I presume you are in agreement with Minister Jack Chambers.

I am.

This is an issue I've been talking about for a long time and I think there are two real issues for me in terms of inheritance tax or capital acquisition tax.

The first is that it has not kept pace with the cost of things, particularly property.

So you mentioned, for example, children inheriting the family home.

The reality is that there are parts of Ireland, particularly my constituency in Dun Laoghaire, where a million euro is not an unrealistic price for a family home.

If one child in the family inherits that home, they'll have a tax bill of nearly €200,000 even with the €400,000 tax bound there.

Why should you just get it for nothing?

I don't think I've ever seen it available.

No.

I mean, I've seen it on airplanes certainly, but not on buses or, or trains in Ireland.

Um, it replaces the old A one, which you will see.

So the A one is a clunky one.

Now, it's, the technology's about 30 years old.

When it was introduced, it was fantastic, in fairness.

A-again, I imagine that would be quite an expensive thing to do.

What are you working on and how can ordinary citizens get involved in this presidency that we're currently holding?

Yeah, so as you know, we have a six month presidency of the Council of the European Union.

It rotates between all the member states every six months.

So we have it from the 1st of July until the end of this year.

And that involves an enormous amount of responsibility for Ireland and a huge weight of responsibility as well.

I think there's a great expectation and that other european countries have on us to deliver so cyprus who are before us is a they're much smaller much less experienced in the way of european politics only a member since 2004 whereas we've been there since 1973 for over 50 years and then they also had attacks from iran during their presidency which discovered their ability to do a lot of things following us will be lithuania and greece both again much more recent members not so much greece but lithuania only georgia 2004 and then next year you're looking at a situation where the political balance in europe could dramatically change with presidential election in france the legislative elections in spain and italy and places like that so we don't know what the landscape will be like next year so there's a huge pressure now to finish some of the the work program that we have to do during our presidency And what it means is not that we get to make decisions, but that we are the honest broker that chairs the meetings.

And so we manage the agenda to a certain extent.

So how do you respond to the criticism that economic priorities within the EU and even in Ireland can sometimes take precedence over human rights, social protections, workers' rights and environmental responsibilities? What should be done to ensure human rights and the well-being of citizens remain at the centre of economic decision making in the EU or indeed in Ireland?

What's your assessment of the situation?

Well, I, I do think that the department has gone the wrong way about it, and the minister has made a mistake in this regard.

He has identified that reforms are required in the legal aid system, and nobody has any difficulty with that.

But instead of addressing concerns that he's expressed in places like the Justice Committee and the Dáil, he has, in fact, overhauled the entire system to, as you set out, make sure that solicitors are only paid a flat fee irrespective of how long the case takes, how complex it is, how many appearances are involved.

And there's a fundamental unfairness in that that's going to drive solicitors out of criminal law and is going to ch- force them to cherry-pick cases that are going to be less cumbersome and less expensive for them to carry out.

And that does create an access to justice issue that needs to be addressed.

But we already see the fact that solicitors have responded to this by going on strike.

... aren't they? Well, can you explain that?

Yeah, it is, it

is.

But you see, the thing is, there is the possibility of a permanent facility.

So if you go to the end of the East Pier, for example, there are historic toilets there that have been there since I've been around.

So they go back to the 80s and 70s, but they're closed and have been closed for decades.

certainly 20 years as long as I've been in politics, the reason they aren't connected is back in the day the waste flowed straight into the sea and obviously that's not allowed to happen anymore.

They're not plugged into the main sewerage system and it's taking time for the council to connect them and there isn't even a plan for that yet.

The email is lunchtimelive at newstalk.com. Barry, will you just clarify one thing? do businesses have to allow legally people use their

Lieutenant Ward decided he had to interview Jimmy Ray, and it turned out that Jimmy Ray had been holding on to some key information all these years.

Jimmy Ray Barnes did tell me that Reginald Reed offered him $50,000 to, quote-unquote, "knock off his wife." [suspenseful music]

Anthony was quick to take him up on that challenge.

A couple of weeks later, grand jury in Tangipahoa Parish returned second-degree murder indictments for both Reginald Reed and Jimmy Ray Barnes.

Immediately, we went to Reginald's home.

I knocked on the door, identified who I was, and that I had an arrest warrant for him for the murder of his wife.

Um, Barry Ward, uh, the incentives for buying EVs being improved here, but nonetheless, there'll still be a large financial burden on anyone seeking to buy a new car.

There is.

That's the reality, but what this scheme is trying to do is reduce that burden and make it more affordable to people because we have a target of increasing the number of electric vehicles on the road for a whole host of reasons, not least of which obviously reduces emissions from cars.

But also, as we move towards increasing our d- um, re- renewable electricity, for example, uh, if the wind blows at night and people aren't using as much electricity, when people are charging their cars at night, it also acts as essentially a national battery network.

So there's lots of good reasons for improving the number of EVs on the roads, and it benefits us all.

This scheme is about addressing the fact that people are saying that they have difficulty, and we are specifically targeting two things.

Firstly, cars that are 13 years or older, so generally cars that are less efficient, that are bigger polluters, and it only, people only qualify for the extra grant if they are trading in or, or scrapping a 13-year-old car.

That's a sizable cohort, uh, of the population who opt to buy a used car for reasons presumably of affordability.

They have with big estimation marks, we're hiring, which would suggest they're struggling to get enough people to drive the buses they have already, never mind have them on standby.

Yeah, no, and I'm not saying that it'd be easy, but it's something that we should be striving for.

I welcome the fact that Bus O'Clea and the NTA generally are recruiting and they should be doing that all the time.

If they're having trouble, then maybe they need to change the terms and conditions.

That's another day's conversation.

What I'm talking about is the people who live in my area, who are in contact with my office, and I know myself because I've experienced it.

When you're standing at the bus stop and you know that the bus that's three minutes away is going to get you to work on time and then it doesn't turn up, and the next bus is full, now you know you're gonna be late for work.

But it doesn't actually happen that often.

Wouldn't that be a way around it?

Uh, well, it might be, but there's two things to note about that.

First of all, it's not the case of the government in that instance said that the FAI could not fulfill or should not fulfill its, its fixture with Yugoslavia, and the fixture was ultimately fulfilled at a later date, so it is different in that regard.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't approve of Israel's involvement in this competition any more than Aodán or anybody else does, and I do praise and acknowledge what the FAI has done in bringing its motion to UEFA last year to have them excluded from the competition.

And Aodán is right, the FAI is in an, is in a very difficult position because that motion was unsuccessful.

UEFA didn't take the action that it should have taken at international level to exclude Israel.

They haven't done that.

But boycotting this match would be self-defeating.

Well, that's another problem for another day.

I do know, speaking to family, there are people who are from the country who want to live in the country and they have the right to do that.

And at the moment, not only are there lots of restrictions, but there are inconsistencies around the country.

So depending on which local authority you're living within, there can be different rules, different restrictions, different permissions given.

So this is as much an attempt to unify that and have a broad national approach as it is to loosen the restrictions in some areas.

So, for example, what's called ribbon development or development behind houses hasn't been allowed in a lot of areas yet.

There will be a loosening of that.

Hang on, Cormac, Cormac.

But we were told and the families were told, Barry, that this would be sorted out last year.

Yeah.

And what's happening to Alison there is totally unacceptable.

I'm particularly disappointed to hear the tone of the rejections.

There's no need for that.

I know speaking to principals in my own area, they are doing their level best to make the provision where it's required and to get the resources available.

I would be surprised, any of the teachers I've spoken to or the principals, I'd be very surprised if an email like that was sent

And they have a right.

take this bit by bit, right? I mean, isn't that a devastating critique, what Ruth Coppinger puts up there? We have a country with 320,000 households struggling to pay energy bills, effectively subsidising data centres for multimillionaires.

I don't accept that premise at all.

Ruth started by saying she didn't understand what the tone she said.

So let me explain it.

She seems to start from the premise that these 875 jobs that he referred to are from the data centre industry.

That is not what he said at all.

What he said is that we have an economy that has a substantial iron in the fire of the tech industry.

I

And presumably that is going to come more and more into sharp focus because we have transitioned from being one of the most significant net recipients of EU money into one of the most per capita significant net contributors to the European

Union.

That's right.

And that is a function of the success we've had within the European Union.

But if you look back to the 80s and 90s, the structural funds, the investment infrastructure that occurred here in Ireland was enormous.

We have...

Certainly infrastructure deficits, no doubt about that, but our road network, for example, was largely paid for through EU structural funds.

How often do you see member state commissioners from other member states appear on media across the rest of the union? How often do you see members of the European Parliament engaging in public debate in member states? How often do you see any kind of communications engagement that would be the norm for domestic government?

If you had started there, you could have avoided the use of the public order unit and the defence forces.

Well, firstly, I don't think I got the letter that Michael's talking about, but I'm not really worried about that.

What I do think is important is that there was ongoing dialogue.

The government is working with all the sectoral groups representing the various groups that Michael has talked about.

Not the protesters.

Not the protesters.

The protesters are not a properly constituted group.

First

Have you ever experienced this, Barry? Or have you noticed or observed this?

I have, I'm afraid.

We have a two-year-old, so we're not in the position where she'd be going to the toilet on her own.

But if nappies need to be changed, there isn't always a facility available with the view to the fact that the dad might be changing the nappy, even though dads all over Ireland change nappies all the time.

So I have on occasion had to go into a cubicle in the women's toilet.

I usually ask a member of staff to supervise that, which might sound silly, but I think it's important.

It shouldn't actually happen at all.

the baby changing facilities, just for the sake of argument here, are in the ladies, can somebody, can John and all the others getting in touch by text, can they use the accessible toilet then?

Why is it important to know that, you know, Andrea Gilligan was highly involved in the local GAA or was a big contributor to tidy towns in her community or ran the local Scouts Club or whatever? Why does that matter?

Well, one of the principles of sentencing is that the court is sentencing not just for the offence, but for the person who committed the offence.

So the judge should have some background information about the person.

But some of the details about that person would be very important.

So, for example, if Andrea Gilligan was up for burglary, let's say, and had 40 previous burglary convictions, that's a huge factor that's going to mean that the sentence is much harsher than it might be if it was her first time.

Or if, for example, that Andrea had particular things going on in her life at that time that might mitigate the sentence, that might explain why she behaved in that way, might explain why it was an aberration.

But it's also important to remember that judges, if they're dealing with serious offences, and we know the law has changed in relation to sexual offences from the Criminal Law Sexual Offence and Human Trafficking Act in 2023, they can now question those references and cross-examine the person who's given the reference since July of last year.

Do we have enough supports for Miriam and I suppose plenty others out there too?

Lieutenant Ward decided he had to interview Jimmy Ray and it turned out that Jimmy Ray had been holding on to some key information all these years.

Jimmy Ray Barnes did tell me that Reginald Reed offered him $50,000 to, quote-unquote, "knock off" his wife.

(suspenseful music)

Anthony was quick to take him up on that challenge.

A couple weeks later, grand jury in Tangipahoa Parish returned second-degree murder indictments for both Reginald Reed and Jimmy Ray Barnes.

Immediately, we went to Reginald's home.

I knocked on the door, identified who I was and that I had an arrest warrant for him for the murder of his wife.

He really had no emotion.