Irish Times Inside Politics

With just over a week until two by elections, host Hugh Linehan unpicks the race for Dublin Central in today’s Inside Politics. Political Correspondents Jack Horgan-Jones and Cormac McQuinn reflect on then race so far, and which candidates will benefit most from those critical transfers. Ahead of Irish Times polling for the consistence to be published on Thursday, where are the battlegrounds? And...

In the week of Fianna Fail’s centenary Hugh and Pat are joined by reporter and historian Ronan McGreevy to trace the party’s origins and assess its legacy.  Ronan explains how in 1926, with frustration growing at Sinn Féin’s ineffectiveness, Éamon de Valera and allies such as Seán Lemass formed Fianna Fáil, rapidly building hundreds of cumainn. He looks at how the party first entered the Dáil...

Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       The findings of the Irish Times/TG4 opinion poll on first preference votes, carried out by Ipsos B&A, suggests three leading candidates in the Galway West byelection. It shows Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) at 17 per cent followed by Noel Thomas (Independent Ireland Party)...

Hugh Linehan hosts a live Inside Politics show in Galway’s Róisín Dubh with Pat Leahy, Ellen Coyne and Galway native Harry McGee ahead of the May 22nd Galway West byelection. Harry, fresh from his day of shadowing candidates on the canvass, profiles the constituency and what influences are at play in this huge electoral area, which spans urban, rural and Gaeltacht districts. The Irish Times politi...

Ellen Coyne and Pat Leahy join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       There are now 14 candidates confirmed as running in Dublin Central and 17 candidates in Galway West in the upcoming byelections on May 22nd. And while it looks like a tussle between those representing centre-left parties in the capital, Independent Ireland councillor Noel Th...

Fintan O’Toole talks to Hugh Linehan about Fianna Fáil as the party’s 100th birthday draws near. Fintan credits the party with helping create a vibrant Irish middle class - if only by accident. But in recent decades the party has undermined that legacy, he says, through short-sighted, reactionary politics and especially through its approach to home ownership.  They also discuss the recent fue...

Hugh is joined by Irish Times Washington correspondent Keith Duggan to talk about the dramatic events at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, where an intrusion by a gunman interrupted what was supposed to be president Donald Trump's first appearance at the annual event where the worlds of politics, media and celebrity socialise.  They then talk about Trump's complicated and co...

Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       The posters are going up, and candidates are preparing their pitch, but could Sinn Féin come up empty-handed in both the Dublin Central (party leader Mary Lou McDonald’s constituency) and Galway West byelection when the votes are counted on May 23rd? And does a vote...

The country is moving on from the protests that dominated the national discussion over Easter, even as what the protests actually meant continues to generate debate. Leo Varadkar poured more fuel on the fire by telling rural dwellers that, far from them being the backbone that holds up the country, it is their city cousins who pay all the bills. Could these events mark the start of deeper urban-ru...

Cormac McQuinn and Pat Leahy join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       There were renewed questions about the future of Micheál Martin’s leadership in the aftermath of the fuel protests and the resignation of former Independent minister Michael Healy-Rae from Government. Fianna Fáil TDs James O'Connor, Ryan O’Meara and Albert Dolan outlined...

Hugh, Pat and Ellen are joined by columnist Gerard Howlin to talk about a tumultuous day in Leinster House that capped a terrible week for the governing coalition: The Government faced down a confidence challenge, as expected. But the loss of now-former minister of state Michael Healy-Rae, along with the support of his backbencher brother Danny, cut its majority and underlined how the fuel pr...

All agree that the scale of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán’s defeat in yesterday’s general election is hugely significant, for Hungary, Europe and beyond. But what exactly does the result mean? To find out Hugh talks to two journalists covering Hungarian affairs, Daniel Nolan and Ivan Nagy. They discuss how Orbán's populist playbook ran out of steam, why JD Vance's recent visit backfired an...

Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: It was becoming clear towards the end of last week that protests over the price of fuel were coming. But the scale of what has unfolded seems to have caught the Government by surprise. Then there were missteps in the handling of the situation throughout the week. Now the battle lines have been drawn and posit...

In the final instalment of our series on Labour’s time in government from 2011 to 2016, things get darker as it becomes clear economic progress will not be enough for voters to forgive the party for its role in austerity. Labour’s poor showing in the 2014 local and European elections leads to a change at the top. But Joan Burton’s leadership does not revive Labour’s fortunes. Then, when the d...

Inside Politics is coming to Galway in May for a live recording. Get your tickets here . In part two of this three-part series on Labour's harrowing experience in government from 2011 to 2016, Pat Leahy and Hugh Linehan follow the story of the first three years of that austerity-delivering coalition. As punishing budget after punishing budget was delivered, Labour struggled to retain its political...

Inside Politics is coming to Galway in May for a live recording. Get your tickets here . When Labour came to power in 2011 Ireland was in the depths of an economic crisis that had several more years to run. Their coalition with Fine Gael spent the next five years struggling to fix the economy while satisfying the EU and the IMF, who had bailed us out. But it was Labour, led by Eamon Gilmore to its...

Oliver Sears, founder of Holocaust Awareness Ireland, joins Hugh to talk about his growing alarm at the rise of anti-Semitism in Ireland and what he sees as the failure to take it seriously. They discuss whether the political response to Israel's actions since October 7th 2023 has complicated that debate. The conversation covers questions such as where legitimate criticism of Israel ends...

This week the Government decided to unveil a €250 million package to help citizens meet the elevated cost of fuel. And this could be just the start of a series of new efforts to keep down the cost of living. After ending such supports in the last Budget, it seems there is a limit to the Government’s ability to resist helping when times get tough and the money is there. But what will happen when a...

Seán Lemass is remembered as the man who changed Ireland. Several opinion polls have noted Lemass as the country's most admired taoiseach. He never left any papers of autobiography, but rather twenty-two hours of private interviews. Hugh speaks to Irish Times reporter Ronan McGreevy who has gathered these lost interviews and collated them into a memoir in Lemass's own words. Produced by JJ Vernon...

Eoin Drea is a senior researcher at the Wilfried Martens Centre, the official think tank of the European People’s Party (of which Fine Gael is a member), and an occasional contributor to the opinion pages of The Irish Times, where he is often critical of Ireland’s approach to Europe.  Recently he wrote that “Ireland’s recent hissy fit at not being invited to a pre- EU  summit meeting in&...

Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       Israeli strikes on Iranian natural gas infrastructure marked an escalation in the US-Israeli war on Iran. With global oil and gas prices climbing, could we soon see Government measures to offset the cost to consumers? ·       Opposi...

Taoiseach Michel Martin has been meeting US president Donald Trump as part of the annual St Patrick’s Day pageantry. Martin once again faced the challenge of outlining Ireland’s positions on issues from tariffs to wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran while maintaining his personal dignity and without antagonising Trump to Ireland's detriment. It was no easy task, with the US president criticising U...

Ellen Coyne and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s St Patrick’s Day visit to The White House to meet US president Donald Trump could prove awkward should he face questions about the US and Israel’s military action against Iran, and its impact on the Middle East, Gulf regions and soaring fuel pric...

As war in the Middle East rages on, the world's superpowers are making diplomatic representations to end it, and contingencies to protect their economies from the knock-on effects, namely oil and natural gas prices. China, which buys oil from Iran, would rather the conflict hadn’t begun and would like to see it concluded, according to Irish Times Beijing correspondent Denis Staunton. However...

The Irish-American experience fitted seamlessly into the story of the United States as a “nation of immigrants”. In the Trump era that narrative has fallen out of favour. Family ties are weakening over time and the old political associations are changing too. So where does that leave our relationship with the 38.5 million Americans who ticked “Irish” in the last US census?  On today’s Inside...