War, what is it good for?

0:00Hello and welcome to the week that really was with John McGurk and Sarah Ryan for this week ending Friday, the 6th of March, 2026, which just so happens to be my brother Gary is 40th birthday, so happy birthday, little bro. And now I don't have to send him a text, isn't that wonderful. And it's been a very busy week in the world of news. Our politicians have had great news because it was looking for a while there Sarah like they might have to start talking about Irish domestic issues, but then President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu did them the great favor of starting another war. So now we've had an entire week of doll time taken up by what exactly Ireland's position on that should be. So we'll we'll go through that very briefly at the start and I'm sure the President and Prime Minister are eagerly away into deliberations. Before I come to Sarah, let us run you through what else we're going to talk about. Obviously fewer prices have gone up on foot of the war. There's been price gouging, so Sarah politicians will talk about that. Mammy and Amie Burke have been sent to prison and Stephen Kerr, the well-known right-wing activist who some of you who listen to this podcast may know, was arrested. We'll talk a little bit about that. And Sarah has an interest in case down the courts.

1:02And there was a report from the University of East Anglia saying covert lockdowns has stunted the growth of children mentally intellectually. And finally there was, although there was something else which I've forgotten at this stage. Sarah, how are you? I'm good. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a list. I also love the way you think that your brother, you assume that your brother is listening to the podcast. I think that's really cute. And, you know, naive. I'm pretty sure why brother doesn't listen to the podcast. Well, when I forget to send him happy birthday text tomorrow, I've covered my ass now. I haven't I covered my ass yet. I don't need any other wish. Happy birthday. It is to all of our, you know, many thousands of weekly listeners to whom, by the way, we're all very grateful. And thank you for sticking with us. But let's let's get into it. First of all, so this war has started. And which has given Irish politicians something to talk about. We may as well talk about briefly as well. What was your sort of takeaway? Who sighed you on, first of all? And I think I'm on the side of the women of Iran who seem pretty happy about it. I mean,

2:05I don't put myself in the category of person who speaks down to people about a country I don't live in. So if they're happy about it, I'm happy for them. Yeah. Look, I think there's no such thing. Genoa's, I find very interesting is all the people in the doll who describe it as an illegal war. And I'm like, okay, let's say I stipulate the point. Let's say we stipulate the point. Obviously, Donald Trump did not seek congressional authorization for what he is calling a war, which is dubious. But my number one objection to a war would not be that it's illegal. That's about the least worst thing about a war. But it seems to be something that Arla and her absolutely obsessed with. As if the war will be somehow less devastating or they'd be likely to support it if they considered it legal, which I doubt that they ever would. And war is a terrible thing. I was fascinated by some of the footage around Arden this week, particularly, you know, there's just something very jarring. It happened both in Dublin and Belfast. We had these groups of Iranian expats and exiles. And they're obviously people who have,

3:08we talk a lot about refugee policy in Arden, right? And clearly, if you're fleeing the regime in Iran, you have something to run from. This is a regime that not so long ago hung a 16-year-old girl by the neck until dead for crimes against chastity because she was raped on multiple occasions. I think she was actually raped twice. And the first time they just gave her a warning. And the second time she said, no, you're committing crimes against chastity in the hunger. And lots of women have their eyes put out. Lots of women have been shot to dead. They murdered a significant number of protesters earlier on this year. So there are lots of people on the streets of Arden, indeed, other European countries of Iranian heritage who are protesting. And then you've got the footage of sort of Irish, I don't like the term Paddy Stinion because it sounds more derogatory than I am. But that's all you could call them is with the Paddy Stinion protesters. And basically shouting in their faces and telling them that they were the problem. Like, you know, I would be disinclined to do that personally. But that's not the raw at the

4:09core of everything that you don't think you are morally superior, intellectually superior, and every other kind of superior to other people. And like, you also, even if you did on a topic, I tend to come from the skill of thought that if I meet somebody from another country, even if it's America, I bow to their superior knowledge, their superior lived experience of America than mine, because I don't live there. I might have an opinion about it, but I certainly don't think that mine is more relevant that there is if they actually live there. I mean, imagine if you're over, you moved to Australia or something. And there was some massive political development. And in Ireland, some catastrophe or whatever that ends up with Ruth Carpenter in charge. And then some crusty, boldy, jobless fools start screaming in your face that it's a terrible thing that they've gotten rid of Ruth Carpenter. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just an arrogance that's on a level I find fascinating. And because we live in a world where their worldview and their righteousness and their morality is reinforced around them all the time

5:13by media, by people, whatever, their ego has just gotten so out of control that they think that they know better even than the people who live in that country themselves. There's something, it's not just in Ireland, there's something afflicting kind of Western Europe at the moment, which I just look, I put it this way, if you think about this. So on one side of this war, you have the United States and Israel, obviously, who are the two primary instantiators. But you also have considerable military and intellectual and infrastructural support from the Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates in recent days, Azerbaijan, after they were hit by Iranian missiles or drones or something. And see that all these countries, Arab countries, fighting on the same size of the United States and Israel. And then against the war, you have France, Belgium, British labor government, the Irish government, are you kind of thinking, what is it about us in Western Europe that seems to

6:15mean we think we know better than all of Iran's neighbors? You know, I find that, I find that challenging. I mean, obviously, I stipulate some of these regimes I'm talking about, Saudis in particular, but also Bahrain, Oman, these countries, they're no picnic, there's no, not trying to, they got their own issues, but they clearly feel that Iran is such a security threat that they're openly willing to side with the great Satan and the little Satan in taking it on. I think that's fascinating. Meanwhile, there's a section of the Irish population, a section of it, by no means all Irish people. I don't want to label all Irish people, but the section of the Irish people, that genuinely feels qualified to lecture all these countries on what they're doing wrong. But it's just, it's objectively fascinating to observe. And I can't get my head around it. And I don't think you ever will, because I don't think you are inflicted with the illness of moral superiority. And your, your, your moral superiority is the

7:20is the badges you wear. It's the events you go to, it's everything. And it's, you think you know better. And you don't think like that, but a lot of people do, John. I do know. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but I don't know that I agree with it fully, because I mean, definitely I would pride myself, Sarah, on being like, let's say the entire consensus in Ireland was in favor of something, and I was opposed to it. I would, I think, I like to think I still have the courage to say, no, I think that's a lot of nonsense, even though I'm 90% of my fellow citizens think the other thing. And I do think there's moral courage in kind of like the small band of anti-war protesters I saw in, in Galway this week, kind of, there's only six of them, and they're standing around doing their anti-war chance. Obviously, Peyton B isn't going to change anything, but they felt it was important, it'll have to be heard. So I don't think it's, I wouldn't join you in criticizing people just for disagreeing with the war, but are there reasons for disagreeing with it? I find faster. It's not, it's not, but it's not

8:22disagreeing with the war per se. Of course, you should disagree with the war if that's the way you feel about it, and you're entitled to protest and all those lovely things. But what I'm talking about is an addiction to protesting everything, a compulsion to protest anything that might even be directly or indirectly linked with Israel or any of the other causes that you care about, and an absolute rabbit unwillingness to hear any other view, even if it's from a person who is from that country. That's what I'm talking about. And I think that a lot of those people have never had their views challenged by media, by anybody around them. They all, you know, it's positively reinforced all the time. And so that they think that they can act like this and say this, that's not, that's not to say they can't protest. Of course, they can't protest, but like, what's that expression? You know, a fanatic of somebody who can't, can't, can't change their mind and won't change the subject. So they're never going to change their mind. They don't want to hear alternative views. I firmly believe that if somebody from Palestine stood in front of them and

9:28said, here's an alternative view, and I'm from Palestine, they still wouldn't care, because they know better. Yeah, no, 100%. 100%. And it's not based on the, I mean, look, I don't think that their animosity to the war is based on pro-Iranian sentiment. In most cases, in some cases, you've got a few, few ads there, like our old friend of the podcast, Thai Kiki, and various others who kind of openly celebrate the ayatollah of Iran and, you know, mourn his passing and all the rest. But I think for most of these people, it's just an inbred hostility to whatever the United States does in general, what it is bad. And then obviously you add in the little state in Israel, the two of those actions together, I think that those two countries could be all enough to solve world hunger, and those people would call it an imperial center price. Like it's, it's, it's, it's, it's deeply ideological. Now, notwithstanding the war, I wrote a piece earlier in the week in the war server, all I'll say enough, because my opinion counts just as little as the even protests you can go away, Netanyahu is no more listening to me than he is to them. But I don't know about this war. I think it's a little bit, I don't know what the objectives

10:35are. We were told at the start it was regime change, and now the latest, as we report on Thursday evening is a Donald Trump says it might still be regime change as he gets to pick the leader. I'm not so, I'm not so sure there's an obvious way out of this war where we're having set up the goal of regime change. The Americans, the Israelis can walk away having warnish without accomplishing that. And I think regime change will be a whole lot harder to accomplish than just knocking out a few missiles and blowing up a few buildings. Well, it's moving at a fast pace. It's only Thursday. Let's see where we are next week. What did you think I'm going to, before we move off the war, what did you think of the sinking of the ship? What did I think of this? Well, obviously the Iranian ship was in international waters the other day, and Americans submarine at torpedoes at sea, and obviously it's a war, so that the attack was, there was no warning given or anything like that. The ship went down very quickly, well over a hundred Iranian sailors drowned or lost their lives, 30 were rescued by the

11:38Sri Lankans. It wasn't in a war zone. It wasn't engaged in active combat operations. The Americans saying that nevertheless it was a hostile vessel and a legitimate target in the war, which was. Do you think that was overkill or? Well, I mean, I think obviously, all, lots of things are overkill, but it is war and it is a ship. I mean, people are going to die. That's why it's going to go terrible. Yeah. Margaret Thatcher was my old, my recent friend at Margaret Thatcher got in trouble in the Falklands or in 1983 for sinking the Argentinian ship Belgrano, which was said to be sailing away from a conflict zone and she just said, look, it's a war to target my sank. And I would do it again. And it is, but it's just I think that incident for me it was a bit jarring because obviously they were an all-media threat to the Americans or anyone else and know that they're dead because they're in the Iranian Navy. I do feel they're all somebody's son, but it's a horrible thing. Let's hope it's over soon.

12:38Speaking of horrible things, have you been hissed? You drive, I think, is an electric vehicle you drive or want those hybrids? You're a traitor to diesel anyway. So you haven't been hit by the fuel price rises. You haven't changed? No, but I have my mother on the phone to me as she was queuing up for patrol the other day yesterday or the day before. Whatever day it was about to change. So I'm very familiar with this. I heard it all about us. I just cannot get over. And I don't know Sarah is it the is it the brazenness of Irish politicians or is it the goalability of the Irish public, this price-goging narrative? So I went and I investigated it and I rang up somebody who said, no, I ought to identify him other than to say that he works as the distribution manager for a home heating oil company. Very well known home heating oil company should be said. And I said to him, why have you guys pulled up prices? And he said, our price

13:39increase has been like a couple of cents a leisure and it has nothing to do with the Iran war. What it has to do with is the fact that as soon as the war started the media started talking about price increases and on Monday of last week, Monday the 2nd of March, after immediately after the Saturday, they had between four and six times the volume of people ringing up looking for home heating oil than they would on a normal than they had on the Monday before. So there was an immediate surge in demand, which drove up the price because it meant that they had to order in more their entire supply schedule was was messed up, et cetera, et cetera. And he said he suspects that the same thing happened on four courts across the country. So that's the first thing in terms of the price, price going, I thought it was an interesting point that actually supply and demand and demand surge because people expected the price to have gone up and because they didn't doubt the price went up. But the second thing is that the price increase, I've been looking at them over the last week and the price increases have been three, maybe five cents at my local filling station per liter, which is obviously rather not paid. But like, first of all, at the price

14:42because of five percent, five cents, people don't realize that like, you know, two of those cents are going to the government that the, you know, if if every, and just I'm just saying diesel here is the base example, if everybody who is supplying diesel to you charge do nothing. So the people who extract it in the Middle East, the people who ship it to Ireland, the people who refine it, the people who deliver it, and the people who sell it to the pumps, if all of them charge do nothing and determine to sell you a liter of diesel for 0.0 cent, you would still have to pay a minimum of 76 cents at the pump because that is the baseline tax that the government charges. So I think it's like 60, 61 cents in mineral oil tax plus another three or four cent in carbon tax and then that on top of all of that. So even as the price was zero, you'd still be paying 76 cents a liter. Of the remaining euro, only five to ten cents a liter actually goes to the retailer, the rest of it is divided across everybody else and all of that additional that is charged, right? So the so the government is government talks about price gouging. It's responsible for almost 50 percent

15:46in some cases up to 60 percent of the cost of a liter of diesel. And even as this war was on, you've got jack chambers out there saying he's going to put the carbon tax up further. So the only people who are actually price gouging in terms of deliberately pulling the price up are the very politicians complaining about price gouging and they're getting away with it. Why are they getting away with it in your estimation? Well, because I think that they, I think that ultimately people don't really understand what you've just explained. And the message is hammered home or attempted to be hammered home every time does it change or an increase in the price, but people kind of forget. Like, I mean, we're talking about, we've spoken, it goes quiet, then it comes back over again about the cost of living in Ireland and petrol and diesel and all that kind of stuff is like the center of a lot of that. And the government's tax on that and extra charges on that and

16:46the government price gouging people is part is a huge percentage of the problem. And people don't know or they do know when they left them away with it for some weird reason, I don't know. But I think that me, who are coming out and saying, oh, there's price gouging going on was hilarious. But like, you know, I, I know because we get emails in that this is an issue that was really annoying people this week. So I published three articles on us. You know, Laura has two, I didn't want to explain the price. She's although explaining the carbon tax. You know, we've tried to explain this to people, but people still think that it's that the big baddie here is not Donald Trump, whose war has obviously spiked the price of oil. Whether you think it's a good or a bad war, his action has spiked the price of oil. They don't think the baddie is the government who applies the tax. They think the villain is the local family down the road who are running the local petrol station who put the price up by a few cents because they think, oh, they're just profiteering. Look, I am sure that there is some portion of our petrol stations across

17:50the country who did take the opportunity to stick the price up a couple of cents preemptively. I'm sure that happened. But the idea that some local station putting an extra two or three P on the leader of diesel is the reason that you're paying so much for diesel is is is ludicrous. And I think it goes to a lack of civic education in the country. It goes to it goes to the fact that so many people believe that there is no bigger indictment of the Irish media than that so many people believe that. There's no bigger indictment. And by the way, fuel oil tax brings in last year mineral oil tax, which is the biggest single tax that the government collects on fuel, running 2.5 billion euros. So that's not a big sum of money. Not a small sum of money rather, it's a big sum of money, but it's half the government surplus. The government has a surplus projected this year of 5 billion. They could get rid of that tax overnight. They could just get rid of it entirely, have the cost effectively of a leader of diesel and still have a massive budget surplus. So high energy prices in Ireland are a political choice. They're not an economic reality. They're a political choice that's being imposed on us. And people just refuse to grasp that

18:52or they're okay with it or they just like moaning about I can't get my head around her. Well, I mean, you're right in the sense that you're yourself and Laura are fighting the good fight and riding these articles and talking about it and breaking it down for people. But the truth is that apart from gripped the government does get an easy ride on this subject from the media. And there's an art challenge done over and off. I mean, the fact that Mihaul is getting away with saying something like, oh, probably scouting or a member of the Fienafol, part of Entry Party, who we've actually complemented in the past. He was on the tonight show this week. His name has just gone out of my head. Albert Dolan. Albert Dolan. And he was very good. And I actually think he's done some really interesting stuff in the past. But I mean, I saw a video I watched of him talking about how, you know, by the way, Albert, you have a standing invitation to come on the show, by the way, just to say to Albert, we'd love to have him. Costs of living crisis doesn't really go into bite yet. No, that's not a drag quote, but that was

19:56the sentiment. And I think that that's a really disturbing break from the reality that a lot of people are facing. And like I said, at the center of that cost of living crisis, it's made up of multiple, multiple things, but fuel and cost of fuel. It's not just the petrol pump. It ricochets or it echoes into lots and lots and lots of other parts of people's spending day to day. So I think that the government is completely out of touch with the reality on the ground. I think the government are getting away with murder on this. But I think that the part of the reason for that is that I get an easy ride on it from the media, apart from you. Well, Ireland has just world around the top. I just put this on the record. Ireland has some of the most expensive fuel prices in the world. And it's all tax. So people can look this up. They can go and look at what the price of a leisure of diesel is in China, what the price of a leisure of diesel is in, or indeed gasoline in Texas, or in various European companies. We're not as out-of-step. The European countries all have a higher taxes in general and fuel in the rest of the world. We're not massively out-of-step

20:59with Europe. A little bit higher, but not massively. But compared to the world's biggest polluters, we are charging enormous sums in tax on compostable fuels. And we are doing so for the explicit political reason to make them more expensive so you will use less than. And so for the people who have deliberately, deliberately driven up the price to then turn around and accuse all the people of price-gurgling, I'm just the confidence or neck you have to have to do that is just to me, it's mine, bug. And the confidence that no one's going to challenge us and be right. And be right but that's the no one's going to challenge us. There are so we'll see. We'll see. The confidence that no one's going to challenge who is coming from the experience, the confidence that that nobody's going to challenge you on it is coming from the experience that nobody has challenged you on it up until now. It's not confidence, it's experience. It's assurance. That is sadly true. That is sadly true. All right, look, let's move on. Busy week in the

22:05courts this week. Let's deal. I don't want to spend a long time on this, but Mami and Ami Burke or Martina to give her her full name and Ami Burke, Martina being mother of Enoch Burke, Ami being the sister, were sentenced to two weeks in prison this week for what the judge described as persistent, disruptive behavior in court. So, you're a good lawyer. I want to ask you a question because one of the things the judge also did was he said he was going to bar them in from the court room in the future. So they're not basically not getting a load back in. Now, neither of them are litigants, Sarah. Neither Martina Burke nor Ami Burke are litigants, so they're not taking a case, not involved in the case. They're not advocates for Enoch Burke because he's representing himself, so that they never had any, I think you lawyers call it right of audience per se. So my guess, my question is, why was this allowed to get to the point is it got to where they're not being sent to prison? Why, and I don't want you to, I know you're a lawyer and you've got to earn your bread,

23:06and I'm asking you to criticize a judge or anything, but in your view, it was a nut and argument for simply barring them from the courtroom months ago to make sure we didn't get to this point. One or two people are being sent to prison for two weeks. Well, I think they're removed from the courtroom multiple times. So there's removal and then in the moment and then there's barring in general. And my understanding of it is that they're barred in person, but they are allowed to attend via the deal linker, watch via the deal linker, whatever way you would describe it. So I mean, I think barring somebody from attending court proceedings pertaining to a member of their own family is quite a big deal. So I think the courts have done their best to accommodate this, but you can't go on. And I know what the comments are going to say and they're going to say, this is nothing to do, just to be clear, nothing to do with the fundamental point that Inakad

24:11about the skill or any of these things, which you can't behave like that in court and think that it's just going to keep going on in perpetuity. You just can't. People get thrown out of court rooms all the time, all the time for shouting and roaring and giving out and whatever might happen. I've seen people be thrown out all the time. So this isn't a birk thing. It's a behavior in court thing. It's a respect for the procedure. It's a respect for the the judge is a respect for due process and all of these different things. People get thrown out of court every day if they don't behave properly at a certain point when you've done it a number of times and you've gone to be thrown out a number of times. Well, then you get barred. I mean, again, nothing to do with the basic point. I think people who listen to this podcast, we fairly could fairly aware of my views on the basic transgender point and the original point and all of that. There has to be a standard in the courtroom otherwise, nothing would ever get to. So I think what Inakad Burke supporters would say on this, and it's only fair to reflect

25:15their views on this, I think they would say. I think if you said to one of them, look, let's say there's a murder trial on next week and relatives of the accused person keep coming into the court room and shouting at the judge and calling the trial a little judgment and, you know, disrupting the proceedings. Should the judge allow that to happen? I think they'd say no. So I don't think, I think it's very wrong to treat, I'm not saying you were doing this, but treat like Burke supporters as if they're kind of like just can't understand this. I think what they would say is that extraordinary situations require extraordinary measures and that there's the injustice against Inakad Burke in their mind is so great that, you know, you can't that it's stand and this is the only method of protest that people have, et cetera, et cetera. To which I would say, I guess, like it hasn't worked, you know, the end point of all of this, if the objective of the Inakad Burke movement is to get justice for Inakad Burke, well, he is now lying in definite incarceration in a prison. His mother and sister are now

26:20in prison. He is no closer to getting back into school. You know, the mass public support from, you know, which was very notable from a lot of people in the beginning has kind of faded away into kind of a group of a small group of hard-lined people. I mean, but if you look at this from politically tactical tactics point of view, it has failed. If you're looking at from getting Inak Burke's freedom point of view, it has failed. I just don't know why those people cannot or will not accept that if Inak Burke had been fighting this the correct way, he would have hired a proper lawyer from the beginning. And that actually freeing up Burke, this is not about winning the case. It is about trying to get the maximum out of notoriety possible for the case, but even that has kind of failed, I think. No, did you disagree? I think everybody including Inak, if they could go back to the start, would do things differently. I think the skill would do things differently. I think Inak would do things differently. I think the courts would do things differently. But we are where we are.

27:24And I think that ultimately there's been a process there. People got thrown out of courtrooms all the time. It has to come to an end, even though there's an element of the Burke's commitment to their cause that I admire. They're also stuck in a loop themselves. And the courts need to help them out of it. We're just trapped in this saga. You know, it can't go on forever. And so they're allowed to join any future proceedings via video link. I mean, I don't really know what's other alternative of the court at this point. Yeah, well, look, people will disagree. As I say, you know, you're simply in mind for Inak Burke's fundamental underlying position. I don't think is in doubt. I think we both take this the same view on that, but you know, there are some people out there, as I said, who believe that extraordinary times, extraordinary measures, but those extraordinary

28:26measures not working. They're never likely to work. That's sort of a different legal case. It's not technically a legal case yet, because it's only reached the stage of arrest. But Stephen Kerr, who followers of a website known as the Irish inquiry, will know he's also been the organizer of a number of kind of what you call sort of alternative political conferences over the last year or two. He says that he was arrested last week by a couple of guardians who came to his door on foot of a threatening tweet. And this relates to a situation where an Irish time and supporter, Gabyja Galavekia, she's not works for the BBC. Sorry, she was working with Derrick in Japan not the times. When she was working with Derrick in Japan three years ago, she sent a tweet basically reporting on a death threat to Paul Murphy, which had painted on the wall or IP Paul Murphy. And she said, Gardy, you're investigating death threat against Paul Murphy. And our friend, Stephen Kerr tweeted underneath that tweet, he said, or IP Gabyja Galavekia, and all mainstream

29:27media journalists, we are the media now, smiley face. So the Gardy, three years after this tweet sent, arrived at his door and asked me to arrest him on suspicion of making a death threat. I wrote a piece earlier on this week saying, I thought that was just about the most ludicrous thing I'd ever heard. And I am surprised, Sarah, that it hasn't made much media coverage elsewhere. The media have been kind of unwilling to report on this story, which surprises me because normally, you know, far-right activists are arrested for making death threat or will be just about the top story everywhere. So do you think the rest of the media are considered this as dodgy as I do? Oh, John, John, John. You know why the media is not reporting on that. The media is not reporting on that for the very reason that you've just read out how ludicrous it is, that what he wrote couldn't by a rational thinking adult be considered to be a death threat. And the reason why it's not being reported is because people will see it for nonsense.

30:31And the government are also trying to hide the fact that hate speech laws and all these kind of things have consequences, real life consequences that the Gardy will have to pursue. And this is an example of that. That's why they're not reporting on it. It's garbage. He would never, he would never be, the guards would never be going to his house and approaching him like this if he didn't have the political views that he has. It's completely absurd. So if I say, I mean, people use the term RIP all the time about different things, RIP, this, and RIP, my mentions after I said something mean about a cyclist, RIP, this, RIP, that it's kind of a common enough term that's used. And it's clear what he meant. As we are recording the podcast, and this garbage, I'm sorry. As we're recording this podcast, I can say RIP Tottenham Hotspur, who are losing 3-1 at home to Crystal Palace. So yeah, exactly the phrase can be used in multiple

31:32different ways. Look, I mean, I think it's one of these ones. And it comes on top of another Garda story this week because people will be familiar with the story of the Garda who received a 270,000 Euro settlement. I think it was 250, 270,000 Euro settlement because he'd been suspended for lending somebody a bike during the lockdown. And so I sent the guy to press off as a query in that story. And I was like, well, first of all, is the officer who suspended him and cast the public all that money? Are they being investigated? Is there any disciplinary investigation? Are they still in their position? Who was responsible for that decision? Basically, can somebody take a con for us? And they were like, man, you know, we don't comment on legal tastes. That was their position. I asked them about the Stephen Curry thing. They said an investigation is underway, blah, blah, blah. We're not, we don't comment on ongoing investigations. The guard, the police force in a democracy should not be as above accountability, as on Garda's Shia Kona appears to be in many respects. And I say that as somebody who's a supporter of a strong police force, who supports law and order. But you know, what are we to do

32:37with a police force that won't comment on the rationale in many cases when there's no object of reason why it shouldn't? And it is almost impossible to find out who's making these decisions in the first place. And politicians don't want to change it because traditionally the minister for justice is just the person who owns the Guardian and that's it and he won't comment either. In a democracy, is it really healthy for these kind of things to be happening? And it'd be almost impossible for the media to get a clear line as to who's responsible for taking decisions on a hot basis? Because this thing, you know, as well as I do, this thing was Stephen Curry's never going to see the inside of a courtroom. This is a process is the punishment situation. Is it not? Of course it is, but it's also a consequences for you for the and not for me situation. I mean, it's not, you're using the example of the guards fine, but there's other things as well. But you know, there's consequences for certain type of people and there's more consequences than that is intrinsically linked with what your political opinions are or what your

33:38party is or what you're whatever, whatever, whatever. So, you know, we spoke a couple of weeks ago about Gary Ganon having to make an apology to Alan Shatter on Twitter for saying something. I see Liam conning him this week. The actor is now reinforcing that point. And as now in the process, I think I'm not sure if he deleted the tweet, but he said, how's your mate Epstein in a tweet to Alan Shatter? Like, what will the consequences for that be? Is that not hate speech or the police not arrived to his door? No, they won't. What basis does like, you know, sorry, on that, like there was a report this week in the country in Tanty Semitism produced by the Irish Jewish Council. I basically said there's a lot of anti-Semitism in Ireland. And like I wrote a piece on this and I'm not going to I'm not going to because you know what, it just even I have a limit to how much of this shit I can take from people in the comments. And who simultaneously insists that there's no anti-Semitism problem in Ireland, but also insist that it's kind of an international conspiracy

34:39smear us. So, what possible reason did that actor have to say that Alan Shatter was friend's Jeffrey Epstein? He knows it's not the case. Like, in the back of his mind, what is the connection? He's making between Alan Shatter and Jeffrey Epstein. Ask yourself that question. And then ask yourself does Ireland or does Ireland not have an anti-Semitism problem? Anyway, and then and then consider the Irish Jewish Council report. Anyway, sorry, I'll just even cover thing. I don't want to spend more time on these alive investigations, but like I just think what's interesting that that is the lack of media coverage and lack of time to build. It's bizarre. And if he had written something different, or if for whatever reason the tweet itself was not publishable for some reason, you know, like circumstances might arise where what he'd written might not be being released. If what he had written was not being released, that would be in the paper more. But because what he's written is being released and is made public and is part of the story, it won't be because it shows

35:40it'll for what it is, which is just garbage. And also, by the way, Steven Kerr is a very publicly identical and identifiable figure. Basically, anyone who's been on social media over the last couple of years and been sort of politically aware, will be aware of who he was. And that I'm not making a comment on his fame. I'm making a comment on the fact that it took three years from this being the tweet being sent to the cops making a rest. So we have a situation where they thought that by making a rest, they think there's a case to answer that was a death threat, but by leaving a three years, what are they saying about how seriously they hold that threat was. Like, if I thought it was a serious death threat being made against me or a family member and the cops told me they might pick somebody up three years later when it's very obvious identifiable who that an edge threat came from. I'd be a bit miffed. If this is their standards in terms of protect, even on their own terms, that this is something that the public needs to be protected from, why is it taking three years to act? It's ludicrous. It's absolutely ludicrous.

36:41And there should be answers demanded, but there won't be. There won't be sadly. I understand as well that the reporting of us, the time between the actual tweet being written and then the reporting of it was considerably lengthy as well, which if you had a credible threat against your life that you really fully believed was a threat against your life, it seems bizarre that you would wait a long time to mention anything about it. Yeah, no, I don't know the details of that and the only thing I do want to say for the record because I think it's important to say because naturally, unfortunately in these stories, people have an awful habit of going after the wrong target. The people who are in my view have questions asked, so here are the Guardian. Gabyja Gavekia, who now works at the BBC, is a very fine journalist. If you ask my colleague Ben Scallon, she will say that when he joined the press corps, he joined the press corps. She was one of the most helpful people to him. She's a good person. She's kind person. She's decent person. She is not the person to be

37:42getting angry at in this situation. All she did was her job, which was reporting a new story. Stephen Kerr then replied with what he says was a joke, and again, I'm not to be clear. I don't think he should be arrested for it, but Gabyja Gavekia, who I presume gets lots and lots of abuse, and I know I've seen her get lots and lots of abuse over the years. She's not to blame for this situation. Well, yes, I do think the timeframe is strange to put it mildly. All right, let's move on to you had on a train of course in the Eagle matters, but you had an interesting case you want to talk about about a woman in the car crash and her unborn baby. Yeah, so there's not to go too much into the detail, but there's a woman from Waxford, whose unborn child died after she was involved in a road crash, and basically she was seriously injured in the car crash, and unfortunately her child that she was pregnant with a little boy died. But because of the current state, current legal framework that we have,

38:46he can't be recognized as a separate victim in a road traffic collision under Irish law. So the person who was sentenced to six months for careless driving was sentenced to six months for causing serious bodily harm to the mother, but not the baby because the baby was in usero and was therefore not considered identifiable in law as a victim, if that makes sense. So there's a proposal there for something called the implementation of something called Jax Law, which would propose that babies who die as a result of fatal road collisions during pregnancy are recognized in the round-right within the justice system. And so Finne Gayle are looking at this and they're looking for cross-party sport and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, that it's a it's a common sense issue. And I agree with all of that obviously. And because I think that well, I think that children in usero are babies, but I think it's kind of a kind of a strange

39:53sort of territory to start cutting into that, you know, how many do you do we now go back to the drawing board in terms of all how many weeks pregnant do you have to be? And is that what week fragments of pregnancy does that child become a victim in the law? And how is that determined? Do you follow? I do follow. I'm in a strange position on this one because I understand why many people, including you know from what you said, who are pro-life are in favor of this kind of legislation. And I am very pro-life, but I'm not in favor of this kind of legislation on a couple of levels. Well, first because first because I think the nature of dangerous driving causing death is that if your dangerous driving has caused death, it's caused death or caused serious harm,

40:55it's caused harm. And I think if you start isomizing the victims of that, it's not if you're dangerous driving you smash into a car, you're deliberately smashed into the one with the pregnant one or the one with the three kids or whatever. It's your dangerous driving that is the crime. My additional punishments for additional victims seem to me to kind of miss the point of what that crime is. And I think if you're somebody who who drives very dangerously on our road and you crash in, you kill an old granny driving in her car, then you've committed the exact same crime as if the person you hit happened to be a pregnant woman with three toddlers in the back of the crime. Your actual crime is the same. It's just but after the after you've committed the crime, it's just bad luck. So I'm not convinced about this business of itemizing victims and you know, two people who commit the exact same crime, but one is unlucky enough to hit more people should get a harsher punishment. I'm not sure that's just some people will disagree with me very strongly on that. And I respect that, but that's that's my view. But secondly, in relation to go ahead. Well, I disagree with you strongly on that because I'm not saying we're not talking about

42:01a situation where you're counting up deaths. We're talking about a situation where technically in I'm supposing I'm pregnant and you're talking about a granny is hit and she dies. I'm pregnant eight nine ones pregnant with a baby and I'm hit and the baby dies, but I'm the only sort of the only consequences now is written as serious bodily harm to me, but there's no mention of it. So it's not counting up deaths. It's the whether a death occurred at all. Yeah, the Irish public voted on this though, and I campaigned strongly that they should not take the choice that they did. I still believe they made their own choice, but the democratic choice of the Irish people was that an unborn child has no right to life distinct from the mother, but just don't at any stage of pregnancy. They may say that after a certain state of pregnancy, you can't have an abortion, but the constitutional right to life and unborn child was removed. That child has no legal right to be alive constitutionally or legally. It gets some protections from abortion after

43:08a particular point of pregnancy, but that's it. It actually has less status in law than my dog goes. So if you come along on the road and you hit my dog recklessly, it's property damage, right? My dog has no rights. It is just property. It's my property. So you can kill it and you most you'll be charged with is property damage. Those are not protections that are even extended from unborn child, and the public decides that a democratic vote that there should not be, because it is actually, if you take the example of my dog, it's what is not legal for somebody to kill my dog, where it is legal to take the life of an unborn child. And that is something that the public decides on. So I think it will be, it's a gross democratic hypocrisy to, on the one hand, say that you can deliberately kill an unborn child in usual, perfectly legally. But if somebody accidentally, without intending to, in the course of driving recklessly or something causes that

44:12death, that's a crime. That just says that the unborn child's entire value is in relation to the intent of the mother. And I think that's ludicrous, especially when a third party is the person varying the brunt of the of the legal punishment. Okay, folks, if you are listening and we appreciate you continue to listen, unfortunately, we had a bit of a problem this week, which was that you probably haven't been able to tell up to this point in the episode, because Noble, who is our sound engineer, is so excellent at this stuff. But Sarah had persistent internet problems right throughout this episode. Unfortunately, that was the point at which she went and we were unable to get her back. So I just want to apologize to all of you who were expecting a full episode and eventually ended up getting about 45 minutes of content. We were going to talk about other issues. We were going to talk about the COVID lockdowns and the effects on children. There was a big study from the University of East Anglia this week that showed that children who were in early development age during the lockdown suffered quite severely on full of that. And that's a major issue because there are lots of us out there, especially a grip media and elsewhere, who had flagged

45:15those issues during the lockdown itself. And obviously, I think it's a big issue for the country that we still have not had a COVID inquiry worthy of the name. If it's anything to go by the British COVID inquiry, for example, was one that ended up focusing almost exclusively on whether the lockdowns were implemented early enough and for a long enough. And there's still a massive deficit in terms of public accountability in this country as to whether or not that lockdown was just and whether it did more harm than good. Unfortunately, if you want my view, we'll never get a full inquiry on that because I think there's a sense of collective responsibility throughout the lockdown period, throughout the COVID period. Opinion polls in the country showed that the majority of the public backs the policy at each step along the way. And unfortunately, there simply isn't much public appetite for being told that something that they supported. In many cases, for selfish reasons, I know when I was in early lockdown support hurt was for selfish reasons. Ended up doing harm to others. And I think that is an unfortunate example of a democratic lack of accountability. We were also going to talk about the Green Party and

46:19Hazel Chu going off to Manchester, but if you wanted that, there was excellent coverage of that on Laura's podcast with Nick earlier on in the week. People show the course, watch that. There are two of the smartest people in Ireland discussing the issues every week. Jason and Ben, as you know, are Mondays. And although I think Ben was off this week, it was Jason and Maria, but they also provide a stimulating conversation from perhaps the view of slightly younger people. I'm not going to waffle on because I've no one to talk to. So I just pretend that you're listening to me at home. Well, I am very, very grateful for your listenership and your support for this podcast with Sarah that I do every week. And I'm also very grateful, as I say, every week to those of you who are subscribers to crypt, I will be even more grateful to those of you who are not and who enjoy this podcast. If you would consider taking out a subscription, we're actually running a promotion this week, whereby those who subscribe or those who upgrade their subscription will get a free copy of Dr. Wooden Lennon's book, Vandalising Ireland sent out to them in the post, a book that was much talked about in recent months and which many people feel is a great and important read. So

47:23if that appeals to you, go to crypt.ie, click on the subscribe button and we will send you one out. But until next week, in the absence of Sarah, temporary absence of Sarah, I want to say thank you all for listening. It's a pleasure to have you as our audience. We will be back next week. Hopefully Sarah's internet will be fixed and we can get on with the show as normal. So I've been John, she was Sarah. This is the week that really was and we will talk to you next week. Take care. Bye.