Inside Politics with Hugh Linehan

Ellen Coyne and Harry McGee join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

· Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s St Patrick’s Day visit to The White House to meet US president Donald Trump could prove awkward should he face questions about the US and Israel’s military action against Iran, and its impact on the Middle East, Gulf regions and soaring fuel prices. Last year’s meeting was a minefield to be navigated – perhaps Martin has learned from that experience.

· A far less fraught meeting took place on Friday when the Taoiseach welcomed Britain's prime minister Keir Starmer to the UK-Ireland summit at Fota House in Cork. Security and co-operation were the order of the day, as Anglo-Irish relations continued to improve from a post-Brexit low.

· And the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) decided this week, after a mere fifteen years, not to bring criminal charges against anyone arising from the Moriarty tribunal’s final report in 2011. Michael Lowry and Denis O’Brien no doubt welcomed the decision.

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

· The brave and anonymous women we all owe a debt, the beef between farmers and Government, and Patrick Freyne’s golden age of male role models.
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As war in the Middle East rages on, the world's superpowers are making diplomatic representations to end it, and contingencies to protect their economies from the knock-on effects, namely oil and natural gas prices.

China, which buys oil from Iran, would rather the conflict hadn’t begun and would like to see it concluded, according to Irish Times Beijing correspondent Denis Staunton. However its reliance on foreign oil is small in comparison to other nations.

On today's podcast Hugh is joined by Denis and Political Editor Pat Leahy who says European governments, including Ireland, have a much greater problem with the volatility of the energy markets.

The Irish government was one of the few incumbent European governments that was re-elected after the volatility brought on by the war in Ukraine. How will European politicians handle the Iran war challenge?

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The Irish-American experience fitted seamlessly into the story of the United States as a “nation of immigrants”. In the Trump era that narrative has fallen out of favour. Family ties are weakening over time and the old political associations are changing too. So where does that leave our relationship with the 38.5 million Americans who ticked “Irish” in the last US census?

On today’s Inside Politics podcast Professor Liam Kennedy talks to Hugh Linehan about how Irish American identity has changed over the decades, how traces of it persist through popular culture and the contrast between the liberalism of Joe Biden and the nationalism of Steve Bannon. They also discuss the "soft power" of the Irish-American relationship, as exemplified by the shamrock ceremony that takes place next week in Washington, and whether it too is on the wane.

Professor Liam Kennedy is director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies at University College Dublin.
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Naomi O’Leary and Cormac McQuinn join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

· After six days of US-Israeli attacks on Iran, the conflict is escalating and has spread to Lebanon which has experienced sustained airstrikes from Israel. Iran has vowed to continue targeting Gulf countries having fired missile and drone attacks into Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The US has entered into a conflict with no clear focus or potential resolution. Trump’s demands on social media for an ‘unconditional surrender’ from Iran seem like wishful thinking at this point.

· Irish consumers are already feeling the consequences of the conflict in the Middle East as the average cost of 500 litres of home heating oil was put at just under €800 on Thursday, an increase of nearly 60 per cent in less than a week. The Government was quick to react, asking the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to launch an immediate investigation of domestic suppliers here.

· And research into last year’s presidential election by the Electoral Commission threw up some interesting results, not least that almost half of those who spoiled their vote, more than 12 per cent of the total ballot, did so because they didn’t like any of the candidates.

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

· Horse manure sparks tension in the Liberties, mobile phones can be ageing over time, and does an arts degree retain any value these days?
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While the world’s attention is focused on the Middle East, Inside Politics looks at the US sphere of influence on Cuba, which is facing ever tightening economic sanctions.

Cuban governments have survived attempts to overthrow it by multiple US administrations going all the way back to Dwight Eisenhower following the revolution led by Fidel Castro in 1959.

Over the decades, Cuban governments have managed to survive crippling economic sanctions largely because of its allies in the region, namely Venezuela.

In recent weeks, the US Navy has amassed a huge number of vessels in the Caribbean Sea to stop oil imports to Cuba, and the US government has threatened sanctions on Mexico if it tries to deliver oil to the island.

But why now? And what impact will it have on the Cuban government, and on the lives of the people there.

The journalist Hannah McCarthy travelled to Cuba to find out.

“What we’re seeing is just a grinding halt of daily life” she said.

“Buses not running. Rolling blackouts that were already happening before are increasing" and "people's lives have contracted to finding food or running water".

"Cuban's are fed up" she added.
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