The Agenda

The Government has totally rejected any suggestion of making Drogheda a city despite the increased population and thousands of new homes being built in the locality. Both Louth County Council and Meath County Council were totally opposed to any such move and were terrified of losing land or income. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An obesity expert is urging parents to buy only one easter egg for each child. Professor Donal O’Shea, who is HSE’s clinical lead on obesity, has warned that it was “a flawed narrative” if parents think it is okay to indulge for one day. He has also said in the past that such an attitude was flawed because the food and drinks industry wanted to increase the daily consumption of ultra-processed foo...

A mum whose unborn child died when she was injured in a car collision said it was almost more traumatic discovering no one was legally accountable for her son’s death. Speaking outside Leinster House, Saoirse Alyward said: “Jax was a four pound baby, he had to have a post-mortem, I had to bury him, my 11-year-old daughter was at his graveside, yet the law says he doesn’t exist." In January 2024, t...

The lack of bus services in Ashbourne is leaving residents "stranded”, a Meath councillor has said. At the March meeting of the Ashbourne Municipal District, Sinn Féin councillor Helen Meyer called on Meath County Council to contact the National Transport Authority (NTA) to discuss plans for increasing bus services in the town. In response, Meath County Council said its role is limited to assistin...

Tenants in some housing estates across Louth are being "held to ransom" by antisocial behaviour.  Labour councillor Pio Smith told the March meeting of Louth County Council that the issue is leaving residents unable to "live in peace in their own homes".  It comes as Louth County Council has launched its new tenant engagement strategy to tackle antisocial behaviour across the county.&nbs...

Drogheda is to be used in a new pilot scheme whereby the Gardaí will notify schools within 24 hours if they attend a domestic violence incident at the home of one of their pupils. Called Operation Encompass, the idea is that the child concerned will receive the help and support they need. It will allow teachers and school staff to understand what a child has experienced and to offer immediate and...

A local mother has described a “terrifying” incident on Athboy Main Road in Co Meath in which she and her young children narrowly avoided being hit by a speeding car. Ally McDermott says the moment was “the scariest thing” to have ever happened to her. She had been crossing the road with her twin daughters, aged two and a half, when a car travelling above the speed limit drove through a red light....

Greyhound racing could not survive in Ireland without State subsidy, a group calling for an end to the practice has argued.  Earlier this month, the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments both announced bans on greyhound racing.  Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon has said the Government has no intention of doing likewise.  However, Greyhound Action Ireland spokesperson Nuala Donlon say...

Israel's military has launched an investigation into separate incidents that killed three UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. Three United Nations peacekeepers from Indonesia were killed in two separate incidents in southern Lebanon after a bloody weekend in which Lebanese journalists and medics were killed in Israeli strikes. We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Sinn Fein TD for Louth, R...

A certificate of loss for women who had an early miscarriage could be available within a year with advanced plans in place, a cross-party Oireachtas group has said. In Ireland birth certificates are only available when pregnancy loss happens after 23 weeks. This new plan is proposed as an alternative way to record a child but will not be a birth certificate. Senator Linda Nelson Murray has persona...

Fox hunting makes people in rural Ireland “look like savages”, a farmer in Meath has argued.  Last week outside Leinster House, Rural Ireland Against Fox Hunting gathered for a protest to demand TDs ban hunting with dogs.  Late last year, a bill proposed by People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger was voted down by the Dáil.  124 TDs from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Aontú vo...

Aontú Leader and Meath-West TD Peadar Tóibín TD,  has welcomed the decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ensure that the female category in the Olympic Games is reserved exclusively for biological women. Deputy Toibin joined us on The Agenda this morning to talk to us some more about this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The “extremely distressing” story of a young family who lived in a Louth car park for over a month after they “fell between the cracks” of two local authorities emerged this week. The couple, originally from Latvia, and their two young children, had been sleeping in their car in a council‑owned car park after being unable to access emergency accommodation. The couple first settled in Galway before...

Louth Labour TD Ged Nash has said he is “apoplectic and outraged” at the decision not to include any Drogheda schools in the new DEIS Plus programme, despite seven schools across the county being selected. Six additional primary schools in County Louth have been awarded DEIS Plus status, bringing the total number of schools included in the new scheme to seven. However, none of those schools are lo...

We were joined on The Agenda this morning by local Fianna Fáil Councillor, Stephen McKee, who has strongly criticised the decision taken by the Department of Justice to renew the IPAS contract for the D Hotel so that it can continue to be used as an accommodation centre for people seeking international protection. The contract for the use of the D Hotel in Drogheda as an IPAS centre, has reportedl...

This morning on The Agenda we had our weekly edition of ‘The LMFM Roundtable’, where we were joined in-studio by 3 contributors to discuss and debate the big stories of the week. This week we talked about the Government cutting taxes on both diesel and petrol - we asked if the Government are doing enough to tackle this issue. We also discussed the D Hotel in Drogheda and whether it should remain a...

The escalating conflict in the Middle East risks a "large and lasting" deterioration in Ireland's economic and financial circumstances with consumer confidence now at a three-year low, economists have warned. Surging energy prices have seen the latest Credit Union Consumer Sentiment Index record a reading of 56.7 in March, sharply down on the 65.2 figure for February and the lowest since March 202...

Louth County Council’s arthritic approach to the development of Active Travel Infrastructure in Ireland’s Largest town must end, says Drogheda Cycling Group  The group says that recent jumps in energy costs are affecting us all, but it need not be this way and that it’s worth taking time out to imagine an alternative. Noel Hogan, Chairperson of the Drogheda Cycling Goup, joined us on The Agen...

The Government should introduce an outright ban on the use of commercial sunbeds as there is “no safe level of exposure” to ultraviolet radiation, a report has recommended. The Sunbed Working Group has formally called on the Government to ban the use of commercial sunbeds, saying existing modelling shows it would lead to a reduction in the number of deaths from skin cancer. The recommendation by t...

Gardaí this week confirmed that they are investigating graffiti painted on roads on the Louth-Meath border as incidents of criminal damage with a hate crime motivation. Gardaí said they attended the scene of the incident which occurred between the evening of Monday, 23 March and the morning of Tuesday, 24 March. This is the most recent case of antisemitic graffiti in the area, following another si...

Female members of the All Party Oireachtas Life and Dignity Group have called on the Government to establish a dedicated taskforce to tackle what they describe as an “alarming increase” in coercive abortion cases in recent times. The call follows a number of recent court cases in which men were jailed for violent attacks on their partners, with courts hearing that forcing women to take abortion pi...

If you have been listening to The Agenda over the past number of weeks, you will have heard us following the story regarding the lack of school places in Dunshaughlin in County Meath.  We have spoken to local politicians, local parents and local pre-school owners about how bad the situation is and how it is affecting both parents and children in the area. It was announced last night that The...

With tens of thousands of flights cancelled and the cost of jet fuel soaring, what impact is the conflict in the Middle East having on Irish holidaymakers? Irish Independent Travel Editor Pol Ó Conghaile this week contacted Irish travel agents to see how we are rethinking trips to and through the Middle East, what the alternatives are, and where prices are rising. Pol joined us on The Agenda this...

Dodgy-box end users face legal action from Sky for the first time, the broadcaster has told the High Court. Sky has obtained the names, addresses and bank details of 304 dodgy-box subscribers from a court case against a distributor of the services. It says that it intends to use the information “to take legal actions against the resellers and some of the end users”. Legal proceedings have already...

Louth County Council is to write to the Department of Justice and the D hotel in a bid to establish the future plans for the premises. The Drogheda hotel has been an accommodation centre for asylum seekers since March of 2024. This morning on The Agenda we spoke to Labour TD for Louth, Ged Nash, to get the latest on all of this. We also spoke to Deputy Nash about his calls for Government to to imm...