Energy isn't a luxury

0:00Hello and welcome to this week's episode of my granny's Irish and this week we have Deputy Patter Tobine, the leader of Ainto, who is here to join us on a very fast moving news this week, which with international implications and obviously national implications. I'm going to ask the deputy about why the Irish government continues to hammer Irish voters in tax on energy. He is also going to explain to me why it is in our national interest to continue freeloading off the brits for our defence. Then we might find some common ground in relation to social media and we will probably then while racing through the crazy idea that we don't need so many political parties in Ireland, we will then perhaps end on St Patrick's Day. Good afternoon Deputy, it is the 11th of March, just past noon I think that's important for the

1:01listener because when they're listening to it, who knows what might happen, we might have all been, you know, nuked by the time this tingles out. Hopefully not Laura, hopefully we'll last another few years, yes, please God. Yes, so I assume we're all looking, do you know where the strafe of Hamuz is? Have you been looking at it up on your Google maps? Yeah, I'm actually a geography and history nerd. Okay. So I love maps like it's been all day looking at maps to be honest and so no, this is obviously a very interesting outcome of this particular war. Obviously, it's a devastating war in many ways, well over a thousand people killed and you know, very sad to see the school bombs there in recent weeks and but you know, I think the strategy of the Iranians is to bed down for a long period of time and to cause as much chaos in terms of the international energy market as possible knowing that obviously energy crisis is actually not going to be popular anywhere in the world and especially in America and I think, you know,

2:02that's already translated into Trump's response where he says, you know, we're going to bring this to a swift end in the in the next wild because he's got midterms later on in the year and he can't afford a long energy crisis in relation to that. So that's probably the biggest the biggest weapon that Iran has at the moment is the energy crisis and they're going to use it as strongly as they can. Okay, so I mean, you're correct on that. The the Iranian as much as you can guess strategy, I suspect, will be just to survive this and once the and survive, you can take out a leader but the regime can remain intact and obviously there's people who have different views on the war and views on on President Trump, President, our Prime Minister Netanyahu, what there are things you can control and there are things you cannot control. I would have thought the three things we definitely cannot control of the Iranian regime, Prime Minister Netanyahu or President Trump. Now, what we can control is how that this crisis affects Irish voters and at

3:07the moment, the dominating issue is the issue of energy on which we all depend. Now, yeah, yesterday, you issued a statement saying that the government is due to, I think, increase the carbon tax in April and I saw you with the weekend and you followed it up yesterday saying that that increase should be suspended. So you can explain why and maybe then you can explain why they're hedging, hedging their bets and have not announced the suspension of that, which just seems obvious right now. Yeah, so first of all, I got to remember that there's about 300,000 families in this country who are in energy arrears. So that is the account pay for their electricity gas or oil bills. And you know, energy is not a, it's not a luxury good. It's a staple. I speak into an elderly man yesterday who says he couldn't afford the new price and oil. He's not going to be able to buy the oil for his home essential heating. He has sticks in September in the backyard that'll heat one room through it and open fire, but he's not going to have warm

4:07house and he's not going to have hot water for the next while and hundreds of thousands of people in that situation. Energy is more expensive here than it is in pretty much every of the European country. And you know, if you put a hundred euros into your car, 65 of that is tax currently, which is outrageous. And we're looking at oil at petrol and diesel heading towards 150 euros for a tank fill and home heating oil is heading towards 2000 euros for a tank fill. And you know, my biggest frustration in this is that's, you know, the government are, you know, focusing on companies price-catching. And that's the right to do so price-catching is wrong. But the reality is the government is carbon tax-catching in this situation. And so, you know, carbon tax was designed and they say to bring, you know, fossil fuels to a certain price so that people would then move away from fossil fuels. And now, the market has already brought the price of petrol and diesel up to that price anyways. If people could get out of fossil

5:08fuels, they would happily at this stage. And so, the increase in carbon is not a behavioral changing tool in that sense. And secondly, it's not a behavior changing tool in terms of people don't really have an option in terms of public transport anyways. So, I come up with a kind of me. We would look at the rail lines since 1994, the government won't build it. And actually, last year, the government put up tools on the M50 and volumes are still increasing. And they're putting up tools on the double-port tunnel and volumes are still increasing. So, it's not a case where you put up the price of, you know, private transport and people will change the behavior. People can't. They'd love to, but they can't because the government won't provide their particular alternative to them. And so, this is just a punitive tax. And, you know, our PQs have shown that the government had taken 4.1 billion euros in fuel taxes last year. The highest in the history of the stage in the middle of a cost to live in crisis. An incredible thing. And carbon taxes now are billion euros. It's the biggest fuel tax that

6:09there is. And what are the government's response? In four weeks time, they're going to put carbon tax up again. And I think that's absolutely immoral. And for the government to put up a tax on people who can't afford energy, on the basis that it's not actually having the desired outcome from the government's perspective anyways. And it's simply hammering families. And our policy is that we've called for a carbon tax decrease and a suspension of all increases in the current situation. And we see the Sinn Fein of Commiret with the similar response a few days later. It often feels to me that Sinn Fein is just, you know, aimed to a week later in a lot of these things at the moment. Well, that's a matter for the viewers. I know that labor, however, have opposed a suspension of the carbon tax. Look, there's a few things. You've called it a punitive tax. And we, a grip, have been very, very clear that this really, it's really a punishment tax. And I think it's, I think there's a number of things even being a fair to a government

7:14as you can be is that it is important as you say. And this, it really is a moral issue because number one, as you say, energy is not a luxury. Okay, you can't drive to work, you know, if you have to drive to work to earn a salary and feed your families, this isn't a luxury, might say, perhaps a holiday, the luxury, but driving your children to school or driving to work and heating your home, they are not luxury. They are what you will call, you know, the left would actually call those basic human rights. Yes, when, or they, that there should be social rights are, or maybe even talk about inserting them into the constitution. But the minute the government then makes it much more difficult for you to do that, then it's, it's for all sorts of other reasons. And I do think motive is important. I think it would be wrong to alleged that they're sort of happy about it. But the intent is definitely to make you consume less fossil fuels. But if they know, if, if, if it's reasonably foreseeable that that will plunge people into fuel poverty,

8:17then that is in fact their intention. And that, I think you're right when you say that it's, it's a moral issue. It is a punishment tax. And actually, to be honest, it, it, it, they're almost like massive to me. You might not go this far. But I would, it's like they're sitting there stroking their cats saying, you know, we have ways of making you change to renewable energies. Even though they haven't even set up the infrastructure necessary to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, it's, that's, that's simply not in place with an article in the Irish Times that said that wouldn't come online until at least 2033. And I have serious doubts that solar or air, and our wind energy could replace it. So they are, if not desiring, then intentionally pushing Irish families, if you said there's already 300,000 in fuel poverty in, in further, into further fuel poverty. Why, why are they dragging their, their, their feet on this? See, I actually think this, this is a, the government are incompetent. There's a uselessness in the, in the government, because people often say to me, pattern, you know, there's a conspiracy

9:19here of the government, like I see the government up front. The government are not able to tie their own shoelaces at the moment. So you mentioned, you know, in terms of, that is depressing. You know, it is, and you, you mentioned, like, you know, renewable energies, right? So in 25 years, the government have built seven offshore wind turbines in Ireland, okay? Seven. And they are being decommissioned. So right now, we have no offshore wind turbine production at all currently. And you can't use them in storms, right? So, and here's a point. We've had more government offshore wind energy conferences than we have offshore wind turbines, okay? Have you probably seen in the Irish times and, and the other papers, hundreds of articles about how Ireland could be the Saudi Arabia of wind energy? Yeah. And again, there's nothing there. So we have none operating at the moment. In terms of most families, most families, whether they believe in climate change or not, would love to get deep retrofitting in their homes. Would love to have, you know, a, you know, installation around their homes, would love to probably get solar panels on the roof to reduce

10:22their energy costs. But the price of that, like, retrofitting a, a, a, a, a deep touch home is about 45,000 euros at the moment. Most people can't afford, like, the 99% of families don't have 45,000 euros to spend on, on such an outlay. And most people can't afford the 10, 12, 15 grand of the cost to put solar panels. So one, so the only thing that the government can do is they can bring about a stick. They can't provide this, the, the, the, let's say, the, renewable energy alternatives, but they definitely can bring about a stick. Because that's easy. It takes no time, no planning. All it takes is a tax change to do it. And to be honest, I actually think that phenophonophaneagal are depending now on a, on a narrowing electorate. And that's, you know, is increasingly not exposed to these type of financial situations in, in their own particular lives. And, and, and of course, the ministers are on 210,000 euros. So they don't experience the energy costs differential. Like, what we're going to do is we're going to put a parliamentary question now into each of the ministers to ask them, what is their carbon tax

11:24output? And for each bloody year at now, what is their carbon tax over the same Patrick's weekend? Like, what is each minister going to actually spend flying over to, for Haleana and to, um, to, you know, to Brazil and to Morocco and to China over this weekend? Are they, are they going to offset that through their, their own expenditure? Is it a cost to them for their carbon tax outcome here? Uh, or is it just going to be the taxpayers just at the patient's shut up? Okay. Well, I mean, that their current, the, the current media line I've seen, my interpretation from the media around they've been doing is last week they were blaming price gauging. And yes, price gauging can, can occur, but there's actually very little they can do that they, they can't, I don't think it's, it's relatively possible for them to set a cap. This week now have shifted to, well, you know, it serves us right because this is what happens when you rely on fossil fuels. I think that was Simon Harris last night. So it's, it's all our fault. Isn't it for having the Tamarishi to, to want to drive our car? And like, here's the banana thing, right? Like,

12:26you know, there's such a level of, you know, and duplicity. There's such a level of double standards here. Okay. So the family home is getting taxed, you know, up to their octaves in terms of carbon tax and it's paying some of the most expensive electricity in the whole of the European Union because climate is such a threat at the moment. Yes, we have about 25% of our electricity market is now data centers and the government are going to bring it up to 30%. They pay electricity at a far lower level. So, so price is not a tool to change their behavior. Actually, price electricity is a, an incentive for them to come and use our infrastructure. And, you know, again, the, the incompetence level, the grid currently is so underdeveloped in this state that actually a lot of the wind energy does actually produce is, is, is, is, is, is thrown out of the system. It can't be put on the grid because the grid can't hold it. So, you know, it, it, it just feels like when

13:27it comes to our consumption of fuel that we have to be really focused on the threat of climate change, but that's is not there for either government ministers or certain economic sectors such as data centers. Yeah. Now, in terms of of what we're going to do, obviously you're not in government you've asked for suspension of the increase in in carbon tax in April, which I would have thought it a bare minimum, and are going to have a policy of just dumping net zero completely. The transition to fossil fuels is impossible. And at the moment, we're being at Irish families are just being hammered. Even though it'll make no difference to, if it made a difference to climate change, I'll be one thing, but we won't have, as long as the Chinese continue to burn fossil fuel at the rate they want, even if they're just time to dump this entire net zero. Yeah. I don't, I don't think net zero is possible. I, I will say that, but I do think that we should move towards more sustainable energy produced here in Ireland. And I'll tell you this. And because we know from the Ukrainian war and we know from this particular war that the the issue of

14:34you know, carbon fuels and fossil fuels is a very, very unstable supply. And if we are, you know, and we're probably the most heavily reliant on fuel imports in the whole of the European Union, I think 85% of all fuel consumes in this country is imported. So I do believe that it is better to be able to, to micro generation of electricity, especially. I would like to see far more farmers been able to use all of their shed space, you know, for solar development. And for micro development in terms of biodeigestion and for, you know, micro, you know, development in terms of wind turbines. I don't like the system that the government use of these big, you know, international investors coming in which with turbines on land, leaving violet behind and violet will gain gain from communities. In Germany, they had a better system where communities themselves could actually draw down loans and purchase these and put these up in their own communities with their own permission and consent and be the net recipient of the financial benefit out of it. So I do think we could actually change some of the way that this is done in its development. But you're always

15:38going to need some carbon back up in terms of energy because the wind doesn't blow all the time, the sun doesn't shine all the time, et cetera. And you're never, you need to fill in the gaps in terms of energy development. Now, I will say, you know, like, you know, I do think that we can as a country get to a situation where we are far less reliant on gas and far less reliant in oil. And I actually think that is an objective that we should pursue. Well, it is a long term rule. And what about nuclear? Is there any, we have very little little expertise in nuclear? But the French and British are very reliant on it. Is it possible in Ireland? And here's the math thing, like, Laura, like, I remember, like, again, going back to the idea that Ireland is going to be the side of your Arabia of, you know, sustainable energy. Right now, but 15% of the energy we consume is important there. So we're net, we're net actually, you know, as a country where we're importing a fearsome and an increasing amount of electricity. And that electricity is coming off, a lot of it is coming off nuclear power from Britain at the

16:40moment. Now, the one thing I will say is knowing how difficult it is to erect a wind turbine or a solar farm anywhere in this country at the moment, it'll be a brave TD who will say build common bills and nuclear power stations. Well, you're that brave TD, are you not? Well, I'll be honest, I actually, I, and, you know, there's, there is a need in politics for vision and there's a need for politics for bravery, but there's also a need for understanding of reality. And I can tell you today that there is no community in the country at the moment, no community in the country, the moment that is not going to see people out in massive numbers in terms of protests, in terms of blocking streets with the idea of putting a nuclear power station. Like, I would love, for people who are talking, I would love for them to put a nuclear power plant that I should change that word. Some of these people who are calling for nuclear power stations are from SAS Dublin. And I would say to them, well, what about Herbert Park for the nuclear power station? You know, no, we're not losing any green space.

17:42Please, I wrote about it. I don't know if it's bad enough that they're going to do something to that other park. I make it into some sort of rolled pitch. I'm not suggesting at all that we put it, but all I'm suggesting is that some people who are talking with this, they're still nimbis at the hospital. And they're, they're still going to say not my backyard. And that's the problem in this country. Well, if, if, if nuclear isn't realistic, although, as you said, we're all perfectly happy to have it imported from other countries. And what about the Metro? That is something that I am absolutely on board with with the greenie. I think the transport, I think there was a number of headlines coming out of the business post, where some business leaders have said that essentially Dublin, it can't grow anymore without a Metro. That is my opinion, my opinion is you have to have an underground. If you really want to take yourself seriously the modern city, they keep telling us we're very modern. Why can't they get this thing? You are 100% right in terms of this, Laura. Like, we have a 300 million euros spent on Metro North and not one shovel put in the ground. Dublin, the speed of dubbing transport now is slower than

18:46it was in the 1860s with horses and carts. You know, they got, it's got to cost 1.5 billion euros in congestion by 2040 in terms of the hours people are spending in in cars and the energy wasted in terms of sitting in traffic. And, you know, this, and this has been a key platform for at least five years. Why would you actually, why can't they do it? And what will be the difference between the current government and you guys? Are you going to introduce my partial lockdown that I wrote about to get this thing done? So basically, our view is this country is wallowing in red tape and bureaucracy. Okay. So we have become the most bureaucratic state. We're the slowest state in terms of planning, permitting, licensing, tendering, procurement and judicial reviews in a whole of the European Union at the moment. These are all your voters aren't they? These are all your rural voters that object to everything. No, no, I would say, first of all, there's a couple of things. You can actually, like, in, in, in, the Davids dubbing rail line was bit, was promised in 1994. It won't happen until 2036 at the earliest. So we're talking about 42 years

19:51from concepts to completion. And at the same time, the 60,000 people forced to use cars coming out of me than the daily basis. All my voters want that rail line at built ASAP. And here, this is the math thing, right? That original rail line was built in the 1860s in three years with picks and shovels. It takes longer, it takes six years for the planning process to fully wind its way through. So, you know, that the, just one step in that particular project is twice as long as the full project cost when we had no technology back in the 1860s. So, you know, there's, there's, there's no debt in my mind that we have become a country that is just completely obsessed with really slow planning. Like the, the, the, the Dublin waste water management plan took eight years in, in its planning situation. I know of planning applications that have 30,000 pages. So, are you, are you reforming traditional review then? Or I think we would believe that it should be harder to get a traditional review in this country. We believe that planning applications,

20:53one funding application should suffice for all planning authorities and all licensing authorities and all environmental authorities. We believe that we have to accordion the, the whole system of public consultation. Yes, public consultation is really, really important, but it can't go on for five, six, seven years in relation to the development of a project. On commission plan all it doesn't have enough staff. The local authorities don't have enough planning staff currently. They will be building projects currently in on commission plan all for 18 months, waiting for a decision so that they can go ahead and build those damn homes in, in the localities. So, you know, we had a problem in this country back in the 90s that we had too little regulation, but all of these things are like pendulums. And now we have too much regulation. And, and the other thing is, you know, I was on, or to E recently, I said, are you, do you want to go back to the 90s in terms of regulation? And I'm saying, no, there, there is a sweet spot in terms of regulation. But right now, our planning system is fighting the problems of the 1990s. It's not fighting the problems of the, in 2026. And, you know,

21:55sometimes you have to tailor your systems to suit the situation that you're in in any given time. And our laws are tailored to fit the crisis we had in the 1990s. It doesn't make sense at all. So, you would reform judicial review. I mean, I've heard this, but it never, it never seems to happen. I'm like, in relation to the judicial review, I mean, I agree with you that the probably is too much regulation. But I mean, you, you, you may not like me saying this, but it, it's just, you know, Britain also has a lot of judicial review. They also complain there all the time of too many regulations. It's too hard to get things built, but they still got the Elizabeth line built on top of all their other two blinds. It did take quite a while. It is really an engineering feat of wonder. And I'm, I just, it's still very frustrating. They're not that far away here. Why can't we use the expertise or whatever got that line built to, to get this on the brand built over here? We have a judicial review rate of about 25 per million in Britain. It's about five per million. So we have, we're five times the judicial.

22:58Is this, is this an Irish thing then? Well, so, so we also have a situation where you, people nearly anybody can put an objection to anything. So if I'm to build a slatted shed for a farm, up in Dennygall, someone in cork can object to it. So we have a system that's open to a vexatious objections on, they have standing. Is that, is that true? Yeah, you do. So we believe they should only have standing if they have a material interest or a geographical interest in terms of a particular project. And so there's, there's loads of different ways where you can actually, and, you know, reduce this. And when I would still make sure that there's proper enforcement of the regulation, and a lot of the problems we've had in this country is the lack of enforcement. And we've seen that with regards to my cut in Dennygall, and a lot of the buildings are built in the 90s without fire, certs or fire safety, roots, et cetera. So the, aim to is the only party that's tackling the government from this perspective. And that's really, really important because none of the, the, the, the so-called left political parties are tackling it from that perspective. In the same way, whether you're in a party or you're

23:58attacking them on the issue of, at, and fuel from the tax situation, most of the other political parties are, are attacking them on the other perspectives. I think, I think you've introduced a really interesting dynamic for, because for the last 20, 30 years, we've had a so-called centrist government been attacked from a left-wing government. And that's led for a very one-dimensional debate. And it's kind of meant that the debate has been stuck in a, in a rut on housing and on, on, on construction for a long period of time. And we're interested, we're introducing a completely different dimension into the debate, which I think is far healthier in terms of opening off a real change in that space. Okay, so you're going to reform tradition review. If we ever had a T-shock pattern, Tobin, and we've seen that won't be stopped by EU law. I'm, I'm, you're, you're, we're going to dump net zero completely. Is that, no, no, like, and I don't believe net zero is possible. I'm, but I don't believe net zero is possible, but we need to move

25:00towards more sustainable energy. In terms of planning, one of the biggest challenges that exists in planning is the habitats directive. And, and, you know, we would see ourselves as an environmentalist party. We want to see, you know, an improvements in the Irish habitat. But there's a very poor balance between the needs of people and the needs of habitat at the moment. And we want to see actually the needs of people put higher up the priority hierarchy in future. So one of the, one of the problems currently is, you know, flood defenses is a big issue in this country. So, you know, you know, Middleton and Escorty, Cantarf, Sandiments, a go, a go away. Loads of areas are waiting 20 and 30 years for flood defenses. Why? Because it's taken so long because very strict habitat laws from the European Union are forcing the government to go through all types of hoops to try and build those projects. And that needs to be reformed because there are people's lives and livelihoods in danger in terms of those flood defenses. And that needs to

26:04be brought into the equation as well. Okay, so just wrapping this up for now, you're, you're, the, you've obviously asked for a suspension of the carbon tax in April. I think the proposal on the current government policy is that by 2030, you'd be paying 100 euros per ton of CO CO2, which sounds enormous. Is that something you, you would keep? No, we, no, we, we will suspend any furthering. There should be no further increases in carbon tax at all. And in times of surges, there should be reductions. What about that? That is also a big issue. That is, it's massively, it's a massive issue. It is about a billion euros a year currently on fuel in this country. It's the second biggest tax it was up until this year, the biggest tax. And, and, you know, we, like, I'll be honest with you, it'd be easy for me to say, let's get rid of that as well. I'm not going to make an argument currently for a reduction of VASH. And in terms of the tax space in this country, if we want, if we want to build infrastructure, for example, if we want to

27:08be able to pay for hospitals, we do need a tax space. So I'm just focusing on the carbon tax as a reform in this particular area. Well, these things, as you say, would always have to be costed. Now, I might view though, is I think the latest corporate tax take with a Bouch to our 26 billion. Yes. A half of this coming from just three companies. Yes. You must know better than I. What are we doing with our 26 billion? It's kind of revenue that other European countries could only dream of. It is. So like on one level, it's fantastic. Well, like on one level, it's a gift. And what a good government to do is this should be putting that into what I would say, reducing the national debt, first and foremost, and also into infrastructural spend. So capital spend is a good way to spend what sometimes is considered a windfall tax. And because capital spend are once off and they improve the lives of people in terms of the metro in terms of, you know, the rail lines in terms of good energy infrastructure. And they're not

28:09repeatable costs. And if you build a carbon type or sorry, a corporation tax into current expenditure, which you have to repeat every year, you have to pay nurses and doctors every year, the danger of that is if those three companies, if they're chief financial officers decide, well, you know, Mr. Trump is reducing carbon or corporation taxes in the states. And as a result, we're going to move our production back to the states within all of a sudden, there's a big budgetary hole. And then you have an austerity government for the next 10 years because the austerity government has to eat a cut back on doctors, nurses or increased taxes on people to be able to fill that hole. So a good government needs to make sure that these types of taxes are not locked into current spend, but are used for infrastructural spend or dealing with a long term debt. Okay. Um, right. Well, let's, let's, let's see what happens. Um, if they, if this is who continues and the government does, um, go ahead with that increase in carbon

29:10tax in April, I'm sorry, when last point in this, the government is locking some of those corporation taxes currently into current spend. And even though, you know, Simon Harris is the minister for finance as well, he is allowing for public spending running away, running away with himself. And public spending was projected to be about a 6% increase this year, which was considered extremely high by IFAQ, who are obviously the, and the, the, the, the government sponsors, you know, watchdog in terms of, of, of budgetary policy, but they're even ahead of that 7%. And there's two things, one, obviously, that again, locks those that spending into current spending. But two, it has a kind of an inflationary aspect on society as well, believe it or not, because the more money you add into a rigid, um, you know, full employment economy, it doesn't necessarily achieve more output. It just actually puts up the prices, uh, in terms of that. And so the government needs to actually get public spending, uh, rained back, uh, in terms of,

30:11of, of, of the future developments. And now the political space for Simon is tough because he's actually on the hook as a tarnished and we's now also on the hook as a minister for finance. And if he's tough set up, it's going to damage himself and think the gay are politically as well. So public spending is too high and it needs to, they need to impose some discipline on, on those department to spend. You're sending a very Margaret Thatcher at the moment, how do I know about you? No, I think, no, and this is the man thing, right? And, you know, I actually think the fiscal responsibility is more important for centerists and even left-wing politicians than, uh, for right-wing politicians, maybe like Margaret Thatcher. And the reason being is because fiscal responsibility actually protects workers and those on lower middle incomes in the long run. Because if you live for irresponsible physical attitude, you will have peaks, massive peaks, a massive troughs, you will have governments, you know, crashing in terms of, uh, these, uh, uh, incomes, such as taxes. And when there is austerity, as we had it from

31:182009, up to about 2016, it is working class people. It is low-income and middle-income families to get stuff in the biggest way. So physical responsibility is a responsibility, not just of, of the so-called right. It's a responsibility of everybody in politics. And, and all physical responsibility is, is making sure that you have the tax raised to pay for the services that you want. Yes. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a low tax and a low-spend government, but it just means that you have a balance between the two. Well, the, the, uh, inf, it feeds inflation, which is the thief and the knife, I believe. And of course, it's always easy to spend other people's money. Yes. Um, the, the, the, but let's just see, I mean, there's no way you could accuse Ireland of being a low tax base. I mean, the, the tax burden carry, just let me finish that. The tax burden carried by the middle class is the second highest in all of the OECD. Not the, not the, the work, the, the lot to be said from making work pay. I think that is important and not to have to, uh, the tax rate is controlled for very low-income

32:24workers. Otherwise, it ends up as, work doesn't pay. But the tax burden on the middle class, as I said, is the second highest in the OECD? Is, is, is A into going to lessen that tax burden? Yes. So there's two things there. I do believe that actually all people should pay some tax. And I do believe that, you know, while it's important that we do have a situation where work pays, and, you know, there's a big chunk of society who are taken out of the tax, um, in, in, in real terms, taking out of payments of tax. And I don't necessarily want to see a massive increase in, in the tax on, on, on those individuals. But I do think that everybody, you know, we all live under the same sky. We are responsible for this country. And we all just pay a little bit in terms of its development. But the second thing is I do believe that there's an enormous amount of waste. And I do want to see a situation where we reduce the level of waste that happens in this country. And I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. So the HSC, the HSC is probably one of the biggest centers in terms of, you know, the lack of a budgetary accuracy. So pretty,

33:26pretty much every year, you know, it, it overspends in terms of, of its budget allocation. And we believe that a lot of money is just getting tied up and lost in the HSC currently. What we would like to see is a change in the way that the HSC is funded. So that's, you know, right now, a particular hospital in any given area gets a block of investments on an annual basis. So whether they're, their operation theaters are open from November to, you know, March and delivering operations, they're still getting paid for the delivery of that service. So we want a situation where a hospital gets paid for the amount of operations, treatments, engagements and, you know, consultations that it delivers. So in that situation, if you're managing a hospital, you say it's, well, I'm only going to get paid by the basis of my output here. I actually need to start front loading staff and so that we have a bigger output and reducing middle management and reducing administration within that hospital because we're not going to get paid for these people anymore. Yes, you need their structure within the hospital to make sure it functions properly, but we actually start to need to make sure that it's the, it's the cold

34:31face where the output happens is where the resources put because that's how we're going to get paid at the end of the year. And, you know, right now in the health service, that is not happening. And we believe that that would be the strongest, biggest transformative reform within the health service to make sure one patients get what they need and when this comes down, but two, we get better bang for our book in terms of the health service as well. Well, I mean, health has always a big spend. And you have said that you do believe everybody should pay some tax, which I agree with you on, although it sounds very familiar to what's called a poll tax, but you have an answered whether or not you would reduce the tax burden on middle income or earners. Yeah, but I right now, to be honest, I'm not going to say that I'm going to reduce the middle at the income tax on tax earners at the moment. It would be easy for me to say it would get me a lot of likes on this particular and podcast, but I'm going to be honest and straight with people. I'm not going to get involved in an auction politics. What I want to see at the moment is a reduction in the

35:35likes of the carbon taxes and those types of what I would call expenditure taxes actually hit low and low and middle income earners the most because they spend a far bigger chunk of their incomes on the likes of fuel and energy. So we do want to see a reduction in those types of taxes and we do want to see a significant improvement in relation to waste trash society. But at the moment, I do want to make sure that we have a proper public service in terms of the health service. Like, you know, we're getting so many people coming into our offices that are in really poor physical condition who are waiting years still for operations in terms of children who are waiting for scoliosis operations in terms of people with disabilities and not being able to live in this country because of the lack of income that they have. So I'm not going to go and say we are going to cut middle income income taxes at the moment. We will commit to expenditure in tax decreases currently. Okay. Well, that is health. One department where I think spending is somewhat limited

36:41must be the defense. Obviously, Ireland is a neutral country. I think you into are very firmly wanting to defend that. Yes. That's that's that. So explain to me why should Ireland continue and freeloading off other people such as perhaps the French if they are going to go and defend the strait of Hormuz or indeed are closest to a graphical neighbor, the the British. I love the way you say freeloading. That's a fairly well loaded question there to a certain extent. So first of all, you're not on other people than your freeload. That's what it is. Obviously, we don't want anybody else to look after our defense at all. We want Ireland to look after our defense. And actually, I think again, aim to is unique in this. So we we stand 100% behind the issue of neutrality, but we recognize that you can't be neutral. Actually, if you don't invest in your own defense forces. And the reason why we believe that we should be neutral is because you know, you know, Ireland's from way back to wolftone times and it's James Condi Times and has realized that military blocks use their military hardware for their own national interests.

37:48That would then include the Irish national interests. No, it doesn't actually because in our experiences, for example, when, you know, the European Union, when you when you outsource decision making to much bigger countries, those bigger countries control decision making process. And yet, we would have to send our children over in terms of fighting in those wars. So for example, you know, we obviously outsource our sovereignty in terms of the European Union. They make decisions on the Mercursor deal and they make decisions against our national interests. So there are sometimes that is better to actually keep decisions. Handing over our defense policy to Ursula von der Leyen is not a good thing. And that's another is what Fina Foll and Fina Gale seek to do. They seek to move our ins towards a European defense union who won't give a top any damn to what we actually care for or what is in our interests. They will decide for themselves and we will have to send our people over. The second thing is yet like we have a defense forces that have been degraded by this government for the last 20 years. We are 2000 personnel below where we should be in terms of our defense forces. We can float to boats in terms of our navy out of eight.

38:53Currently, we don't have the necessary drone protections that we need even for the President, the European Council of Presidency, which is coming up in July. We don't have the necessary radar systems that we need for that particular presidency. And so the government have allowed even in terms of picking up people in the Middle East at the moment. You know, when when Kabul fell, we had to hitch a lift with the French military to get people out of Kabul at that time. So all our air force would allow us to the capacity to pick HG people up at any given time. 80 people, you know, is nonsense when 20,000 Irish people currently are in the likes of the Middle East. So we are very much furr actually significantly investing in our defense forces in terms of army personnel in terms of our radar fans, our cyber security, and all of those things. And so we are unique again in terms of absolutely standing for neutrality or the parties do that too, but actually wanting to spend money in our defenses. So what was A&T's position there?

39:57I think the arm signed an agreement with France for a joint military training and intelligence sharing up to two billion of military equipment to be purchased from France. We would be very cautious in this. And it looks like the Irish government are actually using the French system as our supply chain for military purposes, which basically starts to lock us in and to a particular outcome in future development in relation to this. So we are like we want Ireland to remain fully militarily neutral. And that's, you know, I'm nothing against us purchasing from France, but I don't want to get to a situation where we purchase only from one supplier, which means that we are then fully dependent in, let's say, vertical supply chain integration with that country in terms of any actions that we take into future. We need to make sure that we have a broad choice in terms of that military supply. I think that was in return for a French

40:57cooperation in patrolling Irish waters. Yeah, and like it's an absolute disgrace what's happened. You know, when the Russians were parked off the west coast of Ireland, it was the Irish fishermen that actually negotiated them being pushed away. It's incredible. Like we have drugs coming into this country on a daily basis because we can't control our waters. We have people being trafficked into this country on a daily basis because we can't control, you know, our waters. The American State Department has put Ireland at level two in terms of trafficking because we have such poor defenses around controlling our waters. And, you know, we have eight ships and only two of them can be a staffed at any one time. And what that comes down to, to be honest, is a government that have degraded that capability. And I wouldn't be surprised, and many people probably cynically wouldn't be surprised that it's been degraded because it strengthens their argument for getting involved in the European Defense Union in the future. Look how poor we are. Look how weak we are.

41:58That certainly looked Britain's defense has been hugely degraded. They were embarrassed by they were unable to defend a military base on Cyprus. In fact, I think it's actually technically known as Crown Territory. And it was only yesterday when HMS Dragoon was sent having been just stuck in port for at least the last week. So that is, I think, I think the motivation in terms of, and this has been a European-wide problem. And President Trump, I think, was right to criticize on the sweater, your military neutral or not. The European simply allowed their defenses to be degraded, and often to pour money into a welfare state. Yeah, so there's no doubt that's in, like, you know, Trump has a significant point that the European Union have piggybacked the US in terms of defense for a long period of time. But can I just just add one aspect to this? Like Ireland has a very proud history of neutrality. So, you know, we have, in terms of our own

43:00peace process, we have like really good experience of how to negotiate peace in a very intractable situation. Our own, the Irish missionaries went to nearly like a hundred countries over hundreds of years and built up a phenomenal goodwill to Ireland, you know, practically all around the world. In terms of our UN peacekeepers, we have a really good, you know, kind of response from so many countries. And you have countries like, let's say Norway, a small country population, roughly five million people, who themselves have used, you know, their internationally recognized and skill in peacekeeping for good purposes. So the Oslo Accords, you know, was very, very important in trying to broker peace between Israel and Palestine, for example, in that region for a long period of time. Like, you know, if people are looking to Ireland to say we want Ireland to become a country that has a competence in military actions, but they're bonkers. The gardens never going to have a competency in that space where we do have a competency is where

44:01our competitive advantage is actually is in peace, you know, and in peacekeeping. And we should be used that in an active sense. But the government hasn't done that. If you look at the last five years, the government have actually outsourced all our, you know, foreign, you know, foreign affairs and, you know, actions to the European Union. We no longer speak. We only speak in consort now with our European neighbours, really, on foreign affairs. And even at the price to be paid for for being part of the European Union, also, I don't think from my position that Ireland should have been neutral or that it's a position of pride that we were neutral in World War II. What I can, I accept your argument that since then, an expertise has been developed in relation to diplomacy and peacekeeping. And perhaps that is best, as you say, it's a very limited in terms of capacity. People who don't want to be in neutral country can only serve in Britain or perhaps the French, if that was preferred for historical reasons. So I accept that you could

45:05certainly argue that expertise has been developed in relation to diplomacy and peacekeeping. And that will be diluted if you surrender during neutrality. But I think, you know, you could say it's been outsourced to the European Union, but it's not a price you pay for being a member of the European Union. Well, our aim to is a Euro-critical political party. And what we mean by that is, and you're Euro-curious. No, we don't, we're not a final federalism at all. Okay, so we oppose the European federalism. And we believe actually that too much power is already located in Brussels. We would like to see power devolved back to the national parliens in a more democratic fashion. And while we do believe there should be a European Union in terms of economic cooperation, for sure. And there are some issues that are probably, you know, only achievable to fix on a transnational fashion. But definitely, the European Union has already too much power. These are the national apartments. And actually, what they're looking for now with this European and is moved to

46:07our European defense union is to nation-build in many ways in that response. So we're directly opposed to that. I assume you're not suggesting that our leave the European Union. No, I'm not. What we would like to do is work with other European countries who would have a similar view to ourselves, you know, in the past, countries like maybe Poland or Hungary or Slovakia. And some of these countries would have had a, let's say, Euro-critical perspective as well, thinking that the European Union has become too centralized and not democratic enough in terms of European bureaucrats determining what happens in countries. And I definitely think in the last number of years, the Irish government had just sought to become the best boy in the class in terms of the European Union, tipping the cap to our European batteries and doing what we're told. Like in terms of, I mentioned the European habitats directive. Like that is a directive that actively stops, you know, really important infrastructure being built in Ireland. And, you know, the European Union was not our friends in the banking bailout. We paid for 44% of that bailout with a 1%

47:11population. The European Union in terms of MacArthur, it was not our friends. There are lots of things that the European Union are doing for New York. They were your friends during Brexit, though. They were, but they were doing our friend in Brexit because we were useful friends during Brexit because the European Union wanted to punish Britain for Brexit because it didn't want any other country getting any ideas around Brexit. And they wanted to make sure that Brexit was as painful to Britain as possible so that any other country wouldn't think of it. And as a result, Thank you very Nigel Farage now. You've gone from that to Farage. I was on the pro-Brexit side in the UK, so I'm getting flashbacks now. Flashbacks. So sometimes, you know, there will be intersections between, you know, just because, let's say, the Labour Party think that and, you know, Teft is wrong or that we need better road safety. This doesn't mean that, you know, Aintu is the same. So there's always going to be political issues that, you know, some parties agree with. And I don't think that should mean that their pigeon-told are lumped in those spaces. But I do think that, you

48:12know, and I said this from the very start. And that's, you know, there was no doubt that the European Union's interest was to punish Britain and that Ireland was a useful ally to make it happen. So essentially you're saying we're defending a new trial of sea, but you want the defence forces have been seriously degraded and they need further investment. I think you're correct, and people traditionally think that Ireland states such as Ireland or the UK are sort of fortress-states because of the sea. But I read a very interesting piece from the telegraph yesterday, even from a historian, and I've sent it on to you, who described the sea they're actually used as highways. And yeah, it was, I mean, if we are relying on either the British Navy or indeed, the RAF2, at least protect the Irish Sea, I would think the, obviously, the proximate is far closer, but perhaps the event there in the last week should disabuse people of freeloading off the Brits because they're in a worse state than we are both economically and in terms of defence.

49:13Yeah, our maritime territorial waters and they are far bigger than our, you know, our physical land mass. And an actual fact, Ireland has become a nexus in terms of communications under sea cabling, which is going to leave us very exposed in future. And just, you know, in terms of cybersecurity, even like this is incredibly lower, like we had a situation whereby the Irish and the National Cybersecurity Security Centre, which was designed to protect the country, and had a lower budget than the POR budget of just the Department of the T-Shook, okay? And so just one department, like 15 departments, one department had a higher budget just for its PR than the National Cyber Security Centre did. It didn't have a permanent location headquarters, it didn't have a permanent CEO. And what happened? We had the cyber attack on the HSC, which cost well over 100 million euros. And as actually, I would say, saw the lives loss of many, many people and the health

50:14significantly reversed for many, many people because the HSC was unable to treat so many people because of that cyber security attack. So, you know, there are so many more elements, like war has changed significantly. It will be about communications facilities, such as our undersea cables, it will be about cyber attacks, and it will be by drones. Like this crack where we had drones, supposedly off the coast of Dublin, when we had Zelensky visit Dublin, you know, is incredible that the, and the governments still won't say whether these drones where they were launched from what was their purpose, how the governments dealt with them. You know, there is serious exposures here for Ireland that we have a responsibility to fix, and we should do it in terms of our own development of our military. Yes, I think people, I always say to people, you know, don't assume competence. People like to assume competence, particularly when it comes to governments, I don't think that makes me cynical. It just, that is, you always assume,

51:15someone somewhere will fix something, and that is not necessarily the case. Well, as you say, the undersea cables, everything being so digital now, is incredibly important. I think when I initially asked you on this podcast, it was to discuss this issue of social media, and what limits there should be on social media, especially when it comes to teenagers. Now, my broad position is that we should have age verification for social media for under 16s, but I think you are very cautious in relation to asking for age verifications. I personally love smartphones and social media, but you can tell me what the problem with limiting them to 16. Yes, this has become a very controversial issue, and especially from people, let's say, from a conservative perspective, politically, and so there's kind of two perspectives. There is a perspective that social media is doing significant damage to young children. I believe it is doing significant damage to young children. I believe that parents are letting their children

52:17wear computers and laptops and phones into their bedrooms all night, and the bullying is happening at a significant rate on 24-hour basis. I believe that children are losing communication skills, that children are just becoming more isolated. When I was a kid of 15 and 16, on a Friday night or a Saturday, like I was tipping around the town, you're visiting people's houses, you're having the chat, you're socializing really well with people, and that has lots of mental health benefits in terms of your communication skills developments, and even just people feeling better about themselves, having good, strong friendship networks and engaging with those people in interests. And we live in a radically changed world at the moment, where so many children are spending four or five hours on screens, not getting that human interaction, becoming dependent on the serotonin that pops out every time they drop a photograph of themselves in a kind of strange position, et cetera, at the bullying that's going on, and even children getting into kind of hard

53:18core pornography and violent pornography as well. That particular space has led, I believe, to a massive increase in sexual violence, a significant increase in children sexually abusing other children at the moment, and the girls are not doing anything about it. And actually, we brought a billion about four years ago, which actually sought to create aird age verification for the consumption of pornography. And we have pornographic companies in Dublin, who are part of the Irish government's foreign direct investments policy, who are providing hard core violent pornography to children, and this government won't stop it at all. And all of the talk they have about social media, they're ignoring that particular space. Now, when it comes to, let's say, age verification for social medium, sometimes in the conservative space, there are people with the libertarian instincts, and that we need actually a situation where anybody can do it in the ones because the state is just going to hamper our ability to communicate. And we're kind of aware of

54:19that. That is a real issue to a certain extent. And as a party, we're very strong on free speech. Do you know what I mean? We're the only party to push back against the hate speech bill in Lester House. So the balance that we've solved in this is one age verification for pornographic material, adult related material for a start. We think that I think I think is currently in the UK. I think that's been brought in. I think they're bringing it in. So we can say that maybe social media is a social goods, and we can say that by supposed hard core violent pornography is a social ill. So having, you know, an age verification for that is a no brainer, I think, because it's kind of like it's like vodka to, you know, you wouldn't give a vodka to a 12 year old bottle of vodka. So that's the first thing. In terms of the social media, our first step in this is let's go to a situation where at least smartphones are banned for under 16 year olds. Okay. So smartphone is probably the main tool for access to social media for kids, especially outside of the home anyways. And if you ban smartphones

55:20as much easier to do that, because you can make sure that the shop in the shopping center does not sell it to an under 16 year olds. And you know, the air or beautiful, whoever it is, does not provide a contract to an under 16 year old. So you have very clear, easy mechanisms which can be implemented very quickly. And we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll apparent by smartphone. Well, okay. Well, if I just stop you there, then we agree on the age verification for the pornography. Yes. I think there's a number of problems here. And especially within the conservatives fear, when it comes to sort of the internet, social media and phones as a whole, the first is the substance, things like say Snapchat, pro suicide material, you know, very pro racist material. Or as you say, pornography, these are perhaps the EV, low hanging fruit, although as you say that the government still don't seem to be able to get a handle on us. And then there's just the mode of delivery in terms of the smartphone itself. So, you know,

56:21the infinite scroll, the very short attention span, things like that. Now, I have four children and without getting into it, my, my 16 year old seems to be able to handle this. And I can just say is that the smartphones are a huge issue. And I get, I think for straight and I've written about this before when, when people conservative say, oh, well, you know, you should just impose your own limits. No, I think the first thing we can agree on, it must be collective action. You know, we don't, we don't, we have collective action when it comes to road safety. We have collective action when it comes to baby seats. We don't say, oh, well, you know, if you want to put your baby in a baby seat, that's fine. But if you don't want to put your baby in a baby seat, that's fine. No, this is a collective action approach being conservative means conserving social norms. It doesn't mean anarchy. So I think that's a really important point to get through to the heads of the, the so-called libertarians. By the way, the people who refuse collective action and say, no, it's all up to you. If something goes wrong with a child, they're the first ones to say, I blame the parents. They're the first ones to say it. But when

57:22parents turn around and say, well, we need support and this needs to be done on a collective action basis, then you're shut down. Secondly, I, in terms of the smartphone, I, I think banning smartphones completely from under 16s is a good idea. I, I think it might be difficult to enforce. But I certainly think if you want to start even lower, it's that they should be banned for schools, from schools at least up until fifth class. Schools is a, schools are a state area, right? They can interfere in school. There's all sorts of problems. And it does interfere with learning. Even, you know, these rules, it's in the locker, it's in the bag. If you look at the research on it, having a phone even on you and off interferes with your learning experience. Yeah. No, like, like, we've already put it a bill into the doll that would ban smartphones from national schools, from, you know, it should know it, but it should be, it should be extended to secondary schools. Yeah. No, no, we do, we do believe like, and that's, so we did that a number of years ago, and now what we're calling for, like, actually a total ban on smartphones to 16. And, and so,

58:23like, I have four kids as well. And my eldest is just going to be 15 shortly. And now we're fairly strict. So they have only, only nobody has smartphones. My husband has, until they're 14 years old. And, and, and the reason being is because they were the last kids in their classes to have a smartphone for, they went to, they went to, you're aware of the peer pressure that went to solid year. And it's funny because I asked them, it's like, if you, if we took our phones off, you would you be happy? And it's that only if everybody else has a phone. It's like, it's only because everybody else has a phone that we need to have a phone. Yes. If not, nobody else has a, that pressure's gone completely. So that's, that's the first important thing. The second thing is like, they get it, they get 90 minutes of the phone on a daily basis. So we control it from one of the parents phones. They don't have it in the morning because the idea of people can't have bloody breakfast anymore, without having a conversation. And it stops at 9 o'clock in the evening. And they have their 90 minutes then between those two spaces. And, and if they're bound for some reason, they don't do what's something they should be doing. It's, it's a great penalty to take their phone, that's a credit space off them. And they only have actually the

59:26don't have a, a SIM, they've only access to Snapchat. It's the only access that they have on their phones currently. And so now, I've known that I do think that mobile phones, so a smart phones are one of the biggest threats to the healthy development of children in this country. And they're going to significantly change the nature of society over time. And you know, it's like we've talked about the mental health elements, there's even physical health in terms of people just not being a physically active as they should be in terms of just that kind of marabund kind of state of looking on the phone at all the time. And people, children are going to put weights, they're going to become far less physically active as a result. And, and also, this must be remembered for the libertarians out there. These social media apps are designed specifically by the most technologically advanced, you know, technicians to be as sticky as possible, to actually, to actually engineer the brain in terms of reactions in terms of serotonin and dopamine.

1:00:30And like this in many ways is is a highly addictive substance that we're actually putting in the hand that you're like, as an adult, like I'm on tick, I'm on social media because I have to be, because I'm a politician. And I know from even ticktuck, like you exit out of ticktuck and it doesn't get you out of it. It actually just brings you to another layer. And you have to exit out of five layers before you actually, like, if you try now and your subscription with the Irish times, by the way, they also make you jump a couple of years. Yeah. So, so it's made by adults to be as sticky as possible. And I have no doubt we're going to be looking at this content in the same way that we looked at nicotine in the 70s, 80s and 90s. And, you know, and parents, like, you know, like for sure, it is my job as a parent to make sure that my kid is not drinking the bottle of vodka for sure. Yes. A village needs to raise a child. And how can I stop my kids drinking the bottle of vodka if my neighbor is selling it bottle of vodka to my child? Do you know what I mean? Well, I definitely think we'll see you in views in terms of big tobacco. If you say, you know,

1:01:33mothers and people say, well, you can't turn back the clock. No, mothers used to smoke while they were pregnant or indeed over the cost of their children. And big tobacco told them they were fine. Yeah. And now big tech are telling you, no, no, this stuff is not going to hurt your children's brains. It absolutely does. Yeah. It absolutely affects their rewiring. For what it's worth, I feel, we are our 13 year old had a phone. Now he's, his smartphone has been removed completely. And, you know what? You know what? He's still with us. Yeah. He's still alive. I know. And we're going to see how long that goes. But it can be done even though all of all of his other friends do. And this is the thing, Lord. And this is important. You can say no to a child. And so it's not easy though. It's not easy. But you can. And sometimes it's the best thing you can say to them is that is true. But what I will say is it shouldn't be outsourced to parents. It is, it is a collective action issue. And I know that you can say, you know, you're nearly into parenting now. You can say no to a child, but if you will know with you for there can be huge. You know, you have to look at the household

1:02:36as a whole. And I read another article where they're saying, you know, if you give a child a phone and you're just policing it all the time, maybe your children are just more better than mine. You know, it you are now putting yourself between an addict. I know. And now the whole atmosphere of the house is poisoned over this. You might have younger children. You're a stand-up argument with teenage children over phones. No, this is too much of a burden to put on on parents. It it should be a collective action. We can decide and balance it out with freedom of expression rights, which are obviously very, very important. But, you know, not raising a generation that are porn addicted, not raising teenage boys that, you know, are misogynistic. And as people don't think that ordinary, nice teenage boys are consuming that material. You are very, very naive. And it's, you know, how you raise the next generation is probably one of the most important things you can do. If you don't care about that, then you're not, you're not a conservative as far as I'm concerned. But certainly, I think banning under 16's from phones, I think, would be a good idea. They

1:03:39certainly should be banned from schools. But I see, I mean, again, it's another issue that the government seemed to be dragging their feet on. I think I saw a Twitter thing on them. You know, they were having a Brexit meeting about it, which I mean, what are they waiting for? We know what I think we have government by opinion polls at the moment. Do you know what I mean? And government by focus group. And I think what happened there for parents want this brought in. Yeah. But I think the government kind of sensed that. And then they started to mention it. But they're seeing some kind of pushback in some quarters, both from what I would say, both the hard left and the hard right of like both extremes pushing back against again. Yeah. Now, when we're finished banning the children's smartphones, when can we ban the adults for smartphones? Yeah. Well, I would definitely love to, to, to, you know, forcing for a politician, it is just part of the business. I have to post something every three hours. And, and that is really though, you do because the funny thing is right now, if I could say the same in the journalist, I'm not on, I'm not on TikTok. I'm not on

1:04:41Facebook. I am on Twitter and substackens. 50% 50% of people consume their news true social media. So, you know, when I started out, I'm in like I stood for election first in 2004. And I got elected to the dollar in 2011. And social media in 2011 was a side game. Do you know what I mean? It was important to have stuff up there, but it was a side game. And, but now, you know, social media content is as, is as important as the six o'clock one, six o'clock news in or T1. It is, it is as important as that. And even for aint two voters, even for aint two voters, it is. And actually, the funny thing is, this is man, people might notice Laura. If you want to reach to a younger demographic and they're all on TikTok. And all the polls that are at the moment, our biggest support base is the younger demographic. Okay. So, in, if you look at Red Sea polls, our Irish Times polls, everything is pointing to our support level is about seven to eight percent in the youngest cohort. And I follow so about three percent in the oldest cohort. And the reason me that people might think, oh, older people are more conservative, but they're not supporting

1:05:43too. But they're also more conservative about their vote. So they're more likely to vote for the same political party that they did all their life. They're more likely to read the same newspaper, listen to the same radio shows. So actually, the biggest support that we have is consistently now amongst young people. Okay. Well, actually, that brings us to maybe the last two subjects. Why do we have all these political parties in Ireland? Why aren't you in coalition with independent Ireland or something? Well, why? The first thing I will say, like I, when we set up into in 2019, I remember doing a public meeting in, in it, I think it was Launfort. And this guy came along and he heckles us the whole meeting. Okay. And at the end, I went up to him and I recognized him. And he was from one of these micro organizations that, you know, kind of have political views that are kind of like ours as such. I said, well, listen, you support the rights life, you know, you support, you know, a strict immigration system, you support, you're against gender ideology. Like, why are you coming to heckle? Are bloody meat in the knuckle into the sock dams or finna fall or finna gale? And he goes, and he winks at me and he goes, my father, he says,

1:06:44we're fishing from the same pond. And, you know, there's that really cynical type of kind of politics out there at the moment that actually much of the political parties in Ireland would rather beat the people up beside each other than actually you take on the parties on the other side of the political spectrum because they actually see more immediate benefits to rob somebody else's vote than actually create a new vote. And I said to him, we're not fishing out the same pond, my friend. I says, we're actually building into the sea. And we're actually trying to bring middle Ireland over to our perspective. We're not interested in fighting over, you know, 20,000 votes between a whole lot of different micro organizations. We want hundreds of thousands of votes. We want to persuade middle Ireland of actually our political agenda. That's the first thing. The second thing is a lot of times as well, political parties, especially on the left and on the right, the fierce dogmatic. And what it means is like, you know, unless you're as pure as the driven snow, you're the enemy. So the purity tests are annoying. Yeah, exactly. So they won't

1:07:45like demand to people who have that, first of all, our, we are ordash over the weekend. It was the biggest ordash. We the biggest growth and membership this year. We've two new counselors who joined us from, you know, who were independence. And we're speaking to six more counselors to join us. So we're growing at a rate. But I often find these people to go, path, I agree, which in 95% of the issues. But I just can't get over your policy and this or I just thank it over your policy and that. And I'm kind of going, chick is, you know, I don't agree with 95% of the issues in my party. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you want a party that agrees with 100% of your views, there's just going to be one person in it. You know, and that's the second thing. The third issue before independent Ireland's at worst reformed, I went to those TVs and that's it guys. Because I knew those talk about the seven of us don't set up an all turns of political party. And I said common board and join with us and get involved. And we're like, we've built the house. We have like, we have the membership base. We have the order infrastructure, the commons. We've all of that work done, which took phenomenal levels. And setting up an all turns of party in the

1:08:49same spaces, bunkers, and you know, it came to pass. We got nearly 4% in the election. They got a third 3.1% in the election. And yet the two parties got six TVs. You know, labor and sub-demes, you know, they got just a little bit more, maybe a percent more, but they're getting 12 TVs. So once you get into a certain space, you got to see bonus. So fracturing into smaller spaces is a gift for phenophilophine, a galension thing. They love to see fracturing of the political space in our space because it materially benefits them to do that. And, you know, and that's one of the reasons we joined with independent Ireland in terms of the technical group we're in. And we've we've reached out to them in number of bases. We'd like to be, we think this should be far more work. Now, to be honest, and I don't, and I don't want to speak, but independent Ireland is up to themselves to do so. Yeah, well, I perhaps then I will go on. I don't think they have a membership.

1:09:50They don't have a common structure, a membership structure, a Nord-Eye structure, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. So, and that's up to them if they want to go to take the time and effort and build. Well, I mean, politics is ultimately about consensus and building consensus, which is no I never became a politician. Well, one of the many reasons. Now, despite me lobbying and grit, very, very hard saying that they absolutely needed a reporter in Barbay.org. Henry for St. Patrick's Day, that was received, which obviously is an outrage. How are you going to be spending your your St. Patrick's Day on Tuesday? Well, what I normally try to do is try to get to some of the trades in my constituency. So, I do think it's important to get around. But if I'm honest, my sneaky delight on a St. Patrick's Day is to go with my four kids and my wife and to climb a mountain. Oh, very good, yes. Because I'm I I I used to love Hill Walk and I don't get much time first. We have this wee project with my kids to climb the highest hill in each county in Ireland. And we've done 16 of them so far. And all of we've left in Menster's Logan Quilla.

1:10:52So right now, as we record this, it's a beautiful sunny chilly day. And if we get that day on St. Patrick's Day, I'm going to end up on top of Logan Quilla, supin a nice bit of hot tea from a from a flask and maybe eating a cold sandwich with no phone, no phone. I have no phone. With no phones. It's a class day. And you know, it's just it's just our kind of I think men, especially they enjoy conversations when they're shoulder to shoulder with people. Do you know the kind of way and when they're doing things together. And it's just, you know, you feel your brain with oxygen and crack and then come down from the mountain and find a pub with a hot fire and get a nice pint. That would be my ideal St. Patrick's Day. Right. Okay. Well, I think we will leave it there. The headline on the Times of London for a while. It's a fuel duty under review. Starmer says so all the governments are putting fuel duties under review. Although they have a lot less wiggle room than the Irish government does. Who I suspect are still there. So everything just seems to take so much time in reviewing and nobody seems to be able to make a decision. Let see what the two two ships

1:11:58have been struck by Iran in the strait of hormones. The carbon tax clearly needs to be postponed in April. I don't think this war is actually going to be over as quick as other people believe. Deputy Tobin, it has been great having you. And we will we will have you on again soon. Thank you very much. Great presentation. It's going to be the market.