The Hard Shoulder

The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Mark Kelly, was before the Joint Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration today, following concerns raised in the Office of the Inspector of Prisons’ Annual Report for 2024.To discuss the latest around all this, Mark Kelly joins Ciara.

Green Party Leader Roderic O’Gorman joins Ciara Doherty to place his favourite book on The Hard Shoulder Bookshelf!

An inquest into the case of George Nkencho was formally opened this week, who was shot dead by Gardai on December 30th 2020.To discuss the latest developments, Ciara is joined by Irish Times Journalist and Historian, Ronan McGreevy.

New data centres will soon be allowed to be built in the capital and greater Dublin area.In the previous Government, Eamon Ryan had introduced restrictions due to issues around energy constraints on the electricity grid.Today, Enterprise Minister Peter Burke announced a 17-point plan called the ‘Large Energy User Action Plan’ or LEAP, which would enable the rollout of sustainable data centre development between now and the end of the decade.Joining Ciara to discuss this is James Geoghegan, Fine Gael TD for Dublin Bay South and Deirdre Duffy, CEO of Friends of the Earth Ireland.

NASA is set to bring home four astronauts which are expected to return to Earth within days after an astronaut suffered a health issue, the first such medical evacuation from the station in NASA’s history.For more on this, Ciara is joined by Leo Enright, Space Commentator and former Chairman of the Irish Government’s Science Awareness Program.