1215. The Nature Restoration Laws Debate – Flanagan vs Fogarty

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Is a bad deal better than no deal? Should we settle for fix it as we go? Would a shift further right in the European Parliament (EP) wreck any hope we have for meaningful climate and biodiversity action? Lifelong environmentalist, author and ecologist, Padraic Fogarty and MEP Luke Ming Flanagan, agree on a lot. But […]

Go to Podcast

1229. Leo Varadkar stands down – What is his real legacy?

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has announced that he’s leaving. The tributes are pouring out across the airwaves and opinion pages. This podcast will not be among them. We look at how he has tried (and succeeded?) to normalise homelessness, his anti-people-in-poverty campaigns and a tenure that always put style above substance. We also talk about the […]

Go to Podcast

1214. Chainsaw Libertarians and Bitcoin Autocrats

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack This is a belter of a podcast with Colombian, but Mexico-based El Pais journalist, Nicholas Dale Leal, on all things Latin and South America. We talk Argentina and the plunge into poverty that has created a budget surplus; we dig into Bukele as a celebrity of the aspiring autocrat and there’s a lot to be […]

Go to Podcast

1225. ‘It Shouldn’t Be This Hard’ – St John Ambulance, One Year After the Shannon Report

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack In this Echo Chamber podcast special you’ll here from survivor of child sexual abuse at the hands of a senior member of St John Ambulance, Mick Finnegan, Sinn Féin’s spokesperson for Sport, TD Chris Andrews, Green Party TD and Chair of the Children’s Committee, Patrick Costello and Irish Times journalist, Jack Power. They each give […]

Go to Podcast

1221. An Omnishambles Inside a Clusterf@ck!

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack (Note: This podcast begins with a conversation about the use of ChatGPT in the polling for the referendums that is very, very interesting) The votes are in and no matter what your preference (FWIW, I was a Yes/No voter) it is a humiliation for the government, an omnishambles for lots of the opposition and a […]

Go to Podcast

1220. Exclusive: The Ditch on the Attorney General’s Advice Leak

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Minutes after the broadcast moratorium began, in advance of the vote on the Family and Care referendums, online independent media outlet, The Ditch, dropped a bomb. They’d only gone and gotten the unpublished Attorney General’s advice to the government on the contentious wording of both referendums. Joining us to discuss the makings of this scoop, […]

Go to Podcast

1217. Vote No on the Care Referendum

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack No one should have been shocked to hear that Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, say that he sees care as the responsibility of families and not of the State. He is who he Ayn Rand is. But that’s not the Ireland most people want to live in. Joining us on the podcast are three wonderful disabled women, […]

Go to Podcast

1211. Candidate Rory Hearne

Please join us at patreon.com/tortoiseshack Our friend and fellow tortoise shack podcast host, Dr Rory Hearne, has announced that he’s seeking to run for the Soc Dems in the upcoming European Elections. So you knew that we were going to sit down and ask him all about it. We discuss his reasons for getting into party politics, the type of […]

Go to Podcast