Inside Politics with Hugh Linehan

Ellen Coyne and Pat Leahy join Jack Horgan-Jones to look back on the week in politics:

· This week saw EU-US relations shift as the near-confrontation over Greenland perhaps showed the best way to handle US President Donald Trump’s demand to take over the Arctic island. The decision by Trump to withdraw the threat of tariffs against eight European countries opposing his plan for Greenland represents a rare climbdown.

· Bord Bia chairman Larrry Murrin faced calls from Sinn Féin and the Irish Farmers’ Association for his resignation this week amid a controversy over his company Dawn Farms importing Brazilian beef.

· The proposed reforms to the national rent control system due to come into effect on March 1st might be a hard sell for Government due to rent increases and evictions that may arise from the changes.

· And former Fianna Fáil senator and MEP Brian Crowley has passed away at the age of 61. A native of Bandon, Co. Cork, topped the poll in every European election he contested – in 1994, 1999, 2004, 2009 and in 2014 – and was a well-liked figure both inside and outside Fianna Fáil.

Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

· Emer McLysaght on the joy and hidden challenges of living alone, the disappearance of former New York Giant Sam Beale, and the upcoming Six Nations Championship.
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Jack Power and Jack Horgan-Jones join Pat Leahy to assess a dramatic week in which the transatlantic alliance took a further battering from US president Donald Trump and his demands to acquire Greenland.

After Trump used a rambling address at Davos to reveal he would not use force but would 'remember' a failure to hand the vast territory over, EU leaders may now wait and see. Will threatened tariffs become a reality? There are two member state heads in particular whose response to whatever Trump does next should be watched.
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Harry McGee, Ellen Coyne and Mark Paul join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

· The Minister with responsibility for artificial intelligence (AI), Niamh Smyth, met with executives from social media company X on Friday over concerns about their Grok app. The app has been in the headlines because of its ability to produce non-consensual intimate images. Current law bans sharing of intimate images but does not appear to criminalise generating them – what is the Government’s next step?

· The level of energy needed to power a data centre was laid bare this week. An internal Government document showed that a single facility in west Dublin consumes 10 times the electricity of a nearby pharmaceutical plant employing 2,000 people, equivalent to enough power for 200,000 homes.

· And more ‘psychodrama’ for the Tories this week as Robert Jenrick, the Conservative shadow justice secretary, defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK after being sacked from the Conservative shadow cabinet.

Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

· The US and Denmark battle for control of Greenland, Inside Politics veteran Jennifer Bray is releasing a book (and it’s rather good), a reader’s letter questions how dog-friendly we should be as a society, and who is next for Donald Trump’s crosshairs?
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Despite global turmoil, the focus of Irish politics in 2026 is set to remain on matters close to home. Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh to identify the main challenges facing the Government this year, particularly those on the desks of Minister for Housing James Brown, Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and how global events could impinge on those domestic affairs.
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US president Donald Trump wants to acquire Greenland, asserting strategic and security needs but also a 'psychological need' to take over the vast, frozen island from Denmark. So how do Greenlanders themselves feel about this idea? Derek Scally is in Greenland's capital Nuuk to find out. He talks to Hugh Linehan about a people whose passion for total independence may have been catalysed by Trump's covetousness.
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