The fortunes of west Dublin football club Cherry Orchard are the subject of True Players (Saturday, 5.15 p.m., Network2), which follows the club through the 2000 Milk Cup. It is one of the world's biggest youth soccer tournaments with amateur clubs competing against their professional counterparts from the Premiership in England and top European clubs. The club's progress, warts and all, is charted as they compete against the best.
President George W. Bush is planning a massive expansion of the US energy industry, which threatens greater pollution and potentially devastating consequences for global warming. The Money Programme - The Toxic Team (Monday, 7.30 p.m., BBC2) reports how the man dubbed "The Toxic Texan", because of his record on pollution in his home state, has close ties with the US energy industry. He worked in the oil business as did the vice-president and two other members of his cabinet.
The US already produces 25 per cent of the world's greenhouse gases. While Europe is trying to cut emissions, the Bush administration wants more than 1,300 power stations built.
The programme meets energy industry leaders and environmentalists to assess the impact of Bush's policies.
No Man's Land (Thursday, 9.35 p.m., RTE1) examines the lives of asylum seekers who come to the Republic in the hope of making a new beginning. The documentary tells the stories of a Nigerian artist in Dundalk, a Lithuanian shop-owner in Cork, an Algerian engineer in Cong and a Romanian translator in Wexford.
A sense of isolation from the Government and country from which they hope to seek refuge is felt throughout the process. Many asylum seekers are in small hostels for up to two years in cramped conditions. The programme assesses the State plan of dispersing asylum seekers to the remotest parts of rural Ireland with disused hostels and holiday camps becoming homes to many.
Alvin Hall attempts to stop a couple heading for a financial disaster in Your Money or Your Life (Wednesday, 8 p.m., BBC2). Jeremy Whitehorn has always dreamed of owning and running a second-hand bookshop and at last he and his girlfriend have accumulated some cash to buy a shop in Tiverton, Devon.
Mr Hall pierces their bubble when he adds up the figures and tells them they cannot afford to live out their dream.
The impact of the high-tech revolution, the Internet and ecommerce is the subject of Winds of Change (Thursday, 11.05 p.m., RTE1). George Lee goes to Paris to talk to Gail Foster, chief economist of the Conference Board, a New York-based economic and business consultancy group.
Ms Foster is considered to be one of the US's most accurate and influential readers of economic trends. She talks about the pressures on workers in the new economy and about the Republic's economic transformation.
"Ireland now needs to reconceive itself as a country that is at the top of its game," she says.
Also on the programme: Kevin Dillon, managing director of Microsoft in Ireland, talks about the story of Microsoft in the Republic to date and its future plans; and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern speaks about the State's economic success and how he sees the future.
sokelly@irish-times.ie
