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 I'm Matt Cooper, joined today by Daniel McConnell, editor of The Business Post, and John Lee, executive editor of The Irish Mail on Sunday. Now, we will talk about the orange one and his arrival to Dublin and the problems for Catherine Connolly, our president, in just a little while. But I want to start with the forthcoming budget in October, which I think has been strongly influenced by Trump. 01:52 in the way that we've seen this week all the talk between Simon Harris and Jack Chambers, and we've had a bit from Micheál Martin as well about what's going to be in the budget, what's not going to be in the budget. But this budget is quickly ebbing away in its significance of the benefits he can bring to voters because any of the tax benefits that will be brought are just going to be swept away in the cost-of-living crisis for many voters. Now, we can come to the point that there are many voters who are not affected because they have so much money in the bank and so much wealth and the rest of it. 02:24 But for a significant number of people, they're going to see that any benefits they get in income tax movements are going to be wiped out by increases in their gas and electricity bills, by the increases in the price of a litre of petrol or diesel, from January by the increases in public transport fares. 02:48 a whole range of things. So it strikes me that we're getting an awful lot of nonsense at the moment about this is going to be a great budget giveaway. I think people are going to end up going, is that it? Is that all you're giving us when this is what we're faced? 03:02 But we've seen that. There's been a recurring trend of a lot of budgets in recent years where there's been all this hype about the amount of money the government has at its disposal, all the talk of surplus, etc. And you kind of come away from the budget saying, like you say, is that it? 03:16 We've discussed before, not only for the Business Post, but here, like, you know, where's the appetite to do a big bang move like abolishing USC? Something that people would actually remember. Like, for six, seven years, they've had the opportunity to basically say, put all their eggs into one basket and say, this is our big, meaningful move on tax this year. Now, obviously, the Department of Finance is saying, why would you narrow the tax base even further? But I think there's a political argument to be made. Say something like the USC when... It was brought in as an emergency measure. It sticks in the craw of a lot of people. You see it on your payslip month after month and you're kind of going, surely if you're going to give some meaningful money back into people's pockets, that's the most equitable. 03:53 Because as we know, the reach of USC is very far. It gets an awful lot of people. Even people on very modest incomes. Yes, they've kind of offsetting a number. They've exempted some people at the lower end. But USC literally gets it. That's why the Department of Finance love it. But the absence of doing something like that is meaningless. They're also on the hook this time, because last year there wasn't a single element of personal tax cuts in last year. 04:16 Which effectively meant a tax increase. 04:17 Absolutely, and they know they have to do that this year. 04:21 You know, just come back to the USC thing for a moment, because I think the USC ship has long sailed. There is no appetite in government to reduce the amount of income that comes in from USC. What was regarded by many as temporary is now permanent. Although I see Sinn Féin and they're already giving details of their alternative budget or saying no USC and income's up to 40,000, which goes against part of the principle of the USC, which when the late Brian Lenin introduced it, was that everybody paid at least something, that if you were exempt from income tax because at least you still paid a little bit of USC. 04:56 And if you remember him at the time going on, it was the German model that even in Germany... If you're on 10,000 euro per annum, you paid 1% or whatever, just to feel that you were making a direct contribution. But can I say, if the USC is untouchable to an extent, if they wanted to go for a big bang, maybe the big bang, and I know that you'll probably go, that's not possible, would be do a carbon tax. 05:21 Now, I suspect they're not going to be able to implement the carbon tax increase as planned in October, which is supposed to happen automatically. Sorry, let me just finish the point. But, you know, for all the money the carbon tax brings in, which is about a billion euro per annum, and for all the use of the money, and I had the Transport and Environment Minister, Dara O'Brien, Climate Change Action Minister, on the last word on Thursday evening, going on about using the money for retrofitting and other measures. 05:52 I think at this stage the carbon tax has almost become counterproductive in the sense that rather than actually encouraging better behavior in relation to the use of carbon, it just pisses people off. And actually, you could actually, given that we have the surpluses, you could fund your retrofitting and the other carbon tax. measures which are essential because I'm not in any way downplaying the importance or significance of dealing with the climate change emergency. But I just wonder at this stage if the carbon tax has become counterproductive in its persuasive issues that people just see it as another way for the state to raise money. 06:31 And if you wanted to do something big in the budget, and I know it won't happen, that you should just get rid of the carbon tax. 06:37 Well, in the briefings I got last week for Sunday's paper, that wasn't really ruled out, the carbon tax. What was said to me by cabinet people was the impending one, I think, is the 14th of October. That's on home heating oil. 06:54 is politically impossible. So that's not going to happen on the 40th of October. And during that discussion, it was said, well, we're going to have to look at carbon tax in general. Now, listen, they'll then in the same sentence say, well, you know, we've got to look at the environment and it's almost a shrug of the shoulders. Well, the world's heating up, but, you know, that's not going well. 07:14 I don't know what's going to happen with carbon tax, but certainly the indications were they're going to look at it long term, as you suggest, Matt. They're not ignorant to those facts. Simon Harris on the radio recording this Friday morning, this morning, said, I thought he went a lot further than Micheál Martin had during the week on fuel breaks and he said something like Sarah McInerney was interviewing me and she said about there's going to be no energy credits and he kind of wavered a bit on that in the positive if you're waiting on energy credits and then went oh well you know we can't rule anything out when it comes to fuel I It sounds to me, from the briefings I'm getting from Cabinet, that there will be a big hit on fuel, whatever that is. 08:02 But then you're... 08:04 Sorry, what do you mean by a big hit on fuel? 08:06 A combination of carbon tax, first of all. Now, whether that's announced... 08:11 Sorry, you can't increase the carbon tax on petrol and diesel, as well as home heating oil, at a time when you're holding off on returning the excise duties to their previous levels. And I'd also argue that... And I reported they're not. 08:25 Yeah, but the excise duty increases, when I say increases, the reversal of the previous reductions, which has been deferred from September to November. I can't see it starting in November. Not a chance. Not a chance. Not when you have a situation whereby the price of Brent crude has gone back up to near $110 a barrel. 08:45 More importantly, it's the refined fuel, which is the real benchmark when it comes to the prices. That's at its highest level since the weeks when the bombing of Iran started. So the reality is that isn't going to change for many, many months. Even if Trump somehow, or Trump was to stop his bombardment of Iran, if the Strait of Hormuz was to open up, it's going to take ages to get this all sorted out. Sorry, just this whole thing about two euros being the ceiling for the price of a litre of petrol or diesel. 09:20 Is it the new floor? It's the floor. 09:23 And it's not. And again, I was able to... They're briefing pretty liberally. There will be no significant return of excise duty for a while yet. But... 09:34 The bigger question is when do you get into the realms of price control? Like, governments controlling oil, the price of oil, is an impossibility long term. So, I mean, it can't be held back forever. 09:46 But that's not what they do. I mean, basically what they can control is the amount of excise that they levy on it. 09:52 But if your attempt is to keep it somewhere below €2 or around €2 in the long term, maybe those days are completely gone now anyway. 10:03 Martin said like two euros is going to be the norm. 10:05 Yeah. If you get into price control of oil, that's a territory few Western governments have ever gotten into. 10:14 But the Irish government has the highest excise duties on petrol, diesel, home heating oil, I think of any EU country. 10:22 Yeah, we do. But in relation to the carbon tax, I was briefed last week that, you know, and then this is purely the politics of this. was that the regime around the carbon tax was introduced at a time pre-Ukraine war, pre-Iran war. 10:38 The underlying foundations or the fundamental principles upon which it was introduced have completely and utterly changed. It's not politically tenable to continue on that path. To your point, There's also, I think, a frustration building that that amount has been ring-fenced for retrofitting. Anyone who's had, and I know from personal experience, the retrofitting schemes and the grant system is a bloody nightmare to try and navigate. It doesn't work. So therefore, you've all this money that's basically being unused because they've made it so bureaucratically frustrating. So, for example, I have an old house, right, and we have chimneys in basically every room. 11:10 And we were looking to the whole idea of getting a heat pump put into the house. 11:14 And he said, yeah, you put all this money in and you have to get a B2 rating if you want to get your grant, but you've no guarantee of getting a B2. So you could spend all this money, 40, 50 grand doing up your house and not be guaranteed. Who has, like, what sort of incentive is that? The government has always said, we're not going to front load the incentives. I think if they had front loaded the incentives, you would have had a much more successful scheme, but they don't want to take that rate. It goes back to that risk appetite within government we've talked about before. 11:39 Okay. And then what about the relationship between Simon Harris and Jack Chambers? Because if we had the relationship between Pascal Donoghue and Michael McGrath, which was exceptionally strong, they were definitely singing off the same hymn sheet. Then Michael McGrath went off to be the European Commissioner and was replaced by Jack Chambers, who had to develop the relationship with Pascal Donoghue. But I think they did it. It was a very strong relationship as well. 12:06 Now, are Simon Harris and Jack Chambers starting to pull in different directions? Okay, there are different jobs, even if there are two sides of the same coin. Jack Chambers is becoming very, very, I think he's exceptionally intense in relation to trying to deal with overspending, and he's determined to get stuck into that. And we saw this issue in relation to the HSE as well, where he's working with Jennifer Curran-McMedia, and we do need to talk about that. But then he's got Simon Harris on the other side promising the Earth, Moon and Stars. 12:40 Well, I've interviewed the two of them in the last few months and I would not have felt... And I've known both of them a long time, deal with them both quite a bit. I wouldn't have felt there's a huge... 12:53 a hugely unusual tension between them. But what they are, are in a way that some people aren't, they are the future of their relative parties. 13:03 Are you elevating Jack Chambers again as potential leader of Fianna Fon? 13:07 Well, I'm starting, like, I mean, what's Jim O'Callaghan waiting for? 13:12 He is the chosen one. by the current leader who isn't going anywhere anytime soon. But he is, Jack Chambers, if you know him, and I know him before he came into the Dáil, and when he came in, I always kind of take advantage of these young fellas wandering around and show them where the canteen is and stuff, you know. Sounds a bit creepy there, John. 13:31 So we used to go, well, maybe it is, maybe it is. Listen, you've got to do what you've got to do. 13:36 I think I've proven in the past what it takes to get a story, I'll do it. But... 13:42 Jack Chambers is, people wouldn't think of, is a nakedly political figure. And he is, in his spare time, he goes off canvassing. He doesn't do anything else but politics. 13:53 He's a Fianna Fáil person through and through. If you look at even the activity around Jim Gavin, a lot of the political stuff now in Fianna Fáil, Jack Chambers does. 14:03 That's why Mion Martin likes him so much, is it? 14:05 Probably. So, I mean, he is committed to the future of Fianna Fáil. Simon Harris is nothing but Fine Gael. So I think they're fighting for the... 14:14 I was actually going to say Simon Harris is nothing but Simon Harris. 14:16 Yeah, well, and again, there's a Louis XIV, wasn't it? 14:23 Le tas, c'est moi. 14:25 The party, the future of those parties, they always think is themselves. Hence, they don't leave because why would I leave? Because I'm so great for the party. But I think that the recent apparent tension over stamp duty, again, I question how that kind of blew up with the Fianna Fáil thinking. I went around all these weird, weird thinkers. 14:48 Yeah, like I think there was a bit of surprise in the Fianna Fáil establishment that they got into their thinking and suddenly everyone was talking about justice and migration and issues that aren't really Micheál Martin's business. 15:01 I just said that John Deasy is with us for the subscriber edition and I will be talking to him in detail about Jim O'Callaghan's proposals in relation to citizenship. 15:09 I won't blow John's thunder then. But those thinkings are about the leader and giving him a platform and he does the thinking and can't be diverted from those things. So did Fianna Fáil then kind of divert to talk about stamp duty to keep away from migration? I mean, problems Fianna Gael would have, I'm sure, and Simon Harris isn't that young that he wouldn't remember the trouble messing around stamp duty he got us into before. So I just don't think that's a runner. 15:37 So what are the proposals, just for people who haven't been following this? 15:41 A break on stamp duty. See, Seamus McGrath, who's Michael McGrath's brother, a different kettle of fish altogether from Michael. He's a former guard. I think he's Michael's older brother. 15:52 But also Micheál Martin's constituency colleague. So that might have raised the ire of Fine Gael that maybe Micheál Martin had put up to it. Essentially a break for first-time buyers on stamp duty. Get rid of it. But that is not something the Department of Finance will be keen on. 16:09 so stamp duty is charged at 1% for a house up to a million quid so if you and most houses are creeping up that way even your kind of more modest houses you see are now well in excess of 500,000 euro so if you're a first time buyer if you don't have to pay that 1% that's a you know I remember that this is something that resonates with me because when I just joined the Sunday Independence we had just started our abolish stamp duty campaign and again it was Brian Cowan who ultimately conceded ground on that much against the absolute opposition to his own officials within but because Ducindo campaigned on it you know it ultimately happened What year was that? 16:45 2006 16:47 Was that the big row at the Ardèche between Bertie and, allegedly, between Bertie and Cowan over that matter? 16:55 What I remember was there was a time when Michael... Don't forget Bertie had gotten into trouble at that stage before the Ardèche, which was late. 17:03 It was after the Irish Times revealed his problems with the tribunal. Yeah. 17:06 Which would have been September 2006. I'm not sure Cowan even wants to get into that one. Because it was the same weekend of the Ryder Cup. 17:13 So you might remember Michael McDowell, who was then Justice Minister, intervened saying that there was an issue or there should be some move on stamp duty, right? And I was at a time when you could see the housing market was beginning to slow. We were building up to 93,000 homes, but you could see the signs of the crash were coming very visibly for those who were paying any attention. But then at the same time... I'm sure I was. First-time buyers need a break. You know, kind of first-time buyers need a break. And it was a campaign. It was a independent campaign. 17:41 And ultimately... Viewers, this is when newspapers had power to do such things. 17:46 But also as well... Long ago. Again, famously, you might remember in the run-in of the 2007 election, Sindhu had been really critical of Bertie O'Hearn. Really, really critical about Bertie O'Hearn and the tribunal. And then there was that famous deal done. And all of a sudden, Bertie was the greatest man ever. 18:01 I didn't, excuse me, you can clarify if I'm wrong in this, but wasn't it Owen Harris who said, once we got what we wanted in relation to his stamp duty, we changed our position, or was it somebody else who said that? 18:16 So this is all on public record, I'm not revealing anything, this is all on public record. This is 20 years ago and people forget this. And listen, I was junior of junior reporters at this stage. You were only following orders. I was just kidding. aren't we all Matt aren't we all but there was definitely a conversation and I remember Angus Fanning saying you know the value for the Sunday independence that Bertie gave us stories you know like giving us revealing like the famous morning where Bertie went to the Ours on Uthron very early on the Sunday morning we had it as our lead story it'll be May 24th we'd been tipped off And, you know, Charlie Bird and Ursa Halligan saying, why did you do it this way, Bertie? 18:51 Why? Like frantically trying to get a kind of a... And I can tell you PJ Mara didn't even know because I was out with him on the Friday night before that happened and there was no inclination. 19:02 But I would point out... And PJ was not a guy who could keep a secret. 19:05 No, no, no. And he was very close to... He was very close to St. Luke's as we used to say in those days. But I would point out There was a battle going on in the press because the mail had been, Frank Connolly had been leaked all the, what got Bertie into real trouble was the private depositions that had been made to the tribunal prior to the public hearings. So we were able to publish all that along, all the way along and then Bertie somewhat fought back in the In the Sunday Independent, there was newspaper wars at the time. 19:41 And you see, the subtext of all of that was the Sunday Indo were, I want to say panicking about the mail, but certainly had, like the mail was in its sights in terms of the mail was doing this great stuff, both about developers and also about like the tribunal and stuff. 19:55 And was marketing heavily at the time. And I guess, like, newspaper sales were a multiple of what they are now. 20:00 Absolutely. So, and Ingus Fanning was, to his core, a commercial editor. Like, he lived and died by the market every year. So, like, any advantage that a rival might have, you know, you could see it. He would bristle, he would take it personally. But, like, this was the energy that he fed into the newsroom in terms of we need to, if... 20:16 so Jodie Corkin who was probably our main tribunal he got a huge amount of stuff from the tribunal at certain points but it was that stamp duty then into the deal and then so the difference between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Harris doesn't want to do a deal on stamp duty is it? 20:34 Yeah, that would be the orthodoxy in the Department of Finance, that let's not do crazy things because we don't have the Sunday Independent telling us to do it anymore. But it isn't seen as wise. But I'm not sure how much forethought was put into all of that because it seemed to grow organically at that, the horribly named, as you said before we went on air, thinking. So I... 21:00 Fianna Fáil's rival is still Fianna Fáil. Fianna Fáil's rival, and certainly recent events with Sinn Féin have shown that, Fianna Fáil's rival is Fianna Fáil. They're fighting for the centre ground, the ever-squeezed centre ground in Irish politics. And Harris and Jack Chambers, no more than Micheál Martin and Harris. They're never going to be friends. They're never really going to be supporting each other and they're going to be undercutting each other. I think right now you'll have something of a phony war because we're three years out from a general election. But as things get... 21:31 I think things will get a lot more intense between the two of them. Don't forget they've got to swap jobs as well. 21:36 There's something very different about this government. Harris has one more budget. There's something very different about this government. To your point at the start, Pascal Donoghue and Michael McGrath made it their raison d'etre to make sure that they got on and they were aligned. because as we know now they weren't going anywhere they weren't hanging around but I think crucially as well Pascal didn't want to be leader of Fianna Fáil or Fianna Gael and Michael McGrath you know I think maybe but ultimately didn't knew he wouldn't become leader of Fianna Fáil But they often did that, you know, they pissed off their own party colleagues because they felt that access was really, really important to the government's stability. 22:11 That stability does not exist in this government. You have senior people in the government, this government, admitting it's not a very good government. They don't get on. 22:18 Like, there's... 22:20 tolerance as opposed to respect at the core. So I think this is a lot more fragile. 22:25 This comes back to my argument that they actually miss Eamon Ryan because Eamon Ryan acted as a bridge in the last government to sort things out between the leaders if things were going wrong. But just coming back to the Harris and the budget, and we're only a number of weeks away from it now, I think the other problem that he's going to have is that he's made so much of his big special investment accounts. 22:47 That's going to seem really odd. It's not going to chime well if he gets up in the dial and starts talking about this opportunity when there's going to be so many people going, well, what's in it for me in relation to tax? What's in relation to... 23:00 uh cost of living measures so he'll be sort of saying we can't afford to do this and then but for those of you who don't have to worry about cost of living measures we have a shiny new investment i don't see it that way i think i actually think that investment thing is a very good idea i think it's a smart idea i think we're out of step with a lot of european countries we have about 170 odd billion sitting on deposit and that's not rich people matt that's people with very modest incomes who have maybe an inheritance or have saved a few quid we need to get that money moving 23:26 Moving into what? See, Danny, this is actually where the problem for me arises, is that he still hasn't spelt out how this will actually work. But is that not the real problem? Yeah, and that's one of the real problems. But the other problem is, I would have a lot of sympathy, and I said this on the podcast last week, To Leo Varadkar, I'd have a lot of sympathy for specific investment plans that might be good for the Irish economy, such as setting up bonds that might invest in Irish housing, for example. But what you're essentially doing with these savings and investment plans, as my understanding is, is encouraging people to take the money out of the Irish banks and invest it all over the world and all sorts of other things. 24:04 It's sitting on deposits, essentially losing a family. 24:07 That's people's own decision if they want to do that. 24:09 Yeah, but it's not like from a government, sorry, from a, it's not a... Where's the benefit to the state? The benefit to the state is that people get used, we educate our people to say, get used to the idea of investing. We are really naive and underdeveloped when it comes to investing. We have to change. You compare us, and we know this from our association with the Bonnier News Network. You look at Sweden. It's a very, very active stock market. Their investing culture is there, and there are better people for it because they're engaged in the market and the investing. 24:38 Surely people are good at investing in this country. We have a wealth of 1.4 trillion. It's all tied up in property, though. Two-thirds of it. 24:46 Yeah, but again, you go back to that figure of £170 billion sitting on deposit doing nothing, it surely has to be a motivation to get, if a proportion of it. But also, I do accept your point. 24:58 I'd like to see something like metro bonds that you can invest in, like you invest in the metro, invest in the development of housing or here. I think there's nothing to stop. The French have that for housing. 25:07 I think the problem with Simon Harris is, he was discussing it again in his interviews around his thinking, is that I don't understand why it's you know this morning again and other interviews he was doing across the networks it's gone since January was it first float in January prior to January and he was asked for instance about criticisms that had been in the Irish Times to do with taxing that you could potentially they were kind of 25:36 Yeah, you could have losses in the year on your thing and you could end up still paying taxes because the value of the overall fund is falling. 25:42 But he claimed it wasn't the case and then was asked what was the limit on taxation and he couldn't say that. So like you're nine months, ten months down the line on this and it's just been marketed. 25:53 He's even had influencers in for a meeting and they weren't told exactly what, well I think they think it's been marketed very well. So the influencers got on to TikTok and Instagram and the rest of it saying this is a great idea and then you say to them What is the idea and they can't tell you? 26:08 Yeah, you know, listen, I don't invest, but I saw Danny bringing the book in here one day and I got it since the 29 crash. Oh yeah, it's a great book. What's it called? 29, 29 crash. That all came about because too many people got involved, average punters, in investing in the stock market. That might be the underlying reluctance amongst people like yourself and myself. I don't know. 26:36 I started in the Business Post in 1989 as the markets editor. I know all about, you know, newspaper like the Business Post trying to encourage investment back in that time and writing about the various options for people to invest. There were a lot more as it happens back then. Much bigger issue. And I don't know what the government can do because it's a similar issue for the stock market in London. It would be great if they could find a way to encourage more companies to make their shares available for people to invest in. I think there's only about 20% of the number now in the Irish stock market. 27:08 It would have been when I was writing about it back in 1989 to 1992. Yeah. 27:12 So, you know, maybe there are other things that need to be done rather than, and I just don't know how popular these new measures are likely to be. 27:21 Well, we've an awful habit in this country of knocking stuff before we see it. But the problem is we haven't seen it. 27:25 I think perhaps it's a very good idea. But it's just going to be in three weeks. 27:33 But I can't understand why the Minister for Finance can't answer a question this morning about where is the ceiling on taxation on it. 27:40 I mean, that's a pure example of And I do want to ask a little bit about these think-ins or away days and how they all came about and whether they still matter. And we haven't got round to Trump's visit. I'm deliberately leaving it towards the end. We'll get to all of that when we come back after this. 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. 28:14 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. By building, managing and optimizing 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. So welcome back. Daniel McConnell and John Lee are still with us. 28:45 So it's supposed to be better. We'll get to the GAA as well in a little while and what's going on there. Can't Patrick O'Donovan solve all the problems in the GAA. But Trump's visit. Yeah. So everyone's going to have to be nice and mannerly, to put it mildly, towards the big eejit who's fecking up our economy because of his war in Iran and all the other things. 29:04 More importantly, he's interrupting our Gaelic blitz on tomorrow morning because it's in Collinstown near Dublin Airport. So all that because of the security cordon around the airport. You're not allowed to have it? Well, we can have it, but we have to stagger it and we have to change it. So he's already fecking up my weekend. 29:19 Okay, you're in the FINA, aren't you? Is that a one-club structure? 29:24 It's not. 29:25 No, this is interesting. 29:26 Does it give the women and the girls equal access to the pitches? 29:30 It is. There is a, like, let me put it, there's a really good atmosphere within the club and the culture within the club is one of, you know, embracing. And even I did a thing, we had an event last week and we had Leah Caffrey who's a five-time All-Star winner for Dublin with, you know, Tom Brennan who scored two goals when Nafina won the All-Ireland in 2025, Peter Feeney from the Hurling team as well, and Orla Gray from the Camogie team. So it was very much a united front that day. But like, because my kids are in the nursery and a little bit up, so I'm not steeped in the lore of the gap. 30:06 So for me to discover that they run separately or they're a separate organisation, that was mind-blowing to me because they use the same pitches, You know, they play on the same. They all come in under the Nafina banner. But yet, it was only when a more experienced member of the club told me that the niceties or the lack of niceties at times, maybe, that I was kind of shocked. 30:26 Actually, you know, we'll get to Trump in a minute. We'll just stay with the GA now for the moment. Because it strikes me that there's two elements to what's going on here. 30:35 And President Mary McAleese's resignation had an enormous amount, for the integration steering group, had an enormous amount of clout because of who she is. If anyone else had resigned and given the type of interview that she did, it wouldn't have caused all the fuss that this actually did. 30:51 And she also brought up the issue of misogyny. 30:55 I wonder, I think it probably has more at the top level to do with money than it has to do with misogyny. But it's the inter-county issue is a major issue in relation to, and I can see that essentially what the GAA is doing is they're trying to equate the revenue coming in from the games to the expenses. So the reality is the numbers turning up to watch women's inter-county games are a lot less and then they want to pay less, lower expenses reflecting that. 31:25 And that is a problem and an issue. But then the other issue that's somewhat overlooked is that the real issue is probably at the club level and it's access to facilities and it's the time is, do the women get to use the main pitch? Yeah. Or do we have situations where the women are sent off to a subsidiary pitch and the underage boys are getting the main pitch? But then there actually is the issue as well. And a lot of listeners are pointing this out to me in the last word during the week. That in a lot of clubs, there's a lot of rivalry between the camogie and the ladies football. 31:56 And you actually get little girls who have been actually slated to play a camogie match in the morning. and a Gaelic football game in the afternoon because the Lady Gaelic football organisers and the Camogie organisers can't agree on things between themselves either. 32:11 I wasn't quite clear on what Mary McAleese was saying, and a lot of it seemed to be about her. She was devastated, and she felt, and just looking at her quotes, which she did with Mary Crow on a great interview, that, you know, they're just... She seemed to be saying that there wasn't room for women in the administration. That was her principal gripe. 32:33 Well, although the management committee of the GAA has nine women out of 19. Now, part of the reason why they have nine out of 19 is to make sure they continue to get their government funding because of the requirement that at least 40% in any club or in any sporting organisation make up has to be women. 32:49 but then that's been now conflated with some kind of misogyny within the GAA which we must point out the GAA from the top down Gerald Burns have absolutely rejected I'm a soccer person I played football for Malahide United and a few other teams all through when I started in the early 80s as a young child there was no sport for girls girls didn't play sport in Malahide to my eyes close to home St Sylvester's was our local club They were miles ahead of any other sport in bringing girls in and encouraging girls to play sport. 33:24 And we mustn't be sanctimonious about that or put it in any other fashion that you had to bring girls in to play sport, and the GAA did that. But of course you're going to be miles behind on it, surely, when it comes to women in administrative positions. Because like any male-dominated structure, it was bound to be that case down the line. But just as a person who played soccer, I wasn't a Gaelic footballer. My kids got involved in Gaelic. 33:54 They play other sports now. But I always felt, watching from that level, that they were extremely encouraging of girls. And I say girls in the sense... 34:05 that didn't exist then and they're miles ahead of everyone else. But of course there's going to be residual, not so much misogyny, but residual lack of women at a high level. 34:18 Mary McAleese, you know, she took on the church at one point and now she's after the GAA. Who's next, you know? 34:27 John, is that not a bit facetious? And they are both kind of sanctimonious organisations anyway. I mean, you know, Mary McAleese is always... 34:34 I think that's a bit inferring the GAA. 34:36 The one thing I have about the GAA, I don't understand this in reports, why do they always refer to Congress? 34:43 Like the GAA Congress, there is this overriding... Soviet style. Soviet style thing, Congress. But I don't see huge evidence of misogyny in the organisation. 34:58 What can Patrick O'Donovan do? Because there is significant government funding goes to the GAA every year. I think it's about $10 million towards running expenses. You also get a lot of capital grants going. Is he going to start withholding money? I think he said he won't, right? Will he actually provide funding? 35:18 One of the things Charlotte Burns said was that at the moment, and there's something they're trying to get cost control over, is that about $45 million a year is spent on the inter-county teams for getting football and hurling. 35:32 And he's afraid that if the GA then amalgamates with Camogie and the ladies' football, that 45 million goes to 90. 35:39 90 million, yeah. 35:41 And are there as many Camogie and ladies' football games as there are Gaelic football and hurling? But look, I take the point he's making because it's a big increase in what the, particularly the travel and subsistence and all the rest of it, that would be made available to the women's teams. 35:58 And there's a limit on how much money the GAA can actually bring in. There's only so many. I see Harry Styles is doing two nights in Croke Park next year, but there's only so many concerts they can have. 36:11 And that has affected potential replays in the women's. 36:15 So it's not affected the men's GAA, but it has affected the replays in the women's finals, the Harry Styles concert. 36:22 Well, you could, and again, I've seen people would say this is discrimination. You could bring a replay for a Camogie final or a women's football final to Thurless. Or Parky Cueve. Or Parky Cueve. And they still mightn't necessarily fill. 36:37 So, you know, you don't actually have to have a replay. That's another whole argument. How many times is Croke Park full for anything? At least four times a year. Sure, what's that? You know. My pitch hurling semi-finals is 50,000 people in the stadium. 36:52 It's full for concerts for Katie Taylor and for Manchester United against Leeds United. 36:56 But in terms of football and hurling, you're probably looking at the two finals and maybe a couple of the semi-finals. 37:02 Definitely a hurling semi-final. Yeah. 37:05 My read of it is this. Mary McAleese didn't just do this on a whim. She didn't just come out of nowhere and say, I'm resigning because I'm throwing my torch out of the pram because I'm pissed off that, you know, I'm not getting my way. She's a very considered person. She has a long career as a lawyer, journalist, and then as president of Ireland of doing things very deliberately and very, I would think, very methodically. The timelines of this are very, I think, get to the heart of this. This is not something that has been ongoing for one year or two. This has been a long road. 37:36 And when you hear the powers that be turn around and say, this is about, much to do about equity as equality and we're not ready for integration, They're basically saying, the sense is, we're long fingering this to an unknown date into the future. 37:50 That doesn't sit well if you're Jarlis Burns, in my view, because I think the organisation then is open to criticism that you haven't prepped the ground for this properly. Absent in all of the conversation I've heard this week is, what is a realistic time frame for this to happen? Where's the money that needs to be committed to make it happen step by step? And it needs to be done on a phase basis or kind of a staggered basis than so be it. I've heard none of that. What we've gotten into is the sort of, he said, she said, regrettable comments, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's a setback. So I think there are questions to answer for the GAA on this. 38:24 But what about a role for government? Should Patrick O'Donovan just stay out of it? I think he should stay out of it. It's a matter for the GAA. 38:30 I don't get any sense of enthusiasm from government to get involved in it. Like you guys, they're paying great deference to Mary McAleese. Simon Harris' comments yesterday, oh Mary McAleese, she's a great woman. You hear the dig we got there, like you guys? Why are you so anti-Mary McAleese, John? 38:48 She was a terrific president, John. 38:50 You know, I'm a big fan of the church. I'm a big fan of the GAA, you know. I don't know. 38:55 I read her... She's a big fan of the church. 38:57 I listened to her interview and I listened to her quotes. 39:02 I just felt a lot of it was she was devastated. She looks for reform. 39:06 She has looked for change. She's looked for improvement. It's not that she's anti-Catholic church. It's not that she's anti-GA. She's anti the things that she feels that need to change and aren't changing. 39:17 So, sorry, let me ask you the bold question then. Do you just see this as a vanity exercise or a vanity move by Barry Mary Reckons? 39:23 No, but I don't see... And maybe she's unfortunate that people have conflated it because with misogyny within the GAA. And she didn't quite say that. She implied it, I suppose. Yes, and people have made it from that. I just don't see that. I certainly don't see that. And I think they've been a very progressive organisation. I just see my own kids, for instance. My son, he's nine... I've played soccer and rugby and the coaches keep coming to me if I see them around the town. Oh, listen, listen, he's always welcome back and whatever else. 39:53 They're very, very, they're very proactive in a way because soccer is the great game. It's the beautiful game. That's what kids really want to play. 40:02 They're always very proactive and they're very proactive. 40:04 So the GA is proactive? 40:05 GA, proactive in keeping girls involved. And I say girls because that's my experience with my daughter. And I would never, ever think that they're a misogynist organisation. Are they discriminating girls? Quite the opposite. 40:18 They have changed so much over the decades. And I'm thinking back to my own time. It was a long time ago when I was a teenager and I used to play Gaelic football in Cork with Bishopstown. And I used to get an enormous amount of hassle about the fact that I was simultaneously playing rugby. Yeah. And that, you know, you can't be doing that. You know, you just have to commit fully to playing the gated football. I'm not that old. I'm not that old. Well, my dad's over the ban. But funnily enough, I mean, what I remember, one of the things I loved when the GAA opened up Croke Park. 40:51 And I remember, you know, going into the Ireland-France game and the Ireland-England games in 2007. 40:57 The Ireland France, I remember going in and running into and walking in with Joe Kernan down from Armagh for the Rugby International. I wasn't. I've never been in the Arcola. Near it, but never in it. Anyway, but I just ran into Joe going in and was chatting to him. And I thought this is great. You know, real, you know, Armagh, GA man, delighted to see an Irish rugby team playing in Croke Park. And over the years, you know, more and more crossover with the GAA, opening up, opening up Crow Park. And Sean Kelly deserves a huge amount of credit for that. 41:27 Absolutely. The one thing I'll say, again, to echo John's point, my daughter is in, my three kids have gone through the nursery in Nafina, two girls and a boy, and each of them have had an amazingly positive experience. The girls, like, I go up by coach the odd time, my missus goes up most Saturday mornings with her. 41:44 but you see how they're encouraged, you see how they're, like, even with the basic skills, it's a very, very inclusive, warm, fantastic, really positive environment. You get 400 kids up on a morning, on a Saturday, and they're just getting, and it's, like, and I see when they get that bit older, it's as much about the social element as it is about the, you know, the actual playing. It's a, like, and I, again, my experience of, like, because I was killing Michael Crokes growing up, but again, I was very much on the periphery of it. like the guy suffers I think a lot of clubs suffer from you're either in the club or you're not it's a click and people can sometimes feel a bit I have found nothing but a positive experience going into getting I can't speak to what it's like at the more senior levels I say minor level or you know where that those sort of inadequacies or those tensions because they clearly do exist I mean the skirt example was sort of gave a flavor to that sort of attitude and 42:36 And that was almost a battle between older administrators and younger girls and women who are modern. So I'd like, will you stop imposing your silly old rules on us? 42:46 But again, I've been to enough ladies finals in Croke Park in recent years. It's been a huge effort to get big crowds in and they've succeeded in getting big crowds in. They have been fantastic days for my girls to go in and see ladies performing at the highest level to a pretty full Croke Park. That's what's good about it, but there's still a long, long way to go. 43:04 Okay, we're doing really well to actually keep our Trump derangement syndrome so that we're 40 minutes into the podcast and we're only coming around. Come on Matt, let it out, it's okay. No, I guess there's a sort of a, let the feckin' Egypt come in, do his meetings, head down to Doombeg, take his lap of honour down there and then like, yeah, we'll be rid of him, grand, that's that done. Unless, of course, something goes badly wrong and Catherine Connolly just literally cracks and just can't. But she won't. She won't. 43:33 No. Within government, there isn't a casual view of it. They have briefed me that they are absolutely cock-a-hoop that he's coming. They see it as a personal triumph for Ed Walsh, the US ambassador who has been extremely proactive in his 43:51 You mean visiting Conor McGregor's pub and going to meetings of fringe political groups? 43:57 I'm articulating the government view and they have said to me that any other country in Europe would be and is extremely envious of the fact that we're getting the US president. Whatever he is, he's the US president for two days. 44:13 Hopefully Natalie Harp now won't actually include Ireland on one of her late night maps. Iceland is now alongside with Greenland when covered by the American flag. Could it be by the end of the weekend she'll decide to add in Ireland? 44:27 We aren't far off being wholly reliant on the United States for our economic miracle. 44:34 Last time he was here, if you recall, he only met Leo Varadkar at... 44:41 Dublin at Shannon Airport briefly and the main topic of discussion in that bilateral was a Twitter spat that Trump had had with Bette Midler earlier that day when Leo walked in and Leo took Bette Midler's side didn't he? Hey Leo! Did you see what I said to Bette Midler on Twitter? And this was basically the extent of it. So he is visiting the Taoiseach, having a bilateral... 45:04 Sorry, I didn't know that. Does that really matter? I thought you said that on this podcast. I don't remember that. There you go. 45:10 Ask John Deasy about it. He was in the room. But he is meeting with the Taoiseach. They're having a bilateral. I'm told there's going to be some kind of press event. The US administration tell me... 45:22 the Irish are doing everything they possibly can to make that a very, very limited press event, but the Irish are saying it's going to be some form of press conference after the meeting. It's all very early morning. Are you going to go to it? 45:33 Yeah, well, I'm accredited, but it's pooled, so... You could do a Vincent Brown, I think, if you get up and start asking the questions that the government doesn't want to ask. 45:42 Nearly the worst place you can be is within the press corps on these events. And Danny would have covered the Queen, for instance, You're kept to the centre. You're brought by bus. There you go. You look at them and you can do whatever. 45:56 The idea is there'll be a bus bringing us up from the RDS, bizarrely, according to the schedule we've gotten thus far. And then they will select journalists. This is as much as I can gather. I could be wrong because they haven't given us much detail to then go into the pool. There might be only two or three of the 50 or 60 journalists are back at base. That could be different, you What you never know with Trump is what will happen because I was in the Oval Office for Bush and Obama for the old spray and the spray was actually you come in with the photographers and the photographers were taking pictures and you could maybe shout a couple of questions the president would ignore you and he might answer one question it took all three minutes and you're all hauled back out. 46:41 It was Trump that organically made this into what it is an hour long press conference because I was there The first time he did it in 2017 and we went in with the expectation to be the same thing and it ended up being an hour long and we ran out of questions. He didn't know what else to ask him. It's utter chaos and it's wonderful for the press but it's not so good if you're Micheal Martin and not wanting to get on to difficult issues. 47:06 These things are incredibly tightly controlled as John says. I remember I went over to Canada with Enda Kenny and it was around the time when he was coming under pressure to leave And I remember I said, listen, because like, again, we were told we would get two questions from the Irish media and two questions from the Canadian media. So, Katrina Perry was there for RT at the time, asked the big Brexit type questions. 47:27 And I said, we all want the leadership question asked, which we did. Stuffed that one is any interest in, but. 47:30 Anyway, so I, so I then asked, I asked Enda Kenny, said will you use the uh the opportunity of next wednesday's parliamentary party meeting to announce your your leadership ambitions and shit did he come at me oh i can't believe you've traveled all this way to answer a question like that and you're embarrassing me and yourself in front of the interesting stuff like and he just railed at me and we had a bit of eye kickback at him and anyway so like we moved on from the press conference not thinking much of it and anyway next my phone is like an imploding saying oh what the hell's gone on but it showed that they had deliberately corralled us into two questions each had Enda Kenny given us a domestic doorstep that never would have happened so they forced us in I remember when Boris Johnson came to Dublin a similar thing and it was war because it was the Department of Foreign Affairs saying oh we'll give the Irish Times or whoever it is they were handpicking who they'd asked to ask the question and that obviously causes eruptions within the press corps because you're 48:21 kind of going why would you let us decide who's going to ask the question if you're going to pool it or whatever like that so it'll be fascinating tomorrow to see does Trump just open it up and a free for all and let it run for an hour and a half or whether or not they'll try and curtail it because whatever bet it had been in the Oval Office that's Trump's domain infarmly does Michal have the well maybe he can do it down in Dumbagg 48:42 Well, no, the plan we've gotten, I was given a sketchy plan last, not sketchy, last weekend for the paper, which says he'll arrive, Simon Harris meets him. He then goes to the park. Now, this, I think, is a bit off because of the information since that it is. Meets Catherine Connolly. That'll be a quick exchange. Then he goes for a bilateral across the road in Farm Leigh. with Michal Martin and then there is some form of press event which they haven't expanded on bar it'll be something similar to the spray but there is also I was informed from different sources then a reception at Deerfield which is the ambassador's residence for people including the cabinet Again, we don't know the exact details on that and when exactly it is. 49:30 You can't imagine Simon Harris wanting to be left out with Miel Martin as meeting Trump. 49:34 No, so it's a lot before he gets to, and you know how these things run behind schedule before he gets to Dubeg, because he's kind of scheduled, I think, for Dubeg in mid-afternoon. I don't think that's going to happen. I think a lot more has gone on in Dublin than we quite know. 49:45 But he's not turning the sod on Bolsbridge. 49:47 No, that was nixed a few weeks ago, yeah, which is an important thing. But the security issue, I suppose, is the big problem for the government as well because, okay, Phoenix Park, they're closing it down, which I'm sure is pissing a lot of people off for the weekend. But closed Friday and Saturday, they'll be able to manage that quite comfortably. Dumbag is going to be a big issue. 20,000 people every day going in onto the course, policing all of that is a problem. And then things like unidentified drones going around the side, which is sort of highlights as well our lack of a military-grade radar and stuff. 50:24 And I think there will be people wondering how much... 50:28 are we going to be ceding to the Secret Service and all the rest of it? You know, these guys are all bringing their guns in. They're under instructions from the Guardian not to pull their guns, but if they see any threat to Donald Trump, I suspect they'll be pulling their guns and apologizing for it afterwards. 50:44 Well, you do see total authority to the Secret Service. There is no question of that. there is well there might be officially but there you know we know from previous visits they go around sealing manholes on the route they've been down there for six or seven weeks already the US security team and they are they govern the visit I mean I was there as a talked about before, I won't go into it again because I'm sure we can't bore listeners. But I was like, he comes in, he came into Doonbeg that day in 2019. 51:16 He'd flown from France back to Shannon and then taken the helicopters. He came in on two helicopters, three helicopters, one helicopter and two Blackhawk gunships, accompanying him into the golf course. So Ireland has no involvement in transporting him on any of this trip. It's all done with US infrastructure. 51:37 And leaving these heavily armed Chinook helicopters and the rest of them, Blackhawks, flyaways. The U.S. Marines are here. Yeah. 51:45 You know, I mean, if you've got a foreign military... 51:48 They'd be patrolling the coast and they won't be outside the 12-mile exclusive zone. 51:52 The U.S. Marines are staying in Limerick. I could tell you the hotel if you want to know, but I wouldn't do that to them. 51:57 Yeah, I think they stay there in that hotel regularly. A lot of them, when they're coming through Shannon Airport, they sometimes take a break and go to that particular hotel in the city centre. 52:05 But I've seen it on, like, so I remember when Bill Clinton was in town, he was after being president, but he was in Dublin for something. He was staying in the Clarence Hotel. Yeah. And it was kind of a wintry kind of rainy night, and there was a gaggle of people, like, just perhaps being sent out just to see what he's up to, whatever, like that. But it was this fascinating kind of episode of how the Secret Service operates. So they knew he was on his way out, and they started cordoning off the path. Like, they were clearing a path for him, and you could see all the locals going, here, this is our fucking country, you can't be doing it, and say, we have total authority here. 52:36 Well, I'll give you a different, and I may have mentioned this on the podcast previously, so my apologies to listeners if I have, but I remember one day that we were having a lunch with Clinton in Tony O'Reilly's house in Fitzwilliam Square, and when Clinton left, we were watching out the window as he went out, and people started coming out of all the offices around, and he just plowed into the crowds, and the Secret Service were oh my God, what's he doing? And just like he came alive going around shaking hands and suddenly there were thousands of people in Fitzwilliam Square like that. 53:07 It was extraordinary to watch. But the Secret Service lost control of the crowd that time with Clinton. 53:14 I wonder if Trump's physically up to any of that though. You know, I was there in 2017. 53:20 Down in Texas Thursday, back to Washington for a ceremony for 9-11, then flying across. Overnight. Overnight, doing these meetings down for the Gulf. You know, I know they sort of mock Joe Biden, Sleepy Joe, but we have seen Trump falling asleep at various things on a regular basis. 53:37 Well, I was in the Oval Office up close and you're as far from the President as I am to you, actually, closer. And in 2017, And 2025 is the last time I was there. He was a completely different person. He was visibly aged enormously. Because there's a huge gap between 70 and 80. That's just the way it is. I don't know how much he can be possibly up to. There's a big gap in his diary, say, on Sunday. 54:01 And then he's going to give the trophy before he goes. I wonder how much he's really going to do for that day. 54:07 Hopefully Natalie will carry the trophy for him before he has it over anyway. 54:10 As well as carrying all the other things she does for him. 54:14 Anyway, Daniel McConnell and John Lee, thank you both very much for being with us. As I said, John Deasy is on the subscription edition. If you're a subscriber, you would have heard Mary McKeown's brilliant piece on 9-11. If you're not a subscriber, well, why don't you become one? And you'd hear that. It was an absolutely terrific memory from her of being in New York on the day of 9-11, being down here. 54:36 near the Twin Towers as they fell and just describing what actually happened on that day. And there's lots more on that podcast as well. And next week as well for subscribers, we'll have a special on the new Brian Cohen biography, which is coming out next week. So there's lots as well for subscribers as well as on the main edition. So until the next time from me, Matt Cooper, thank you for being with us.