Irish Times Inside Politics

Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: Thursday evening in Brussels saw much wrangling over the EU’s proposed €1.6tn budget. As holders of EU presidency, Ireland has a neutral dealmaker role to play - but as one of the net contributors to the pot, will Ireland benefit given the greater focus on security and defence spending? Budget 2027 reaction has...

Leinster House today was filled with sympathy for Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan who took ill during an EU presidency meeting in Limerick on Tuesday. On today’s podcast Hugh speaks to Irish Times political editor Pat Leahy and political correspondent Jack Horgan-Jones about the mood in the Dáil. Fellow politicians “understand the stresses and challenges” of the jo...

In less than a month US voters will get a chance to express their feelings about the direction of the country in elections for seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate. While president Donald Trump is not on the ballot, his unpopularity is weighing his party down. Polls show a "blue wave" looks likely, with Democrats favoured to win back the House and possibly the Senate. But...

Pat Leahy and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: The fallout from Budget 2027 has been minimal, save for Minister for Media Patrick O’Donovan’s eleventh-hour decision to cut State subvention to RTÉ by €20 million. Having seen his department pre-budget demands not being met, the Minister warned that the Government – not just his department - “will renege on the thre...

Ireland is politically and economically stable, as Simon Harris pointed out in his Budget speech yesterday. But keeping it that way is getting more expensive. Increased capital spending, increased day-to-day spending, tax cuts - yesterday’s Budget delivered the lot. Is this sustainable, with our reliance on multinational tax receipts? Or wise, with our healthy level of economic growth? To look at...

Last year Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor co-authored an essay in The Guardian with a provocative title: The Rise of End Times Fascism. In it they argued that a new alliance was emerging on the political right, made up of Christian fundamentalists, Silicon Valley billionaires and hardline ethnonationalists, bound together by a vision of the end of the world as we know it in which only they would surv...

The mood music around Leinster House this week is one of “nashing teeth” ahead of what’s expected to be a difficult budget announcement on Tuesday. On today’s podcast, Hugh speaks to our political correspondents Jack Horgan-Jones and Cormac McQuinn who describe a “cold hard reality” that may be to come as government ministers feel they may not get the money they were hoping for. And its understood...

Sinn Fein emerged from 2020's general election in pole position to challenge Fine Gael and Fianna Fail and potentially take power next time around. That didn't happen, with support ebbing away as a series of events, both internal and external, shook the party's confidence. That's the picture painted by Siobhán Fenton, a journalist who worked in Sinn Féin's press office from 202...

Today anxiety over how the digital world has evolved is greater than ever. Trust in information found online is low, the business models driving tech platforms reward outrage over wellbeing and vast power lies in the hands of a few oligarchs. The arrival of AI may bring even greater problems. But what can be done? On today's podcast Hugh interviews Mark Little about his book The Last Good Day...

Pat Leahy and Cormac McQuinn join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: In the first Irish Times national poll since February, the lack of movement in party support points to an electorate not wholly enamoured by the incumbent Government but not exactly enthused about the alternatives either. One of the big contradictions arising from the poll is around the question of a united Irelan...

Chinese leader Xi Jinping lands in Washington later this evening for a three-day state visit, his first to Washington since 2015. The Trump White House is rolling out the red carpet and laying on the full ceremonial treatment for a leader who currently still faces American tariffs, sanctions and export controls. Irish Times China correspondent Dennis Staunton joins Hugh from Hong Kong to explain w...

Anthony Scaramucci is a successful Wall Street financier, a recovering Republican, a famously short-lived communications director in the first Trump administration and co-presenter with Katty Kay of The Rest is Politics US. His new book All the Wrong Moves chronicles his time within the Maga movement and diagnoses where America took a wrong turn. He talks to Hugh about three “catastrophic” po...

Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: The unprovoked attack on Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae this week highlighted how vulnerable public representatives can be. But when did criticism of Irish politicians turn into abuse and physical violence? Is it the long tail of the financial crash or simply a shift from online discourse to something far more si...

Derek Scally talks to Hugh about  the aftermath of two elections that have recently taken place: the Swedish general election and regional elections in the Gerrman region of Saxony-Anhalt. Each offers some fascinating insights into current trends and future directions in Germany and Scandinavia, and perhaps more broadly in Europe.   Would you like to receive daily insights into world eve...

Left-leaning think-tank Tasc has published a new report to mark its 25th year. the report (The State We Are In - Inequality in Ireland 2026) suggests that the redistribution of wealth via the tax system is struggling to keep inequality under control and argues for greater provision of services. It also warns that the rapid development of artificial intelligence could deepen inequality in Ireland a...

President Trump and his vast, costly entourage have rolled through Dublin on the way to his golf course, meeting with the Taoiseach and President Connolly along the way. As with other recent encounters between representatives of the State and Trump, there were no major diplomatic incidents for Irish officials to worry about. But Trump did ruffle some feathers with his comments on Irish reunificati...

Inside Politics Live is coming to Cork on September 30th. Get your tickets here . Pat Leahy and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: Green leader Roderic O'Gorman has proposed a one-off €2.5bn energy fund, split between targeted energy credits and investment in grants for solar panels and EVs. It is one of few genuinely good ideas that emerged from the political part...

Inside Politics Live is coming to Cork on September 30th. Get your tickets here . Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers talks to Jack Horgan-Jones about pre-Budget negotiations, HSE overspending, childcare, infrastructure and more. He reveals that he intends to strip power over day-to-day spending from four HSE regions in response to what he describes as a "really poor performance" when it...

British journalist Paul Mason talks to Hugh about his new book Reds: A Global History of Communism. The book traces communism’s story from early human egalitarian impulses to modern China’s controlled capitalist system.  Mason talks to Hugh about what drew him to Trotskyism as a young man, his current politics as a left-wing social democrat and his concerns about democracy under threat. He ex...

Inside Politics Live is coming to Cork on September 30th. Get your tickets here . Pat Leahy and Cormac McQuinn join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: Labour’s annual think-in is happening in Galway and Pat is there to find out what the party is thinking up. The mood is positive. But with the rival Soc Dems riding high, Labour faces an uncertain future. One new measure being propos...

In his new novel A Nation Once Again, Paul Howard, best known for the Ross O'Carroll Kelly series, turns his satirical eye from wealthy South Dublin to an imaginary government department devoted to preparing for the reunification of Ireland. He talks to Hugh about how the concept allowed him to explore both the absurdity of the border's existence and the ridiculousness of trying to remove it They...

Hugh, Pat, Ellen and Jack took to the stage at Electric Picnic on Saturday to discuss politics and take some uestions from the audience. They discussed UK prime minister Andy Burnham's controversial comments on the possibility of a border poll before moving on to take stock of the political positions and futures of the Big Three party leaders: Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Minister for Finance Simon H...

Ellen Coyne and Jack Power join Pat Leahy to look back on the week in politics: ·      All 27 EU foreign ministers will gather in Druids Glen in Wicklow next week for a “Gymnich” meeting. What is that you ask, it is characterised as a more informal chat with no expectation of any hard decisions being made. The lull of August will now give way to a hectic calendar culm...

Inside Politics Live is coming to Cork on September 30th. Get your tickets here .  Pat Leahy is joined by Ellen Coyne and Liz Carolan to talk about the response to the circumstances around the recent fatal M9 motorway crash. They examine Coimisiún na Meán’s response and the powers it has under the EU Digital Services Act, and the refusal of Tiktok to appear before a Dail committee. They consi...

Inside Politics Live is coming to Cork on September 30th. Get your tickets here .  Harry McGee and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: Today the Government announced that it will stall the planned increase to fuel excise duty that was due to come into effect at the start of September. The increases for September and October 1st will no longer go ahea...