubles. The former Sinn Féin leader spent two days in the witness box in London, maintaining he was never a member of the republican paramilitary organisation responsible for the injuries of John Clark in th...

When Michael and Rose Murray were refused planning permission for a substantial dormer bungalow in 2006 on land they owned in Co Meath, they went ahead with more ambitious plans anyway. They built a detached house that was twice the size of the one denied permission at scenic Faughan Hill. Shortly after they moved in, a complaint to Meath Co Council kick-started an epic legal battle that went all...

If you got an invoice you’d been waiting for from your builder for work done, you’d get ready to pay it, wouldn’t you? And if, a couple minutes after that, you got another invoice from the builder saying that actually he’d made a mistake and he’d given you the wrong bank details, you’d think nothing of it and proceed to pay. Well that’s exactly what the reader who contacts our consumer affairs cor...

To keep Irish alive as a language for the modern world, new words are added all the time . Bingewatch (craosfhéachaint), cryptocurrency (criptea-airgeadra), influencer (tionchairí ar líne) and mansplaining (fearmhíniú) are among the relatively recent English words that now have Irish translations. It's great for communication, but who decides on these new translations – and how? Irish Language Edi...

De réir mar a thagann coincheapa agus téarmaí nua chun cinn sa saol, tagann focail nua chun cinn sa chaint mar chur síos orthu.  Ar nós gach pobal teanga eile, forbraíonn focail, nathanna agus téarmaíocht go nádúrtha i bpobal labhartha na Gaeilge. Uaireanta eile, nuair a thagann téarmaí iasachta isteach sa ghnáthchaint, cumtar focail nua Gaeilge mar chur síos orthu le cur le stór na bhfo...

As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fifth year, day-to-day life has become wearyingly normal. Having endured one of the coldest winters on record – mostly without electricity because of Russia’s bombing of power plants – the grinding misery of trying to survive for Ukranians goes on. The devastation in the cities targeted by Russia is clear to see and cost in lives immense. Civil...

Israeli air strikes on Lebanon have been relentless and growing in ferocity since the US and Israel launched its war against Iran on February 28th. Saying it is targeting Hizbullah, the Iran-backed militia that essentially functions as a state-within-a state in Lebanon, Israel issues evacuation orders to residents in advance of its missile attacks. That has prompted a mass displacement of people s...

News that Kinahan cartel founder Christy Kinahan snr and his sons, Daniel and Christopher jnr, have not left the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for four years offers real insight into how small their world has become. Garda sources say that finding the Kinahans has never been the problem for the teams of detectives investigating them. What has proved difficult is building a case against the men who ar...

In the first wave of attacks on Iran, a primary school was hit, with a reported death toll of 175, most of them young girls. It is the deadliest known episode of civilian casualties since the US and Israel launched its war in the region on February 28th. In the immediate aftermath, no side took responsibility and who is to blame has become a question that the Trump administration is being called u...

As the conflict in Iran continues and spreads, global markets are down and oil prices are soaring. So what impact could the conflict have on the global economy and on energy costs here in Ireland? Irish Times economics columnist Cliff Taylor explains what we know. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his new documentary Amplified: The Exportation of the Culture Wars, director Mike Sheridan explores the profound influence of toxic discourse in the United States on the rest of the world – and in particular, Ireland. Through interviews and examples he shows how, with the amplification of social media, legitimate grievance can bloom into conspiracist, and how easily performance, paranoia, and p...

AI is turning the recruitment process upside down and leading to a jobs market which can be frustrating and difficult to navigate. So while it is easy to apply for a job online – multiple jobs even, in one go – it’s a harsh reality particularly for business or tech graduates looking for their first job that their achievement-filled CV won’t be read by a person. Instead it will be put through an AI...

Within minutes of the war beginning on Saturday, allies Israel and the US had achieved a stated goal: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed alongside his powerful inner circle.  His death would, according to both US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, pave the way for regime change, allowing opposit...

In late January, the Spanish government announced a mass legalisation scheme which will provide migrants with a one-year, renewable residency permit, allowing them to be hired legally. Opening for applications next month, it will benefit about half a million people. For socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez, the move is about the Spanish values of dignity, community and justice. It also makes the...

A Dublin man who admitted killing a young American nurse in Budapest in November 2024 will face trial in April. He has pleaded not guilty to murder, insisting her death was the result of an accident during consensual sex. The 38-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, previously admitted to killing Mackenzie Michalski (31) during a sexual encounter and hiding her body. At a preliminary he...

US president Donald Trump came to power promising an end to foreign entanglements. Instead he has ramped up American aggression against its enemies. The weekend's attack that killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei along with regime leaders and hundreds of others, including civilians, was his most extreme move yet. But it was done without the constitutionally required approval of C...

Ireland is to buy hundreds of new armoured vehicles and artillery pieces from France , a move that will significantly expand the capabilities of the Irish Army to conduct on-island defence. The deal is expected to be worth €600 million and is the biggest investment in Army equipment in the history of the State. It is one of several deals with French suppliers to provide a range of equipment and se...

When gardaí raided the homes of 11 senior members of the Black Axe crime organisation this week they found more than they expected. As well as data-crammed mobile phones and laptops, they found merchandise emblazoned with the logo of the international fraud and money laundering gang. The caps and bags – the sort of memorabilia a golf club might offer – feature “Ireland” and also slogans such as “I...