Our main politics stories today have a distinctly international flavour. Our front page dispatch from Keith Duggan takes us right into the heart of the “fairytale in New York” for 34-year-old socialist democrat Zohran Mamdani, whose election as mayor has broken all kinds of records.
In a poll in January, Mamdani had been at just 1 per cent. Now he’s an international celebrity politician. Duggan writes how Mamdani has become the first Muslim mayor of New York, and his inaugural year in City Hall will coincide with the 25th anniversary of 9/11. He’s young, he’s comparatively politically inexperienced and he is candid about his socialism.
Though some Republicans have been gnashing their teeth about the “commie” who is about to take control of the biggest metropolitan economy in the world, some of his campaign pledges sound like they wouldn’t be out of place in a programme for government that centrist Irish voters would support: affordable groceries and childcare, more manageable rent and free public transport.
In fact, many of the promises Mamdani made on the cost of living echo some of the rhetoric that Trump used to win the 2024 US presidential election one year ago. The greatest fear for Republicans now, as Duggan quotes Mamdani saying, is that he “will actually deliver on this agenda, and the contrast is something they cannot bear to witness”.
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Inside the paper today, Duggan also writes in more detail about the direct challenge Mamdani will issue to Trump. “On the one-year anniversary of the generational disappointment of Kamala Harris’s failed bid to shatter all sorts of political glass ceilings, the Democrats can, on Wednesday, point to a series of small victories and believe that some of their traditional flock, swayed by Trump’s dark, mesmeric campaign rhetoric, are beginning to return.”
Mamdani has also captured the attention of liberal and left-wing politicians all over the world, who are now pondering how they might find a way to mimic his success in parts of the world where right-wing populism is on the rise.
But Mamdani’s stunning New York campaign probably can’t be exactly mapped on to other parts of the world, even other parts of the United States. And some of his success is down to something that can’t be that easily replicated: being a great candidate, with a charming personality.
In her column today, Finn McRedmond is considering how Mamdani and his very discernible personality might offer a lesson to some of our own politicians who she argues suffer from a “personality void”. Finn writes that “the top brass of Fine Gael more often than not look and sound like they are giving a presentation for McKinsey.”
“In Fianna Fáil? They more often than not look and sound like they are giving a presentation for McKinsey, just with a rural accent.”
Home affairs
The unmitigated mí-ádh of its failed presidential election is still – still! – dominating affairs within the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party. My colleague Harry McGee has a report on last night’s parliamentary party meeting, where Fianna Fáil backbench TDs were expressing their anger over their appearance on a “naughty list” of rebels that was eventually shared with journalists.
According to McGee, the divisive little list was drawn up by an adviser to a Fianna Fáil Minister, whose identity remains unknown, and circulated among party TDs and Senators last week.
The Taoiseach, of course, wasn’t there to hear the grievances of his colleagues – which included a sniffy contribution from former ceann comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl who did not take too kindly to being described as the “old guard” on the list (he’s around the same age as the Taoiseach). As Micheál Martin is away at the Cop30 conference in Brazil, discussion on the matter was deferred until next week.
In other domestic politics news, Cormac McQuinn is reporting that temporary supports for new third-level students from Ukraine are to end in advance of the 2026/2027 academic year as the Government continues to align the financial assistance on offer with the support provided to Irish students.
Marie O’Halloran is reporting on People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett’s first day back in the Dáil. Barrett, who was diagnosed with throat cancer in April, was welcomed following his recovery, with sustained applause and good wishes from across the House. He used one of his first contributions to call for improved oncology services and more machinery for cancer treatments.
Around the world
And in other internationally themed politics news, Jack Power is writing about how Irish Government Ministers have stepped up preparations ahead of Ireland taking on the “presidency” of the council of the EU next July. The Taoiseach has been telling Cabinet colleagues to get to know their opposite numbers in the European Union’s other 26 governments. And Power writes how there has been a “noticeable increase in Ministers attending EU council meetings, in Brussels and elsewhere, rather than relying on senior Irish diplomats to represent them”.
But Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport Patrick O’Donovan, who was due in Luxembourg for one such meeting last June, chose a more glamorous four-day trade mission in California instead. Power has obtained documents under Freedom of Information that showed that officials in O’Donovan’s own department had been keen to lock him down for the Council of Ministers meeting, but to no avail. There’s another one coming up later this month in Brussels. The Minister’s attendance is still to be confirmed, a spokesman said.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, Denis Staunton is also writing in today’s paper about how European consumer protection commissioner Michael McGrath has called for greater co-operation from China to ensure that products ordered through platforms like Temu and Shein are safe.
About 12 million small parcels ordered on ecommerce platforms enter the European Union every day, 90 per cent of them from China.
“The key issue for me as an EU Commissioner with responsibility for consumer protection is the need to ensure that our consumer protection laws are fully respected and also that the products coming into the EU are safe. The problem is, based on all of the evidence that we have, a significant proportion of the products emanating from China do not meet minimum EU safety standards,” Mr McGrath told The Irish Times.
And Mark Hennessy is writing today about how a former British minister for trade has warned that a European Union/UK agreement on food exports designed to resolve problems in existing trade between Britain and Northern Ireland could come at too high a price.
Former Conservative minister Greg Hands told The Irish Times he was “opposed” to an agreement where London would agree to align with EU regulations on sanitary and phytosanitary rules.
Best reads
Miriam Lord devotes much of her parliamentary sketch today to the relief and genuine joy in Leinster House to see the aforementioned Richard Boyd Barrett back in his rightful place after his cancer treatment.
Newton Emerson is writing about how Northern Ireland’s long argument over Irish language is either going to end or get worse.
And John O’Halloran has a piece setting the scene for Cop30, as world leaders gather in Belém, Brazil, today. “The symbolism of this location – on the edge of the Amazon, one of the planet’s most vital carbon sinks and biodiversity hotspots – should not be lost on us. The stakes could not be higher.”
Playbook
In the Dáil:
8.47 Parliamentary Questions: Oral — Tánaiste and Minister for Defence
10.24 Parliamentary Questions: Oral — Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment
12.00 Leaders’ Questions (Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, Independent and Parties Technical Group, Independent Technical Group)
12.34 Other Members’ Questions
12.42 Questions on Policy or Legislation
13.12 Bills for Introduction: Emergency Inspection of Dublin Zoo Bill 2025 — First Stage
13.17 SOS
13.57 Government Business: Courts and Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025 — Second Stage
17.31 Topical Issues
18.31 Private Members’ Bill or Committee Report (alternating weekly): Arts (Recognition of Comedy) (Amendment) Bill 2024 — Second Stage
20.31 Dáil adjourns
And in the Seanad:
9.30 Commencement Matters
10.30 Order of Business
11.15 SOS
11.45 Expressions of Sympathy on the death of former senator Billy Lawless
12.45 SOS
13.00 Government Business: Statements on International Development and the Diaspora
14.30 Seanad adjourns
