Could the Israel-Iran war completely destabilise the Middle East?
Sally Hayden and Harry McGee join Jack Horgan-Jones to look back on the week in politics:
Sally Hayden joins the pod on the line from Beirut where
missiles flying overhead
have become a fact of daily life despite the ceasefire agreement Lebanon signed with Israel last November. With
Israel's attention now firmly on Iran
, the rising death toll and continuing aerial attacks from both sides show no signs of abating. And is the
US on the verge of joining Israel's attack
on Iran? What could that mean for stability in the Middle East?
Children's Health Ireland
appeared before the Oireachtas Health Committee this week with politicians eager to tear strips off the
embattled group responsible for running children's hospital services in Dublin
. After so many controversies since its inception in 2018, can CHI be trusted to run the new national children's hospital when it opens? And how will this all be handled by
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll-MacNeill
given her short time as a first-time senior Minister?
Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:
How
AIB came back from the brink
after the crash, and a
misguided viral appeal
following the death of an Irish emigrant in London.
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Irish Times
42 minutes ago
- Irish Times
Delays to housing plan could push it back to September
The Government is discussing a delay to publishing its new housing plan until after the summer. The plan, which is to replace the last coalition's Housing for All approach, was due to be published during July, but it looks as though it could slip into September before it is made publicly available. Senior Government figures said the new plan could not be completed until the publication of a review of how the State is going to fund its multi-year infrastructure delivery programme, which is now expected in late July. That review – of the National Development Plan (NDP) – is expected to add many billions in allocations for roads, public transport, the electricity grid and water infrastructure, among other things. But it needs to be completed before Minister for Housing James Browne publishes the coalition's roadmap for how it will hit its housing targets. READ MORE The potential to push back publication of the housing plan until September is said to have been discussed at a meeting of the Cabinet housing subcommittee. [ No 'special exemptions' for students under latest Rent Pressure Zone system, James Browne says Opens in new window ] While some Government sources believe there is concern about pushing back its publication, others say a delay would have support around the Cabinet table. A final decision on what to do regarding the publication date will have to be made in the coming weeks. It is unlikely that the plan can be unveiled in August, when much of the political system shuts down for the summer break, many civil servants are on leave, and the Dáil is not sitting. A spokeswoman for Mr Browne would not be drawn on a specific date for publication of the report, beyond saying it would be as soon as possible after the publication of the NDP review, which in turn will cover all public capital investment to 2035 and allocate funds from the Apple tax case and AIB share sales, among other sources of capital. Mr Browne's spokeswoman said work on the plan is 'at an advanced stage'. [ The Government is finally showing some political courage in tackling the housing crisis Opens in new window ] 'The next housing plan is due to be published after the publication of the National Development Plan as a matter of priority,' she said. 'This sequencing is necessary, as the housing plan must have certainty around the investment plans and capital programmes for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage before the next plan can be finalised and published.' She said Mr Browne was not waiting for publication of the new plan before pushing forward with measures, including on Rent Pressure Zones reform, planning extensions and exemptions. The previous government also encountered delays when it was seeking to bring forward Housing for All under the former minister for housing, Darragh O'Brien. That document was due to be launched in July 2021, but was ultimately pushed back to September of that year, which drew criticism from the opposition.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Scotch Broth – Frank McNally on Michael Cusack's frustrated hope for a pan-Celtic sports alliance
Soon after he helped set up the GAA in 1884, Michael Cusack was also involved in a campaign for a pan-Celtic alliance to link the cultural and sporting traditions of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. One of his confederates in this enterprise was a Dublin-based Scot of socialist leanings, A Morrison-Miller, whose Caledonian Games exhibitions had already been a spark for the GAA. Together, in 1887, he and Cusack founded a newspaper to promote their joint cause: The Celtic Times. Alas, as it is in Ireland, the first item on the agenda in Scottish politics is the split. Thus in May 1887, to Cusack's disgust, Morrison-Miller was expelled from his own Caledonian Games Society by a Presbyterian faction opposed to the Irish outreach programme. Apart from having a stand in Croke Park named after him, Cusack went on to be immortalised by his portrayal as 'the Citizen' in James Joyce's Ulysses. Or at least by the perception that he is the Citizen. READ MORE In fact, like others in the book, the character was a composite of different people. And insofar as Joyce led readers to believe that the bigoted, anti-Semitic Citizen was him alone, Cusack might have had a case for libel had he lived to see Ulysses published. But as Luke Gibbons pointed out to me during the Bloomsday Festival, the same Cusack may also hold the key to one of the continuing mysteries of Joyce's masterpiece: the anonymous postcard with the message, as interpreted by Mrs Breen, wife of the agitated recipient: 'U.P.: Up.' The simplest interpretation is a slang phrase of the time, equivalent to kaput . If a person or thing was 'U.P.: Up', they were finished. Which might indeed be considered offensive, but hardly the basis for the £10,000 libel suit on which Denis Breen is seeking advice. Cusack, meanwhile, offers a different explanation, as Gibbons found out some years ago when tracking down a full set of the original Celtic Times print run. For there, in Cusack's gossip column of 18th June 1887, is the headline: 'U.P. Up'. Underneath it, Cusack reported the 'extraordinary treble-whip meeting' of the CGS that had 'unceremoniously deposed' Morrison-Miller. The piece includes reference to a 'United Presbyterian' faction, punning on their desire to keep up appearances, and ends by declaring: 'The CGS has died a sudden and unprovided for death. R.I.P.' Elsewhere in his newspaper, Cusack detected a part played in the coup by a shadowy organisation called The Irish Times. He suggested it was trying to wrestle control of the CGS in the same way (as he alleged) that the Freeman's Journal had tried to do with the GAA: 'Is the staff of The Irish Times trying to grab the work of Mr Miller's hands, much as the Freeman tried to grab the work of my hands? Answer at once, Mr James Carlyle, manager of The Irish Times. You signed the circular calling the meeting. Read Carleton's 'Rody the Rover,' and you will find that we ought to be very careful to avoid those practices which little by little qualify us to out-Judas Judas.' We don't know if Carlyle took up the suggestion to read William Carleton's novel about double-dealing among Ribbonmen – a militant Catholic movement of the early 19th century. We do know that the same Irish Times manager also was later namechecked in Ulysses, perhaps with mischievous intent. Even as he ponders the 'U.P. Up' mystery, guessing that Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding 'wrote it for a lark in the Scotch House', Leopold Bloom passes The Irish Times, and admiring the success of its small ads operation, credits 'James Carlisle' (sic), the 'cunning old Scotch hunks'. An effect of the internal coup in the CGS was the cancelation of the Caledonian Games planned for 1887 and their replacement by a 'picnic'. According to Cusack, this caused such an outpouring of letters to The Irish Times that the paper could carry only one tenth of them. Among those that made it in was a satirical proposal that the CGS be renamed the 'Scotch Anti-Irish Bun and Lemonade Society'. In his book Joyce's Ghosts: Ireland, Modernism, and Memory (2015), Gibbons suggests a link between the anonymous postcard and the sectarian commercial wars being fought in Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. Those included the setting up of an undercover Catholic Association, to counter Protestant dominance in business. The Denis Breen of Ulysses was a proudly devout Catholic, said to be related to a senior Vatican clergyman. This is a cause for ridicule in Barney Kiernan's pub. When Bloom sympathises with Mrs Breen's plight, the narrator sneers: 'Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the old stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody povertystricken Breen out on grass…And she with her nose cockahoop after she married him because a cousin of his old fellow's was pew opener to the pope.' If the 'U.P.: Up' postcard was hinting that the pious Breen had secretly joined the United Presbyterians, that might indeed be grounds for a libel case. At the very least, it would explain why his goat was so much – as the expression puts it – up.
Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
Irish embassy in Tehran closed due to ‘deteriorating situation'
The Irish embassy in Tehran, Iran has been temporarily closed with staff being relocated to Ireland amid a 'deteriorating situation'. Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Harris said he had become 'increasingly concerned' about environment in which the embassy was functioning and the ability of diplomatic staff to work safely. 'It is in light of the deteriorating situation, following consultation with my officials and in very close consultation and co-ordination with EU partners, I have now decided to temporarily relocate our personnel from Tehran,' he said. Mr Harris said the relocation of staff was 'not a decision that I have taken lightly.' READ MORE 'Arrangements have been made for the embassy to continue its operations from our Dublin headquarters. Staff at my department's headquarters have now assumed the embassy's consular functions, and they remain in contact with the small number of Irish citizens remaining in Iran,' he said. The arrangements will continue until it is possible and safe for personnel to return to Iran, he said, and thanked ambassador to Iran, Laoise Moore and her staff for operating under 'very, very challenging circumstances.' Mr Harris reiterated advice that Irish citizens should not to travel to Iran or Israel. 'Citizens who live there and who wish to leave might consider departing through one of the land borders that is open as long as it is safe to do so,' he said. Mr Harris said he will continue to monitor the situation in the region and will be engaging with EU counterparts. 'My hope is that a diplomatic solution can be found to resolve this very dangerous conflict without further escalation or further loss of life in Iran or Israel,' he added.
