The Mick Clifford Podcast

Something is happening in this election, but do we know what it is? Mick Clifford asks Professor Gary Murphy of DCU to put in context the changes that appear to be taking place in our politics as Sinn Fein rises in the polls. Gary also puts this election in historical context, comparing it to the couple of similarly major shifts that have taken place in Irish politics since the foundation of the s...

Are we there yet? As the general election campaign enters its final, crucial week the podcast hears from public affairs consultant and Irish Independent columnist Gerard Howlin. In a previous career Gerard was an advisor to successive Fianna Fail governments and he gives an insight into what it is like to be in the eye of the storm during a campaign. He also assesses why the climate change agenda...

We're into the third week of the general election campaign, a crucial period for all those vying for your votes as people are now supposedly beginning to make up their minds. It's a busy week with debates, the last of the manifestos being launched and the requisite campaign controversy. Joining Mick to take the temperature of the campaign and assess who is most likely to make up the next governmen...

Hitting the halfway stage in the general election campaign and the early sorting out between the various sides has been completed. Opinion polls have been published and parsed, and the first leaders' debate between Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin has come and gone. So where does the campaign stand at this stage? Irish Examiner Political Editor Danny McConnell joined Mick to assess the current stat...

The election campaign is now well underway and we have already had two opinion polls and a couple of controversies. A slew of policy papers have been launched, but not much in the way of costing. So what kind of condition are the parties in now heading into the second week? And what impact will the TV debates and manifesto launches over the coming week have on the parties? Mick was joined by Irish...

The starting gun has sounded on the general election campaign. All parties are out of the blocks with promises and pledges but what should this election really be about? The economy is booming but many problems remain, many people feel they are being left behind. One man who has strong opinions on what the election should be about is Dr Sean Healy, director of Social Justice Ireland. He believes t...

Is the past ever behind us? This week a major furore was kicked up over a planned commemoration for members of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Dublin Metropolitan Police, both of which had operated in Ireland prior to Independence in 1922. The controversy ultimately prompted the government to cancel the commemoration. But what did the reaction to the proposal say about how society in the Repu...

Christmas is a time of year to spend with family and friends but what of those who exist beyond the warm, fuzzy glow that permeates much of society during the season of goodwill? Alice Leahy has been working with people whom she categorises as Outsiders for over forty years. The Alice Leahy Trust provides a service for people who are without homes that primarily focuses on a personal touch and ass...

Diarmuid Higgins got a call out of the blue last April telling him that an allegation of sexual abuse had been made against him as part of the garda investigation into Scouting Ireland. The Gardai have been conducting a criminal investigation into allegations of abuse in the scouting body since last year. Among the allegations are a large number that date back decades. Mr Higgins was told a former...

Ray O'Rourke is a native of Co Mayo who began work in London fifty years ago as a labourer and is today the chief executive and major shareholding on the UK's largest civil engineering company, Laing O'Rourke. He spoke to Mick Clifford about the effect that Brexit is having on business and his hopes and expectations of how Brexit will work out once the general election is over and a new parliament...

Ian Bailey is a wanted man. The French authorities have requested the Irish government to extradite him for the murder of Sophie Toscan Du Planter in December 1996. In May of this year a Paris court convicted him in absentia of murder and sentenced him to twenty five years in prison. The Irish DPP has repeatedly declined to bring charges against Mr Bailey on the basis of insufficient evidence. An...

Immigration has entered the political arena again this week with comments from Wexford by-election candidate Verona Murphy about asylum seekers. She suggested that some might need to be "reprogrammed" and that children as young as three could be manipulated by ISIS. Ms Murphy subsequently apologised for the comments. But are attitudes to immigrants, which for so long were perceived as being broadl...

Journalist and broadcaster Alison O'Connor talks to Mick Clifford in this week's podcast about two stories that have dominated the news agenda for the last week and will continue to do so in one form or another long into the future. One element of the fall-out from the sentencing of two boys for the murder of Anna Kriegel that requires detailed analysis is the responsibility of parents to have har...

Figures released this week by the Health Research Board point to a major increase in demand for drug treatment services. In particular treatment for cocaine abuse has rocketed in recent years. Much of this is being attributed to the economic recovery and corresponding so-called recreational drug use. The demand for treatment for the abuse of other drugs, particularly opiates and cannabis, is also...

Paul Murphy has been one of the most high profile TDs in the Dail over the last five years, during which time he and five of his party colleagues were tried and acquitted of the false imprisonment of former Tanaiste Joan Burton during a water charge protest in 2014.The socialist TD who has set up the new political entity Rise, talks to Mick Clifford about what he calls the new green deal, the frag...

This week the podcast interviews Cork boxer Gary Spike O'Sullivan and his trainer, Packie Collins about the upcoming documentary The Prizefighter, based on Spike's shot at the world middleweight title last year. The Prizefighter was written and directed by acclaimed film maker Terry McMahon and provides a unique insight into Spike's journey which was driven by the dream of buying a home for his fa...

The role of the whistleblower in exposing wrongdoing and corruption has come to the fore in recent years. The most prominent case was that of former garda sergeant, Maurice McCabe, but right across society, in the health service, public sector and the corporate world the whistleblower has been active, particularly since the introduction of the Protected Disclosure Act in 2014. Today Mick Clifford...

Last November David McDonald, an assistant chief officer in the prison service, made serious allegations of malpractice about what has gone on in the state's prisons. These included the illegal surveillance of prison officers and the manner in which deaths in custody were mishandled within the service. An inquiry ordered by the Minister for Justice found that most of his allegations had substance....

A young couple died in a fire tragedy in 2002 but it would be fifteen years and another fire later before it was discovered that the building in which they died had serious defects. Louise Wall and Mick O'Farrell were found dead in their apartment in the newly built Verdemont complex in west Dublin by Louise's brother Shane. Questions were asked about how safe the building was but these questions,...

The environmental group Extinction Rebellion have lost faith in the willingness of government and or the capacity of conventional governments to tackle climate change. On October 7 the Irish chapter of the group intends to bring the centre of Dublin to a standstill for a week as part of a campaign of civil disobedience in capital cities across the world. The group is demanding immediate action to...

Gerard Mannix Flynn is a survivor of Ireland's industrial school system, a renowned performing artist and writer, and, for the last decade, a Dublin City councillor. Next month his autobiographical film Land Without God goes on release. The film comes twenty years after his groundbreaking theatrical production, James X.He spoke to the podcast about his early life, his struggles with and recovery f...

Ken Mayers and Tarak Kauff arrived in Ireland from the USA last March intent on a brief visit to support friends protesting against the US military using Shannon Airport. They were arrested and now face a trial for criminal damage. Their passports have been confiscated and they are confined to this country until their trial. They spoke to the Mick Clifford podcast about lives of activism, their fa...

The Mick Clifford Podcast 06/09/2019Mr Brexit Goes To Westminister. In a tumultuous week in UK politics, in which the government lost control of its Brexit agenda, we profile Boris Johnson. From Oxford scholarship boy to journalist who invented stories about ludicrous laws and mores in Europe, on to Mayor of London and finally to the job that he had coveted since childhood. In his first full week...