Irish Times Inside Politics

Naomi O’Leary and Cormac McQuinn join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       After six days of US-Israeli attacks on Iran, the conflict is escalating and has spread to Lebanon which has experienced sustained airstrikes from Israel. Iran has vowed to continue targeting Gulf countries having fired missile and drone attacks into Kuwait, Qatar, Sa...

While the world’s attention is focused on the Middle East, Inside Politics looks at the US sphere of influence on Cuba, which is facing ever tightening economic sanctions. Cuban governments have survived attempts to overthrow it by multiple US administrations going all the way back to Dwight Eisenhower following the revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959. Over the decades, Cuban governments have m...

Denis Staunton, author of The Irish Times Global Briefing newsletter on international affairs, joins Hugh to talk about the escalating war in the Middle East. They talk about how Iran gradually lost its status as a regional heavyweight, America's unchecked and unrivalled military power, the shift under Trump to a strategy of decapitation when dealing with enemies, the potential economic fallout fr...

Ellen Coyne and Cormac McQuinn join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       In the Dáil on Wednesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin issued an apology on behalf of the State to survivors of abuse in industrial and reformatory schools. Nobody doubts the sincerity of such apologies, but given the number of them over the years, perhaps their rhetoric sh...

Campaigner Maria Steen, whose failed bid to launch a run for the presidency last year put the spotlight on the nominations process, talks to Hugh and Ellen Coyne about that campaign. She talks about whether she could have won had she got that nomination and why not enough councils supported her. She also talks about Catherine Connolly's first 100 days in office, why she is uncomfortable with the l...

Under this coalition Government Ireland's climate ambitions are colliding with political reality. Hugh talks to Climate and Science Correspondent Caroline O'Doherty about how the current Government is retreating from its own climate legislation even as energy-hungry data centres multiply, agricultural emissions remain stubbornly high and extreme weather batters the country. From Europe's looming f...

Jack Horgan-Jones and Pat Leahy join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       The sharp criticism that greeted a review of allocation of special needs assistants in schools around the country prompted a hasty retreat by Government. The review has now been paused which should buy the Government some time to soothe tensions. ·   &nb...

13 months in, Donald Trump's second term is proving to be a much more radical political project than his first. On today's podcast Hugh is joined by Fintan O'Toole to talk about whether the Trump administration's ideology, use of state power and rhetoric now make comparisons with the fascism of the 20th century appropriate. What would fascism look like in today’s media, institutional and...

Disputes over freedom of speech, censorship and the shifting norms of acceptable discourse are part and parcel of modern political debate. Now the debate has come to the Leaving Cert. A review of content of the optional Politics and Society subject is underway, with the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment  saying consideration will be given “to potential risks associated with inclu...

Jack Horgan-Jones and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       This week saw the European Parliament approve a € 90 billion package to support Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. The loan was approved by a comfortable majority, but among those who voted against it were Sinn Féin’s two MEPs, Lynn Boylan and Kathleen Func...

How Ireland Voted is a regular publication featuring academic analysis of Irish elections. The latest edition looks at the 2024 general election and features an essay by Gail McElroy and Stefan Müller that puts party manifestos under the microscope, identifying which topics get the most attention and where the parties line up from left to right. The analysis suggests a major leftward shift in Iris...

John Mearsheimer returns to the podcast to talk to Hugh about his view of geopolitics and global security in 2026. They talk about Donald Trump's unilateralism, the security architecture of Europe, the consequences for Europe of the war in Ukraine, US Middle East policy and threats to liberal democracy. Mearsheimer paints a pessimistic picture, warning that the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza w...

Pat Leahy and Ellen Coyne join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       When it comes to the housing crisis or whether to spend the exchequer surplus, the results from the latest Irish Times/Ipsos B&A poll suggest an electorate that wants to see some action. This is despite Government’s claims that real progress has been made on housing. ·&n...

Last week the Government confirmed it will push ahead with legislation to change how the Defence Forces are deployed overseas, including the removal of the Triple Lock when Irish troops are part of an international force. The Triple Lock makes it necessary for any deployment to be ratified by the Dáil, the Government, and the United Nations. The proposed change removes the need for UN approval.&nb...

Harry McGee and Cormac McQuinn join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       The floods brought by Storm Chandra earlier this week devastated eastern parts of the country, and once again exposed our lack of preparation for extreme weather events. The painfully slow delivery of flood defence infrastructure will be highlighted repeatedly as climat...

Legislation to reform Ireland's residential property rental landscape is being fast-tracked through the Dáil. What impact will it have? On security of tenure, we will now have some of the most robust protections for renters in Europe. But rents are likely to become even more unaffordable, says Michael Byrne, a lecturer at UCD's School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice. Hugh and Jack...

Ellen Coyne and Pat Leahy join Jack Horgan-Jones to look back on the week in politics: ·       This week saw EU-US relations shift as the near-confrontation over Greenland perhaps showed the best way to handle US President Donald Trump’s demand to take over the Arctic island. The decision by Trump to withdraw the threat of tariffs against eight European countries...

Jack Power and Jack Horgan-Jones join Pat Leahy to assess a dramatic week in which the transatlantic alliance took a further battering from US president Donald Trump and his demands to acquire Greenland. After Trump used a rambling address at Davos to reveal he would not use force but would 'remember' a failure to hand the vast territory over, EU leaders may now wait and see. Will threatened tarif...

Harry McGee, Ellen Coyne and Mark Paul join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       The Minister with responsibility for artificial intelligence (AI), Niamh Smyth, met with executives from social media company X on Friday over concerns about their Grok app. The app has been in the headlines because of its ability to produce non-consensual intim...

Despite global turmoil, the focus of Irish politics in 2026 is set to remain on matters close to home. Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh to identify the main challenges facing the Government this year, particularly those on the desks of Minister for Housing James Brown, Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and how global events could imp...

US president Donald Trump wants to acquire Greenland, asserting strategic and security needs but also a 'psychological need' to take over the vast, frozen island from Denmark. So how do Greenlanders themselves feel about this idea? Derek Scally is in Greenland's capital Nuuk to find out. He talks to Hugh Linehan about a people whose passion for total independence may have been catalysed by Trump's...

Jack Horgan-Jones and Ellen Coyne join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics: ·       The long-anticipated EU-Mercosur trade deal was provisionally approved on Friday, despite the opposition of Ireland, France and three other countries. The deal has been immensely unpopular in Irish political life for a long time, thanks largely to efforts by the farm...

After the weekend’s US airstrikes on Venezuela, and arrest of its president Nicolás Maduro by US special forces, The Irish Times’ China Correspondent Denis Staunton has been pondering what it means for the international order, and territorial disputes around the world. “Events in Venezuela have emboldened Trump and we’ve seen him step up his rhetoric around Greenland” he told the Inside Politics p...

For part two of our festive ‘Ask Me Anything’ episode Hugh Linehan is joined on today’s Inside Politics podcast by Jack Horgan Jones, Cormac McQuinn and Ellen Coyne. In this round they tackle listener questions on a border poll, citizen’s assemblies and why we keep on calling our country ‘the State’. Thanks to everyone who listened to the podcast in 2025. From all of us on the Inside Politics team...

This episode was first published in July 2025. You can tell an awful lot about a society by who it labels a genius. You can also learn from who it excludes from that category, who it enables and what it is prepared to tolerate from them. The tortured poet, the rebellious scientist, the monstrous artist, or indeed the tech disruptor. All of these archetypes feature in The Genius Myth, the new book...