Here's How ::: Ireland's Political, Social and Current Affairs Podcast

Michael Taft is the Research Officer for Unite the Union in Ireland. He is also a writer who appears frequently on Broadsheet and the Irish Left Review, and writes his own blog at Unite’s Notes On The Front. This is the World Bank economic openness index that I mentioned that shows that Ireland has a […]

Eoin Ó Broin is the newly-elected Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Mid-West. He is a former local councillor in both Dublin and Belfast. The tracking of the opinion polling for Irish political parties, including Sinn Féin, since 2007 is here. This is the text of the confidence and supply agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Dan Mac Guill is a journalist with TheJournal.ie, and he has authored their excellent Fact Check series, including the one that we discussed about the effect of the closure of rural Garda stations. The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul article that I mentioned is here. Details about the shortages of sugar, Coca Cola and […]

Gemma O’Doherty is an investigative journalist who has worked on the disappearance of Mary Boyle, the murder of Fr Niall Molloy and the penalty points cancellation scandal. This is a report in the Irish Independent about Conor Lenihan’s obsequious article praising the Mr Justice Frank Roe who acquitted Richard Flynn in bizarre circumstances.

Jim O’Callaghan is a senior counsel, and TD for Dublin Bay South. He was key to the negotiations between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that led to the formation of the current governmnet. This is the text of the confidence and supply agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Information is here about the Lib-Lab […]

This is Ray’s petition against what he calls the unfair ‘2Tier’ Irish car tax law. This is a table of the current motor tax rates for pre- and post-2008 vehicles. Dr Julien Mercille is a lecturer in the Department of Geography in University College Dublin, and a frequent columnist and media contributor.

Tony Downes is an Administrative Officer in Census Publicity with the Central Statistics Office. Census day is on 24 April, the exact centenary of the 1916 Rising. If you didn’t receive a census form yet, you should call 1850 2016 04 to get one. Information about problems in the US census is here. Note that […]

Cllr Sorcha Nic Cormaic is the Sinn Féin councillor for Dundrum on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, and candidate in Dublin Rathdown. In our discussion, I mentioned this report from the EPA. Cllr John Brassil is the Fianna Fáil councillor for Listowel on Kerry County Council and one of the party’s candidates in Kerry. Seán Kyne TD represents Galway West […]

Paddy Power’s odds on the next government are listed here, and this is Adrian Kavanagh’s analysis of recent opinion polls. Eamon Delaney is the director of the Hibernia Forum, he’s also a writer, journalist and former diplomat. We discussed their general election briefing and mentioned the UN’s target for overseas aid, which Ireland falls far short […]

Bríd Smith is the People Before Profit candidate in Dublin South Central.

Anne-Marie McNally is the Social Democrats candidate in Dublin Mid West. She also writes extensively for Broadsheet and works in Leinster House for the party.

Eamon Ryan is the leader of the Green Party, and a candidate for the Dáil in the Dublin Bay South constituency. This is theJournal.ie article about Glenealy, Co Wicklow persuading candidates not to display posters along with dozens of anti-poster comments, and this is their, and in their online (unscientific) poll, 89 per cent of people […]

Mailo Power, running in Waterford for Renua defends her party’s policies ahead of the election.

With the approach of the election, I hope to interview a candidate for each political group about their platform in the 2016 election. Finian McGrath TD will be running in the election in Dublin Bay North for the Independent Alliance. These are the 10 principles that the Independent Alliance says it will require to give its support to […]

This is the coverage of Patrick Durcan’s comments about Martin McNamara and his 321 previous convictions at Killaloe District Court on 5 January. Conor Cullen is the head of communications and advocacy for Alcohol Action Ireland. In the discussion we talked about the report recommending a minimum price for alcohol, proposed to be €1.00 per unit of […]

Following the interview with Sarah Benson from Ruhama in Episode 21, Gaye Dalton got in touch with me to discuss her personal experience, and how that affects her view or Ruhama’s work. Gaye’s YouTube channel is here.

Sinead Carroll is a solicitor with Ernest J. Cantillon Solicitors. Jason O’Sullivan is the founder of JOS Solicitors. Hugh McElvaney has been a Fine Gael councillor in Monaghan since 1999. He has been central to massive inappropriate rezoning throughout his career as a councillor. The Standards in Public Office (SIPO) Commission has been constantly undermined by […]

I referred to the damage done to children’s education, particularly to disadvantaged children by long school holidays. This is backed up by many studies, including this one from the Institute for Public Policy Research. Dr Garrett McGovern is a GP specialising in the treatment of addiction and Medical Director of the Priority Medical Clinic in Dublin.

Sarah Benson is the CEO of Ruhama. The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity were credited with founding Ruhama on Ruhama’s website up to February 2015, but all references to both those orders have been deleted from the pages of their website since, although some old annual report PDFs still mention […]

Mike’s original audio file is here. This is the Baroness Jay report into the sex abuse scandal in Rochdale, England. These are the UNHCR reports that report 1.7m Syrian refugees in Turkey and 1.8m in Lebanon, a country not much bigger than County Cork. Update: The contributor, Mike, got back to me and queried me for […]

Martin Collins is the co-director of Pavee Point. Fr Micheál Mac Gréil published the study that measures the ‘social distance’ that people feel to various minority groups, and Travellers consistently are measured to be the most marginalised. The health, infant mortality, maternal mortality and life expectancy of Travellers are all much worse than the general […]

Mick Barry is an AAA / Socialist Party councillor on Cork City Council. This is the article, written by Frank Daly of NAMA, (behind paywall, hint open in incognito window) where he claims “Some claim we should have got a better price, but they know there was no bidder willing to pay more,” however the […]

This is a long, detailed article on the violent attack on the Corcoran family. Like almost every other report, in every newspaper, the report omitted that the men convicted of the crime were Travellers. Conor Faughnan of AA Ireland spoke about automating the checking of Tax, NCT and Insurance rather than displaying disks.

This Episode has a major interview with Jamie Bryson, the loyalist blogger and activist about his revelations on the Nama/Project Eagle affair. These are the reports that first uncovered the software designed to cheat on EPA emissions tests when VW cars were tested. This is the report that shows that air quality doesn’t match the […]

NAMA’s Northern Ireland portfolio is named Project Eagle. The entire portfolio was sold to Cerberus. The maximum sentence for lobbying NAMA is six months in prison or a €1,000 fine. Judge Martin Nolan said that it would be incredibly unjust to send the Anglo criminals Pat Whelan and William McAteer to prison for their part in […]

Alan Shatter became minister of justice in 2011. Brian Purcell, his secretary general, was judged to be running a grossly incompetent department. Shatter extravagantly complained that the Guerin Report was a breach of his human rights and called on the Human Rights and Equality Commission to investigate the process, and he humiliatingly lost a case challenging the findings […]

The episode of the Claire Byrne Live show is available here, but RTÉ don’t tend to leave them online for very long. This is the James Reynolds who was presented as a ‘man in the street’ speaking from the audience. Cllr Seamus Treanor, the anti-immigration councillor from Monaghan was identified, he falsely claimed that there are […]

This is the original article where Rosanna Davison claimed that gluten was responsible for autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and arthritis, and here she backtracked, claiming that she merely suggested that ‘gluten-free diets can play a role in helping to manage … auto-immune and neurological disorders’; my emphasis. This is the website where she visually and verbally promotes her […]

David Quinn is the director of the Iona Institute and a columnist with the Irish Independent. The Religious Practice and Values in Ireland study by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference found that half of Catholics don’t believe in hell, a quarter don’t believe in sin or in heaven, almost a third don’t believe in the afterlife […]

Long Term Economic Value (things look more meaningful when they get capital letters) was not an established economic concept when it entered public discourse in 2010. The acronym LTEV did not exist in relation to it before it was applied to NAMA. This is the statement by Ian Coulter saying that he deposited GBP £7m from his employer’s client […]

PARC, the road safety lobby group did a survey of court cases and found that 80 per cent of drivers sentenced to penalty points in court and 96 per cent of drivers disqualified from driving in court did not have their driver licence number recorded by the court clerk. The Moriarty Report was published in […]

In the Marriage Equality referendum, the No side got 37.93 per cent; the Conservative Party got 36.9 per cent in the 2015 general election, and won more than half the seats in the House of Commons. The EU dropping regulations on powerful endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to cancer and male infertility, under pressure from US TTIP negotiators, is reported […]

These are the references for episode seven of Here’s How. This is an excellent explanation of the timeline of the Siteserve deal provided by Broadsheet.ie, and this is their transcript of James Morrissey’s interview on RTÉ. This is the Wikipedia article on the non-denial denial. I misspoke in the recording, the article of Bunreacht na hÉireann privileging […]

Brian Cooke is the Deputy Director General of the Society of the Irish Motor Industry. Fergal Crehan BL is a practicing barrister and Fergal Crehan’s blog. Julian de Spáinn is Árd Rúnaí of Conradh na Gaelige. Catherine Murphy is the independent TD for Kildare North.

The Supreme Court decision on allowing illegally-obtained evidence to be used in court was criticised by Judge Adrian Hardiman. Transparency International lists Ireland as coming in seventeenth place on an index of 175 countries the ‘perceptions of corruption’, putting us in the least corrupt ten per cent of countries. Adrian Weckler is the technology editor of […]

The definition of Economic Openness is here, and this table puts Ireland in fourth place worldwide for economic openness, behind Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Singapore. Pat Leahy, author and journalist with the Sunday Business Post, discusses recent opinion polls and the prospect of the government getting re-elected. Regina Doherty, Fine Gael TD for Meath East, discusses health […]

Deuteronomy chapter 22, verses 28-29, in the King James translation and the Catholic versions of the Bible. Depending on the translation you have, it is ambiguous whether the rule applies to consensual premarital sex, but it is clear that it demands an unmarried rape victim to marry her rapist. Contrary to attempts to explain this away, it is […]

Thanks for help, advice and a plug from the crew at Is It a Bicycle podcast. This is the Ulster Bank Construction PMI report that details a slowing in the growth of construction in Ireland, and this is the Irish Independent article on that report. Dr Darius Whelan is a lecturer in Law at University […]

Episode one – with real, live contributors is here! I’m going to try to list all the sources that I reference in the show on the web page of each show, more or less in order. This is the record of the meeting of Fingal County Council where almost every councillor present – including all […]

Future editions of Here’s How, Ireland’s Political, Social and Current Affairs Podcast will include your phone calls, but episode zero is here mostly to test the system and make sure that everything works smoothly. If you notice any glitches, please report them to [email protected]. Please also share the podcast on Twitter and Facebook, and you can […]