Will Budget 2025 be like a Toy Show giveaway?

Host Hugh Linehan is joined by Harry McGee and Jack Horgan-Jones to look back on the week in politics:

· The budget was somewhat overshadowed this week by stories with far less cost involved, but no shortage of outrage – not least the final cost of Government Buildings security hut hitting €1.4 million and the row over the announcement of new sports capital grant funding for local clubs.

· Sinn Féin’s alternative budget has many worthy pledges but is ultimately futile without the party’s hands actually being on the levers of power.

· And the controversy around a letter of congratulations President Michael D Higgins sent in July to Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian was reignited at a United Nations event in New York last Sunday.

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Plus, the panellists pick their favourite IT reads of the week:

· Michael McDowell on the Government’s advanced administrative sclerosis.

· Mark Hennesy wrote of former taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s contention that immigration numbers have risen too quickly here.

· And Mary Carolan’s piece on the use of ‘inappropriate’ slang and cultural references in a judgment concerning a Co Clare wind farm.

Produced by John Casey.

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