Path to Power

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To learn more about investing in or being involved in the real assets shaping a sustainable future, you can visit the Greenman Group's website at thegreenman.group Hello and welcome to Path to Power. 01:30 Lisanne and Shane Coleman are with me this week. And it's been a quiet week with the Doyle not sitting. Last cabinet meeting, not an enormous amount coming out of that. But there's a few things that we do want to talk about. 01:42 In particular, the near certainty now from the information that I have that Donald Trump will be coming to Ireland in September, barring a last-minute announcement. He is definitely going to the Gulf in Doonbeg and almost certainly coming to Dublin as well. So we'll talk about protests. Also, given that we had an occupation of the Department of Sport this week by the Stop the Game protest as well. And they're ramping up to try and stop Ireland playing against Israel games in Hungary. 02:13 And where's the other game been played? Serbia. Serbia, someplace. It's distantly remote in Serbia that nobody would be able to get to. So we'll talk about that in a little while. But actually, when it comes to sport, I'm really taken by a story this week. Small story in the Irish Independent. John Burns is trying to get a Freedom of Information request in relation to a cost-benefit analysis done for the Ryder Cup in Adair, which is on September next year. 02:40 And this has been refused. The Freedom of Information Commissioner has upheld the request by John Burns to get the information. And what has happened? The department is going to the High Court to try and stop this. which immediately makes me think there must be something in this report. And this is the Streisand effect in that when you try and stop something coming out, you actually call more attention to it. Because if that report had come out, It'll be covered by a newspaper, might get on page one, might not be forgotten about in a day. 03:17 But if it now goes to the High Court and the High Court orders the release of that document, everybody's going to want to know what's in it. And I want to know because already I suspect the costs involved in hosting the Ryder Cup in Adair next year have gone skyrocketed. 03:35 Do we know how much they cost, Mark? Because you've written a good bit about this over the last 12 months. And I mean, we are talking, for the state, are we talking hundreds of millions or certainly many tens of millions? 03:47 Let me just find where this, the information that I've written about before, just to make sure I have the numbers correct. 03:52 Yeah, because I mean, they're I mean, they're literally finishing the Adair bypass. Yeah. 03:57 Now, you could argue that should have been done anyway. Yeah, yeah. 04:00 If you've ever been stuck in the traffic... Oh, I mean, it's a nightmare. 04:03 Yeah, it's a nightmare. I mean, it's great for the... You know, I think they're upgrading Shannon Airport or something as well, aren't they? 04:09 Isn't there a railway station or a special railway station being put in as well? 04:13 Yeah, so I mean, that's... I mean, if that's been folded into the costs, I mean, that's definitely going to send it fairly stratospheric. 04:18 On that one, that's an interesting one because apparently they sold the land previously and it's had to be bought by the old station house and it's costing two million quid to buy it back. And then a temporary platform has been put in place and that's going to cost another million quid to be there for a week or so and then be taken out. 04:36 So it's a bit like planting trees in North County Dublin before an election. It's there for a little while and then it's gone. 04:43 Okay, so let me have a look on the figures, right? So basically last year, September last year, we heard that the government was being asked to chip in another 30 million euro on top of what it was already committed, right? 04:58 58 million already committed before then. 04:59 It gets a little bit complicated, but these things always do, right? Anyway, basically, there was initial... pre-event economic impact study, love the thing, commissioned by Fulch Ireland, which predicted that this would be worth 161 million to 190 million to the economy. 05:17 And create a thousand jobs. And create a thousand jobs. 05:20 Some people said that figure was quite conservative. I mean, if you compare it to the, apparently the money made out of previous World, you know, Ryder Cups, which brought... 05:28 I'm sceptical about, I'm always sceptical about these figures. 05:31 Absolutely. Because I want to go into the history of some of the other ones as well. And how politicians just absolutely love spending money on sporting events and sporting centres. So anyway, sorry, the... 05:44 150 million for the Adair bypass. I think you can park that, so to speak, as something that's legitimate expenditure, not related to the Ryder Cup. But there was to be another 58 million in what was called direct costs. And I'll add another 30 million to that as well. Okay. And let me try and find again some of the figures in relation to how this was all put together. Okay. 06:11 Let me see. Oh, yeah. 06:13 Jack Chambers, a few years ago, did reveal certain details in the Dáil back in 2022, stuff that Shane Ross, the sports minister, previously had refused to unveil. Apparently, the European tour gets paid by the state 22.5 million euro for an event licence fee to run it. Which again, you think, why isn't J.P. McManus paying that? 06:33 Yeah, why is the state paying for that license? 06:35 But that's what they are, right? Then additional financial support of 8.5 million was provided for the Irish Open and Challenge Tour and Legends Tour events scheduled to take place in Ireland up to and including 2027. So that basically means that the state is contributing to the cost of the Irish Open in Doombeg in a couple of months' time, September, okay? And then another $8 million was committed to the European tour for marketing the Ryder Cup, right? So all of these bills... 07:08 So there was $39 million there. Then there was another bill put aside of $14.3 million for operating costs. But now the operating costs, and this was September last year, were to go up by another $30 million or so. And we never really heard much more about it after that, but you can assume that that money has been siphoned off. But the justification for this... 07:28 And this will also be relevant to our initial lumina when we talk about it in a little while. The government is saying, oh, we can't let you see this full document. We're giving you the headline figures, but you can't see it because it's commercially sensitive information. It's like legal privilege. You know, you say, oh no, you can't be seeing that. 07:45 And difficult to understand what exactly the commercially sensitive information is. 07:50 I mean, that's whatever about perhaps something that involved industry. I mean, something around a golf tournament, I can't really see where the 07:56 confidential information comes in They also claim sorry in relation to the cost of money to upgrade the course but that's down to McManus that's his course whatever money he puts into the course 08:09 I mean, he's already, I mean, I mean, I'm not a big fan of golf. I mean, I'm kind of of the opinion, you know, as the quote goes, they call it golf because all the other four letter words were taken. 08:21 A good walk spoiled. A good walk spoiled. But I mean, I did read, you know, some of the figures involved in actually bringing the course up to scratch. I think he spent something like two million per green on every single one of the 18 greens, putting in some kind of special grass, don't ask me the name of it. But, you know, he has already invested so much money in this. And I think you were rightly pointing out, Matt, as well, that there is a penchant among the billionaires of Ireland to have a chance to swan around and swank around the various courses and hobnob with the great and the good when they come in. 09:03 Because there is, as you pointed out, there is a history of this going back to Michael Smurfett and the Ryder Cup in the K-Club in 2006. 09:12 And then we've got the great and good Dennis O'Brien has just been landed the 2031 in Costa Brava. 09:21 So, I mean, how much of this is, you know, this whole malarkey is genuinely money-spinning, of great money-spinning value to the state and how much of it is just an absolute and utter ego trip? 09:34 You see, there's a number of cases and actually, Shane, when I ran into you in the street yesterday, you reminded me of... 09:44 the America's Cup America's Cup the 2024 America's Cup which nearly came to Cork but didn't it did Simon Coveney was championing it and it was described at the time by I think by Simon Coveney as the third biggest sporting event in the world Now, if you went down that street now where we're sitting and asked people what the America's Cup is, how many people would even know? I think a couple of people, well, maybe around Ballsbury's people might know. 10:07 If you go and ask people where I live about the America's Cup, third biggest sporting event in my backside. It just isn't. Some of the figures, we were told at the time it would be worth up to 600 million euro for the economy. It had a global audience apparently of 900 million. 10:25 Do you know, have you ever seen a second of the, I mean, I've seen the odd little news clip about 900 million, apparently somebody did a bit of research, it's about 70 million, and it was going to cost up to 200 million for the state. So, to be fair, that was one that was knocked on the head by people in government. 10:45 But a lot of people wanted to go ahead. But I would be hugely sceptical about the economic benefits and these cost-benefit analyses whenever they're done. 10:53 I'm going to give you a number of other examples. So in recent years in particular, I mean, I'm not sure how much money the state is guaranteeing or spending on bringing the football here in 2028 for the European Championships. 11:08 The state definitely put 10 million quid into bringing American football to Ireland last year. 11:15 The wealthiest sports organisation in the world, American football, and we, the taxpayer, are subsidising them to come to Dublin. 11:24 I mean, you have to question... Was there a benefit in that? By spending 10 million, does that not bring tens of thousands of tourists into the country last year? High-spending tourists who did spend... They were high-spending tourists, yeah. Not just around Dublin, but lots of them headed off all around the country playing golf and visiting other places. I mean, the same, I don't know how the government's support for the colleges of American football is much smaller, but that has become a major tourist distraction every year. 11:50 You can maybe make a case for a small... 11:51 Yeah, and that was, I think, is possibly a good one because it was covered fairly extensively on American television. It was carried extensively and there was beautiful shots of Ireland and so on like that. 12:02 Can I, I mean, I have this thing about this idea that because people see an event on the telly, that they go, oh, I must go there. I am deeply sceptical. Have you ever looked at a sport? The only one I can ever remember is Barcelona, the Barcelona Olympics. And you remember the diving board and there was a view of the city in the backdrop. And I did look at that and go, oh, I have to go to Barcelona. But like the last Ryder Cup was in Rome. I mean, did that make me want to go to outside Rome? No, it didn't. Would you want to go to Rome because of the Gulf? Well, you'd be right, Philistine, if you went to Rome. 12:33 Because of the Gulf. Because of the Gulf. The Colosseum, no. 12:36 Never mind the old ruins. 12:39 The Gulf brought me. I am... hugely, hugely sceptical. 12:44 Can I tell you, apparently, already though, golf clubs around the country are coining it from Americans who are coming in advance of the Ryder Cup. So, apparently, some golf clubs down in Kerry and on the West Coast and the rest of it have had to put their prices up because... Their green fees. Their green fees, as they call it. Here's the thinking behind it. If Americans aren't being charged €375 or €500 around, they think the course isn't any good. 13:13 They don't value it. 13:14 They don't value it. So you actually put the price up and then the Americans come to it. 13:20 There is an economist called Andrew Zimbalist, a US economist, and he's done extensive research on this. And his bottom line is, big events rarely, if ever, deliver on their economic promises. And that would be my view as well. 13:35 Montreal was nearly bankrupted by the 1976 Olympic Games. What benefit economically did London get out of hosting the Olympics in 2012? Now, I think I thought the 2012 Olympics in London were brilliant. They were brilliant, yeah. 13:50 They were brilliantly run and did a huge amount for the profile, I suppose. 13:54 But again, did people go to London because the Olympics were on there? No. People knew about London as a destination anyway. No, exactly. 14:01 I mean, you could nearly make the argument that certainly as a tourism, I suppose, lure... 14:08 it's far more effective to send Irish fans away. 14:11 If you think of the bump like tourism got in Ireland after, say, Italia 90 and so on, because people genuinely saw the Irish fans and said, that place looks like a bit of crack, let's go on our holidays there. So, I mean, you could nearly argue that, you know, actually the away fixtures rather than the home ones. 14:29 You make a brilliant point, Lise, as well, because invest in sport. Don't invest in sporting events. That's where the money should be going. 14:37 Well, that's what I was just about to come to because there were people who were concerned about the FAI who haven't, as usual, set a brilliantly convincing case as to the benefits of being a co-host for the Euros in 2028. And a lot of people are saying, well, the money should have been invested instead in ground-up facilities, basic facilities. for children, for young adults, whatever, encourage. And my argument on that would be The best investment this state makes in sport is in things like GAA. 15:09 And what you would have seen last Sunday in Croke Park with Mayo win is the best advertisement for investing in communities and children and everybody in our own sports in Ireland. And then they will develop. And I suspect there might be a lot of people will come to Ireland to see Gaelic games based on all the videos that have gone around the world of what happened with Mayo last Sunday. 15:34 That's some advertising. 15:35 Well, I mean, that is extraordinary advertising. And I think the overwhelming response from a lot of people who are looking at this for the first time was, so you're telling me this is actually an amateur sport. They can't, you know, when they saw the clips. Now, people did rightly point out that this is the sort of the, you know, last Sunday was the marquee occasion. It's the final. Croke Park is packed. 15:59 But then, you know, people did say, well, look, you know, this is a grassroots game. Every community has a couple of teams. It's active. 16:08 And that is because they do have funds. It is funded. But there's lots of sports that... that aren't, that don't have that luxury. And we've seen time and time again, when you invest in a sport, the dividends quite quickly become obvious. I mean, it's not that long ago that you had the women's football team sitting in a press conference going, you know, discussing how they had to share tracksuits and change for at-away games in toilets. 16:40 And the Ferrari caused by that shamed the usually unshamable FAI into coughing up some money. And now look, you know, now we have a world-class team. 16:49 Well, I mean, how much did this temporary platform cost? Is it a million quid, you were saying? 16:55 Yeah, and two million to buy back the bit of land for us. Three million in total. 16:59 The League of Ireland had to do a major lobbying campaign, a huge lobbying campaign over a number of years to finally get... two or three million from the state for investing in the academy system for Irish football. Something that other countries have shown you get a return. I think our academy system, in terms of the number of coaches and so on, I think we're the joint third worst in Europe. There's countries that are investing huge amounts of money to get two or three million quid to invest in academies, which we know we'll get a return on in the future. 17:31 took a huge lobbying campaign and then a million quid is doled out for a temporary platform, I despair. 17:37 I'm not too worried about the FAI show. They'll have Gianni Cinquantino's 35 million. No, they won't. That ain't going to happen. It ain't going to happen, yeah. 17:47 Yeah, okay. But I suppose when it comes to sport as well, and you mentioned the sailing thing to me, and I suddenly started thinking, I must find other examples. But one of the funnier examples, a little bit different, but showing how politicians indulge the sports in which they're interested in. And this goes back to the turn of the century and an equestrian center of Pontchastown. I don't know if you remember this. Oh, God, yeah. I do. It's going back. It is going back. And this was a... McCreevey shed, wasn't it? John O'Donoghue. No, it wasn't John O'Donoghue. 18:19 My apologies. Joe Walsh, as Minister for Agriculture. Agriculture Minister, yeah. He was a mad horse racing fan. And Charlie McCreevey. 18:28 Also a mad horse racing fan. 18:30 And Punches down in the middle of McCreevey's constituency. 18:33 Totally coincidental. 18:34 And the end of spending, which would still be a big sum now, but was an enormous sum 25 years ago, $14.3 million on this equestrian centre in Pontchastown. It started with an initial investment of a million, Then it got doubled and then they just started adding, adding. And it just kept going through without a nod and no cost-benefit analysis. So while we're sceptical about the cost-benefit analysis that we get now to justify things like the Ryder Cup coming to Ireland and things like the Euro 2028 and another one, if I just remembered as well. 19:10 Do you remember our bid to win the World Cup for 2023 in rugby? 19:15 Again, cost-benefit analysis and that. But we didn't win that one, possibly. But anyway, McCreevey and Walsh pony up all the money for the equestrian centre. Our money, 14.3 million. 19:30 It's mad. But when you talk about cost spiralling, when I was rooting around, it's not quite the same thing, but it's similar to, the great yarn about the Bertie Bowl popped up, you know. And again, that was quite a, I mean, it's a fantastic story. But again, that's an example of something that I think it was when, you know, it was originally pitched. 19:55 I think the cost was something for, yeah. And by the time that the last review of it, the costs had been done, the costs had, of course, the project was in excess of one billion. 20:10 was the projected cost of this. It was the very last analysis. 20:13 That would have made it the world's most expensive sports stadium by a distance. Yeah. Though wasn't that also wrapped in with the national campus, didn't they say as well? It was. That that was the costs involved in that. And I'll tell you how that Bertie Bowl came about as well, and this is going around full circle. And I have to be careful here for legal reasons, but if I do remember correctly, the initial idea for a stadium out there was proposed by J.P. McManus and Dermot Desmond, and they were willing to put up a big chunk of the money for it. And Bertie said, no, this is the state's responsibility. 20:45 The state will do it. 20:47 Yeah, I mean, that was a cherished project of him, of his. It was. I mean, he did castigate There was a story where he, I think he attended a match in Lansdowne Road and it was lashing rain and so on. And he just decided this was the opportunity where this, you know, this proof that we needed and, you know, a new stadium and anybody that critics of his plan were Egypt's, Nitwits and Dimwits, I think was the... when he used that term I'm fairly sure that was when he used those terms yeah it was thinking he described you know people as eejits and dimwits if they thought that you could play all different codes of sport rugby and football and camogie under the one roof in the same stadium so but again that was a classic example of something that started off you know, sounding like a reasonable project. 21:38 And then it grew and grew and grew and grew and the figures started spiralling. I think at one stage, the Department of Finance estimated that the whole cost would be about 400 million. So, again, this is something that just, you know, and it was knocked on the head by Michael McDewell, of course. 21:53 Imagine trying to get out to Abbottstown for a match. 21:56 I know. 21:56 And Michael McDougall, I think, put the final nail in the coffin when he described it as a Ceausescu-style project. 22:05 He did. 22:06 And that was the end of that. 22:08 Well, as it happens, I mean, they were right because it's been shown on apparently the best stadiums in the United States for the World Cup were the ones in city centres where people have easy access and that's the attraction of Croke Park and Lansdowne Road. Now you can probably argue Lansdowne Road, the Aviva Stadium costs more than it should have and the state did contribute partially to that as well. It's money well spent though, isn't it? But we have the world's best two, three-quarter stadiums. We do. 22:35 We do. Sadly, that is true. 22:40 Nobody builds a three-quarter stadium like we do. 22:43 Okay, and just before we finish, before we go to the break though, And those figures that I gave you for the money that was committed to getting the Ryder Cup, and this is the important thing, money was given to the European Tour, the DP World Tour, to ensure that the Irish Open Golf Tournament would continue. And then who gets, after last year's success in the K-Club, which was regarded, suddenly it was announced we're heading off to Doombeg this September. So the government has a role in that and paid for that. 23:15 And of course, who is definitely going, my understanding is from information that I've got this week, is that it's all systems go now preparing as far as there's a Trump is coming to Doombeg. And it is also... 23:30 I'm told 95% certain he's coming to Dublin as well. 23:34 Wow. 23:35 which will be interesting. 23:36 Interesting. 23:37 Interesting is probably an understatement. 23:39 It'll be bonkers. You see, it's going to be relatively easy, I would have thought, to police Doombag. It's remote. You can keep the protesters away from the golf course. 23:51 I mean, there's one course, yeah, there's literally one sort of road in, one road out. 23:54 And it's a narrow road in. 23:55 And last time when I was down there for the last, I was actually down there on site during his last visit in 2017. 24:03 And I think I stayed there the night before, but obviously I was turfed out the day of. But I woke up to the site of... In the hotel? Yeah. And I woke up to the site of a massive gunship or warship, American warship, lurking just beside the dunes. And I was... Quite startled to see it. Inside our territorial waters. Right inside our territory. 24:27 Not outside the 12-mile excursions. 24:29 I could have swam out to it and I'm not the Mae West staffer about 100 metres. So, you know, I think that it is easy enough to police by land, sea and air. But Dublin? that's going to be a totally different story. 24:42 Particularly, I mean, the word is that they're very keen on him breaking ground for the new embassy, just about 500 metres away from where we're recording in Ballsbridge, more or less across the road from the existing American embassy on the site of the old Jury's Hotel. And that's where the new American embassy is to be built. And given his love of a building, I'm sure the Trump Dublin embassy will be... Let's hope he's not designing it as well. Can you imagine all the gold that's going to be pressed into service for that? 25:12 As much gold as Sean Dunn had planned for the site when he was going to build there, is it? 25:18 I'd say more or less about the same. It's, yeah, I mean, I have to say thoughts and prayers to the Gardaí economy because they've enough on their plate at the moment, obviously with the EU presidency and all the various European poobas in and out and all the security attendant with that. So now they're going to have this on top of it. 25:38 The other thing I was interested in is that if you know the site, the old Berkeley Court was beside it and it's now some of the most expensive apartments in the country are there. But are all of the people going to be cleared out of their own apartments in case... 25:55 I'd like to see them try and clear those blocks out. 25:57 But think about it as a security issue. I mean, to make sure, I mean, like, God, forgive me for saying this, to make sure nobody would try and take a shot at Trump. There's an enormous amount of buildings in that area are going to have to be cleared, presumably, of people. 26:12 Well, certainly vetted anyway, which maybe not to the pleasure of people living there. 26:17 The well-heeled citizens or denizens of it. 26:21 The well-heeled denizens. But, you know, again, if you recall when Barack Obama was here in 2011, The only glitch in his entire visit was when the car got stuck on the grating of the ramp going into the American Embassy in Bowles Bridge. The beast got stuck. 26:39 Thank God it was on American soil, not Irish soil. 26:42 That's what everybody said at the time, so everyone just sat back and let them figure it out for themselves. But Look, it isn't the guards and the security forces first rodeo. I mean, back in 2011, it was one of those situations where heads of state are like buses you hang around for ages and two come together because they had Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth literally within a week of each other land on Irish soil. And they filed a bomb plot against the Queen. And they did. Good point. They absolutely did. And the way these work, I mean, the advanced teams roll in And they literally take, well, they certainly try and take over. 27:20 And literally everywhere the president steps is regarded more or less as American soil. And it's their responsibility. But I can imagine that it would be a case of several protests coming together. I mean, you'll have all kinds of, you know, people. It could be a mega protest. 27:36 It's only six or seven weeks away when you think about it. That's why my understanding is all the preparatory work is underway at present. Cardi and the rest of it, they're running all of the tests and everything like that in relation to it. 27:49 Well, that's going to be a far more difficult area, obviously, to shut down. I mean, I don't know what the zone of exclusion would be, but it would have to be fairly wide. And that's going to cause maximum disruption as well. 28:01 And then to bring them to government buildings? 28:04 I, yeah, who knows? I mean, he... You have to. You kind of have to. I think it might be national work. 28:12 Unless you're a protester and then you'll be working hard at the protests. 28:16 Well, there you go. It'll be back to COVID times. Lots of people walking around with masks and the rest of us at home. We do love a good protest in Ireland, don't we? Actually, you love a good protest. And I think this could be an absolutely massive one because... You know, protesters don't really need a lot of time. You know, they can get that together fairly quickly. 28:34 And, you know, he could be, the protest could be on protesting his involvement in any number. Many, many things. I mean, any number of things. So it could be kind of a, he does like a mega protest. You know, he likes great numbers. He does. I got the biggest protest I ever had in Ireland. Exactly, I know. 28:54 Okay, but just before we take the break, but also, and I do want to talk about Anish Illumina and reports after the break, but Brendan Ogle, who's a regular in this program as well, and Fintan Drury, who was a guest recently as well on this program, are two of those who are very prominent now in the Stop the Game campaign. 29:12 And despite the fact, as I said at the outset, and I couldn't remember that it's Serbia where the Irish home game against Israel is to be played and the away game is to be played in Hungary, they're determined amongst a group of other people that they're going to continue the protest, that the match not being in Dublin is not enough, that the match should not go ahead anywhere. So what sort of political involvement do you expect in this, Shane in particular, given that Will the government be one to seem to step in, maybe perhaps thinking that the ball had been passed elsewhere? 29:45 I don't see the government. Look, I think this is done. I don't see the government stepping in. If they hadn't stepped in at this point, why would they step in now? I think the matches will go ahead in Hungary and Serbia. 29:55 I think the FAI were putting an impossible position. I really do. I think it's on UEFA. Israel should have been kicked out of the term. Israel, we know, broke UEFA's rules in terms of playing games on occupied territories. They should have been kicked out. The FAI, to be fair, led that. They put forward a motion. It wasn't accepted. The FAI are completely on their own. Sorry, Ireland is completely on their own. This isn't an issue in Kosovo or Austria. Those games are going ahead. Scotland, which we regard Scotland as being kind of similar to us, particularly in their views on Palestine and Israel. 30:29 The Israeli women's team played a game there quite recently. There was no issue whatsoever. 30:34 Norway played in the World Cup qualifiers against Israel despite being as strong as Ireland is and taking its pro-Palestinian position. 30:42 I respect the passion of the people who believe the games shouldn't be played. I completely understand why they believe that. But I also think Ireland not playing those games would achieve absolutely nothing. No other countries would row in behind us. I think we'd lose... We'd lose six points. It would make it more likely Israel would qualify for a tournament in the future. We would suffer huge repercussions. 31:07 They might ironically be back here in 2028 as a participant. 31:10 It could ensure that they're back on a world stage. I personally, I don't see what a boycott would achieve. But it's a principled moral stance. 31:21 Yeah, it's a moral. I suppose, look, it's a moral... The argument is moral. And, you know, when you... when the people are very passionate, you know, behind Stop the Game are understandably very passionate and their argument is, you know, this by literally participating in this, that it is not standing up, taking a stance against what is you know, regarded, widely regarded as a genocide going on in Gaza. You have about, you know, I mean, the numbers are staggering over 20,000 children killed. 31:54 And one UN commission report recently said that the children were being deliberately being targeted by the Israeli forces. We all know the figures. They're absolutely terrible. Yeah. And I think, you know, feelings, the public are, you know, I think quietly are very upset about this, to be honest. 32:12 And I think it was interesting at that press conference during the week that Stop the Game held and they were talking about, you know, say SIP2 members getting involved and there's a game coming up against Austria in, yeah. 32:29 Between the two Israel games. 32:33 getting at forces to stop, you know, to stop, say, people getting to the game, transport. 32:37 That's ludicrous. We're now going to boycott the Austria game. 32:40 It's bonkers. I don't think we're so much in frame as a boycott. 32:44 People are talking about that not working, you know, that it would be not stopping people going, but that services would be withdrawn for the Austria game. 32:53 But you see, people are upset by this. Some people are upset. Some people are. But then again, I mean, if you look back to, I mean, look back to, you know, the 1984 and the Dunn strike. I mean, that was, you know, a small group of people who, of young girls, essentially, or young women, who felt massively strongly about apartheid to South Africa. And took a stand that literally then eventually after nearly three years did lead to the government changing its policy. 33:25 Although it did not enjoy widespread popular support and it did not impact on Dunstor's business as it happens. No, it didn't. People continued going doing their shopping at Dunstor. 33:34 Yes, they did. But some people took a moral stance and they did have a lot of public support for that. 33:39 It very slowly grew and it wasn't enormous. It slowly grew. 33:43 But I suppose the point is they're not necessarily completely comparable. But I think that there's a lot of people do feel strongly that they feel very helpless in the wake of what's going on and the face of what went on and to some extent still continuing in Gaza. And a lot of people see this as, you know, OK, we, you know, it completely and utterly buggers up the Irish football team's chances of getting anywhere for the next few years. But I mean, in the great scheme of things, is it more important just to take that moral stance? 34:16 I'm not necessarily saying that this is the opposing point of view. 34:19 Yeah, no, no. Look, I totally respect that view. I get where people are coming from. My question is, what will it achieve? Like, if it was a case of Ireland joining a boycott of other nations against Israel, I'd be absolutely first in the queue, I think. And like what you said about Israel and what they've done in Gaza and... in Palestine is undoubtedly true. But what will it achieve? No country will join in with this. This idea, I've heard people say, if we do it, other countries will join in. The Eurovision, we pulled out the Eurovision with three other countries. It made zero difference. 34:51 If we do this, it'll be a one-day story around the world and then it'll change nothing. If I thought it would change one thing, if I thought it would save one life, I'd be all for it. But I do not believe it'll make any difference. And by the way, on public opinion, the latest opinion poll people are pretty divided on this. There's about half the population who support the game, boycotting the game fully. And then the other half are split between play it abroad, play it, go ahead and play it as is, play it behind closed doors. So there isn't one universal opinion on this, universal is the wrong word, there isn't one common opinion on this. 35:27 I mean, I suppose, look, it's a shame that When you have a situation where almost overnight UEFA can literally put out a massively united statement when the finances are under threat and when money comes into scene, it's an awful shame you could argue that they couldn't show that same leadership and unanimity around something as serious as what's going on in Gaza. And UEFA should have done that. 35:48 UEFA should have kicked Israel out of the tournament for their breaches and their rules. 35:52 When money's on the table, it's amazing how they can quickly circle wagons around. 35:56 I interviewed Bob Geller just very quickly. I interviewed Bob Geller recently. Now, I have to stress he was not talking about the stop the magic. He wasn't talking about that at all. But he made this point about he said he gets approached all the times for campaigns. And his his view is if I can be involved in a campaign that will make a difference, that will actually change something, I'll do it. But if it's a campaign that's just about setting out a position and taking a stand for the sake of taking a stand without making any difference, he will not get involved. 36:27 And I think that's not a bad philosophy. 36:29 Okay, we'll take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about Achanish Illumina and other things and give you a little bit of a preview of what's coming up on Passport over the next couple of weeks as well. That's after this break. Today's episode is brought to you by The Greenman Group. It's answering a critical question, how to invest in a sustainable future in real, tangible terms. Its answer lies in three areas – the energy transition, the places we live and shop, and the future of our food supply. The Greenman Group's strategy is to own and operate the physical infrastructure in these sectors, from solar energy generation and EV charging, to agricultural projects and grocery-anchored real estate. 37:11 By building, managing and optimising these areas via its investment and operational businesses, the group aims to build resilience and deliver long-term value. Explore its approach at thegreenman.group Welcome back to Path to Power. Just to let you know that over the next couple of weeks, we've already recorded because of the August holiday break. And next week, we'll be giving you a really interesting discussion, debate between former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Conor Murphy of Sinn Féin in relation to United Ireland. 37:44 So they go through in details to the likelihood of a united Ireland, how it would be brought about, what would have to be done. So I think you'll find it to be a fascinating conversation between the two of them. The following week, John Deasy and myself are going to have an assessment of every individual government minister. And John, we've recorded that, John really got going on that, so you can hear what he thinks about Ireland. Stop sniggering the two of you. I was just thinking I bet he did. I know, that's exactly my thought entirely. Okay, so that'll be John Deasy and myself on each individual government minister in detail. 38:20 And we also have a couple of subscription editions recorded as well. One very interesting one, given that health is always such a major issue issue for people. We have the president of the Irish Hospital Consultants Association, Gabrielle Colloran, and really, really interesting as to what she and the doctors think need to be done to sort out our health issues in the hospitals. And given that there's been a bit of conflict over the last few months with Jennifer Carol McNeill, the health minister, and then something entirely different because there's a new book coming out next month by Kevin Rafter, the academic and journalist and broadcaster. 39:02 And he has written a book about Vincent Brown's McGill, the decade, sort of a long decade from 1977 to 1990. These are the key years of McGill as a publication. And it's absolutely fascinating. And we've lost the stories in relation to Vincent Brown and others who were editors like Colm Tobin and Fenton O'Toole and the interaction with the political system, but also it really just how that magazine covered some of the really big stories, political stories of the time, social stories, what it revealed about the arms trial of 1970, things like the Kerry Babies and everything. 39:41 So I think if you're a subscriber, you will find that one to be a particularly interesting one as well. So that's all the stuff that's coming up. 39:48 Can I just say, I remember as a young fellow reading the arms trial, McGill did. Did they get the papers or whatever? 39:55 Peter Berry, who had been the secretary of the Department of Defense, he had died. But before he died, he had been talking to Vincent Brown and he had provided him with his diaries. And Vincent then used the diaries... 40:07 I remember reading it agog as a young fella and just thinking, wow, this is what journalism is really about. 40:13 Yeah, and it did. I mean, it was one of those publications that really broke ground and, you know, was serious about investigations and was... Against that, I also remember reading their coverage of the 1979 All-Ireland Final, written by Vincent Brown. 40:29 And suffice to say, it was not expert sports analysis... 40:34 Will you stop? I want Vincent to come in here as a guest to talk about his Charles Hawley biography which is due out and knocked over. 40:41 He's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. 40:43 Sport may not have been his forte. 40:44 Sport was not his forte. 40:47 OK, right, let's move on. And Anish Illumina remains in the news, mainly due to the reporting of Conor Gallagher in the Irish Times, who I think has done fantastic work. He's done a fantastic job, yeah. And I don't think he deserved Niall Collins, the junior minister, on RT Radio last Sunday. implying that there had been poor reporting by newspapers and misinformation and the rest of it. Particularly when you have a situation where the government is claiming that the full report on A Honish Illumina can't be published because of commercial sensitivities and reasons. 41:21 And Conor is able to point out... He'd seen the entire report. That's not in it. 41:26 Yeah. 41:26 That's not in it. And also they were able to point out information that the government report was not able to get could be purchased for 25 euros in Sweden. Yeah. Sweden tax report. This looks like, you know, I mean... twisting it, you know, you get the report that you pay for. And I think there's a certain element here that the government only wants a report that goes so far, but doesn't provide enough information to make the situation at Autonition Illumina more difficult. Why don't you take this place? 41:54 Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. It's the classic case of the Irish government not wanting to offend anyone. And they're essentially, with this report, they're going, well, maybe, but we're not sure. 42:09 I think it's not a question of offending them. I think they want to save all the jobs in Arnishaluma. 42:13 Well, that's what I mean. But offend people. So not offending the locals, you know, I mean, it does employ almost 2,000 people down around the area. So it's not going to cast fear and anger among the employees of this plant. 42:28 They're trying not to anger various EU countries, members of the EU who are concerned that the stopping of any exports from the plant will actually have a mass effect on their own particular supply chains. 42:46 And they're essentially trying to, you know, they're trying to weave that path between we're not, you know, they don't obviously want to annoy Ukraine by saying, you know, well, nothing to do with us, boss. So, the usual thing was, they circled the wagons, they went to ground, they said, we can't get access to information which the Irish Times, and particularly Conor Gallar, has been able to go not so fast. This information is out there. And They're just foot dragging and they release a summary of the report that absolutely says nothing at all. 43:25 This isn't the first time we've seen this example of don't give information. And it should be literally written in neon signs over the door of government buildings. It's the cover-up that'll kill you. I mean, being opaque about finances, about processes, time and again, it's actually worse than if you actually put all the information out there. We've seen this time and again, where they drag their heels about, you know, revealing the full costs of there's, you know, we've seen them drag heels on several occasions over releasing money about Metrolink, about the cost of Metrolink. 44:03 That's an ongoing thing at the moment. even at the children's hospital, time and again, the figures have to be dragged out of them. 44:11 We're doing a report, we're doing an analysis, we're doing a risk analysis, we're doing this analysis. Kick it a touch, try and get out of the dull term, try and get beyond the budget before they have to try and get beyond an election before the full facts are known. 44:25 But unfortunately, I think for the Irish government, when it comes to Anish Illumina, there's a huge international interest as well. So they can't keep the lid on this with the same effectiveness that they can if they're just dealing with the whole media. 44:38 It's like an episode of, yes, Minister, I don't know if many of our younger listeners will remember it, but it's like, we have a problem with all Inish Illumina. Well said, Arsene. Well done. Drop the G's. We usually find it hard to drop the G's. But don't worry, Minister, we'll set up a report. And we'll kick that report down the line as much as we possibly can. And then finally, when the report comes out, I mean, it took months for a report. It should have taken a lot shorter to come out. When a report comes out, the minister said, so we haven't found any evidence that the Illumina doesn't go to the Russian war machine. 45:16 No, minister. We haven't found any evidence that it does go to it. 45:20 I mean, it's... 45:22 It's Jesuitical. The government's position on this is Jesuitical in the extreme. And they're hoping this will go away. They're kicking the can down the road. 45:31 It's deeply, deeply unsatisfactory. We're talking the talk about supporting Ukraine. But the very real question is, are we actually walking the walk? Are we willing to actually make the necessary sacrifices? 45:45 We've just thrown another 125 million euro their way. 45:48 Yeah, and I think that's a positive thing. I think it's a good thing, but... 45:54 But it's dancing in the head of a pin, isn't it? It is. I mean, the argument is, well, we don't know that that's necessarily going to, you know, directly to the creation of armaments. But, you know, as people have pointed out, even if it isn't, that means it's freeing up supplies to go and make the supplies of armaments. So there's no win in this. There's absolutely no win in this. And it's, you know... 46:21 They're going to, by trying to please everyone, they're just going to annoy everyone. Exactly. 46:25 They're going to cheese everyone off. And you summed it up at the start. Why is a journalist able to reveal more about this story than all the state, the machinery of the state? Even at this point, Conor Gallagher and the Irish Times have told us more about what's happening. 46:41 And when Conor Gallagher announced that he had this material, nobody came near the Irish Times to say, could, you know, from the government department saying, well, you know can we have a look at that I mean he came out and said we haven't had an approach you know from anybody to sort of say can you give us your figures and so on so we can bolster up you know our report and our document so you know it's not a good look and it makes Ireland look like an unserious country when it comes to actually you know standing by the principles 47:09 Are we a serious country when it comes to climate change? When we see what's happening with the fires burning in France and Spain, we have some fires as far as in Britain as well. We had the climate change advisory group out again this week. 47:24 And as it turns out, we actually, the emissions from our buildings fell during the winter, but ironically, it's because it was a warmer winter. 47:33 And we said, so do we take this seriously enough? 47:36 No. Not remotely. Not even remotely. And, you know, that's on the government, but it's also on us as a people. No, we're not. I don't think we're remotely interested. We talk about hear no evil, see no evil. That is our, that's our view on global warning. 47:50 But we're not burning. I mean, we're not having fires like they're having in France and Spain. So why do We're getting slightly nicer weather. Haven't we been enjoying the summer? 47:59 Unfortunately, Matt, that is exactly what people are actually thinking. Whether or not they're saying that. But even little things, like small things. Look, we signed up for the nitrates directive again or derogation from that. 48:12 I think it's another three years. And we know in three years' time there'll be huge pressure on the government yet again to extend that. We're a laggard on global. All the stats point to that. And look at this. You mentioned retrofitting. Our stats on retrofitting, we fail to hit targets. 48:32 We failed miserably to hit our targets on heat pumps. I think the target was 45,000 by 2025. We've got less than half that. We're not interested. And there's no, there's no, look what happened to the Greens in the last general election. That is a lesson to anyone who puts climate change first in this country. The message to the Greens was hands off our way of life. We like how we're doing things and let's keep the head down and hope for the best. 48:57 Still mining bogs, not planting trees that are actually more fire resistant than others. I was fascinated listening to somebody explain this, how a lot of our native woodland is much harder, doesn't tend to burn at the same rate and speed. 49:16 Try and talk people out of burning, saying, oh, we have to burn on hills and so on like that. Most of the experts say, well, no, you actually don't. 49:26 But again, it does come back to this notion that it is, and I hate, you know, in one way the word is so hackneyed these days, but mehel, you know, when you have the people actually rally around something as well as the government. I mean, the government needs to make the... 49:42 make stands but you know people do have to understand that we can't go on and we have had in our we've been lucky we have had a lovely summer I mean it's been a it has been a lovely summer it's been glorious it's been glorious but that's because we've rarely gone over 30 degrees whereas parts of Europe are hitting 40 regularly I mean, it's absolutely insane. Something like one million acres or one, I think it's one million acres of land have already been burned across the European continent. 50:13 People have died of heat stroke. Some of the fires have actually created their own climate, which have, they've created storms, which have now, which actually cause thunderstorms, lightning, which starts more fires. I mean, this is sort of a fairly apocalyptic, And we're sitting here in Little Island going, ah, well, you know, I still want to be able to, you know, hose my garden. Why would I buy, you know, why would I retrofit shortly? It'll be grand. But it'll be grand won't do anymore. 50:44 Okay, but let me throw a few things out just to be contrarian about it. That far more people die of the cold in Europe every year than die from heat. So that if Europe becomes less cold... 50:56 I'd like to see those figures by the end of this year, because the number of deaths this year in every single country from heat at this stage has at least doubled, if not travelled. 51:06 Yeah, but you'd still find there'll be still many more people die of cold. But that's not to say that we want people dying of either cold or heat, but I'm just putting it out. 51:14 Climate change, by the way, is actually about extreme weather. So extreme cold is caused by climate change too. 51:20 Yeah. Good point. You also would have the situation whereby the amount of emissions that have been caused by war in bombing by Israel of Gaza, the Americans of the Middle East, that creates more emissions than we can ever save in a year. 51:36 Okay, but with respect, Matt, isn't that kind of water boundary? 51:40 I'm deliberately putting this water boundary there. And every time we cover it on my show, for example, people text me and say, sure, you know, there's X number of coal-powered state generators opened up in China every year. So there's nothing we can do actually matters. 51:55 The Chinese are doing more for wind and solar energy than anything else. Yeah, they are. 52:00 But, you know what, like, the really interesting thing is how ironic will it be if it's if it's wildfires in Spain and France that actually get us to sit up and take notice. We know that global warming has been impacting on developing nations for years, has been costing lives in developing nations for years. But it's only when it's the places we go on holidays to that we sit up and take notice. We're very big on values in this country and expressing outrage about things. I think we need to take a long, hard look at ourselves in the mirror on that because it's only when it comes close to home that we actually sit up and take notes. 52:36 There will be serious outrage expressed when we miss our targets and are hit with massive fines as well, which could be up to 20 billion. 52:42 Do you think we're actually going to be hit with those fines? I don't think the European Union is going to collect those because it means every country would be getting fined. 52:49 Yeah, well, they might. 52:51 Well, our fines will be bigger than anybody else. I think that's pretty clear. 52:54 We're, you know, we're missing the targets by, you know, a fair old whack. But, you know, I mean, again, it's just, I'd love, you know, we'd just love to see a bit of joint up thinking in this. I mean, you know, even even look at things like electric cars. 53:07 I know lots of people, including myself, would have loved an electric car, but I'd have nowhere to, I'd have nowhere to charge it. Similar. 53:15 So, and again, they've been dragging their heels about trying to really put a network of, you know, pumps or sorry, not chargers across Ireland. Then people would actually probably take that step. So again, it's just saying, OK, here's six things that we are really going to do. 53:34 And this is the difference they're going to make. This is how they're going to cut our emissions. And if it annoys farmers, if it annoys industry, if it annoys businesses, if it annoys people living in small houses, so be it. I mean, I'd rather live in a house with six solar panels on the roof than sitting in a pile of cinders. Thank you very much. Lisa, you're 100% right. 53:57 But it will not happen. The government will not take a decision that will upset the agri-lobby. We know that. We absolutely know that. Look at the Palaver over the chairman of Bored Beef, an utter non-story. And look at the palaver about that. They will not make, there is no political mileage in taxing Global One. There's none. Without the Greens in government, and it's not a party political broadcast on behalf of the Greens, but without the Greens in government, none of this stuff will happen. 54:25 We'll leave it there. Thank you very much, Shane Coleman, Elise Hand, for being with us. And as I already told you, there is plenty of material coming over the next couple of weeks, even though we're into the middle of the holiday season for politics, normal service here on Path to Power will continue. So until the next time from me, Matt Cooper, thank you for being with us.