Jack Chambers

And so they can't really do anything for her.

So the judge was so outraged by this that he actually said, I'm writing about this case to Minister Norma Foley, to Minister Jack Chambers and to Minister Jim O'Callaghan to see if they can do anything about it because it's under their remit that this is happening.

And I'm just sitting here, Sarah, and I'm going, how is Kitty Holland the only person talking about this? How is this not leading the news? We have the Irish government.

I'm going on a very brief rant here.

He then wrote and announced that he was writing to three ministers.

Now, one of them is the Minister for Justice, Jim O'Callaghan.

One is the Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers.

And the other is the true villain of the piece, Norma Foley, who is the Minister for Children and therefore the minister responsible for TUSA.

But I think...

There's been a lot of talk, I suppose, from the opposition about is this a bit of a proxy war for the leadership of Fianna Fáil? And I think like there's talk of is Jim O'Callaghan trying to take the same line that Jack Chambers was over the public sector pay talks? in terms of what Jennifer Carol McNeill did with the public pay contracts for consultants.

And I just wonder, like, was it a bit of a misstep during the week, like the comments in particular about the rape cases?

Hmm.

And it just kind of everything was so many leaks, Rory, for weeks and weeks and weeks.

The debate of the media was who's getting what budget goodies, right? You know, oh, Jack Chambers is now Jack Maggie Thatcher Chambers.

All of this kind of gossip stuff.

It really puts you off the politics.

Seamus, just on the point that Paddy's making there about listening to people.

Reports would suggest, both in terms of how he interacted with his own ministers and certainly how he's interacted with various different agencies and organisations within the state so far, that Jack Chambers, the Minister for Public Expenditure, is taking a slightly harder line in terms of all of these negotiations, be it with his ministerial colleagues or outsiders, in order, I'm sure he would suggest, to protect the ongoing good of the country.

Is he right? Well, someone said it to me over coffee last week that, you know, if Ireland can't find people to buy iPhones and weight loss drugs, that the whole thing will come down like a house of cards.

That basically, you know...

So you're

talking about our alliance of the tech and med sector?

I think Jack Chambers is right to be prudent because none of us know how continuous this stream of income and taxation is going to be from the multinationals.

Effectively, it's down to a handful and less than a handful of companies who are paying the excess of our balance of payments every year.

And he was trying to make actually a point about that being in common between this dispute and the public service pay dispute to inexperienced ministers.

He spoke about referring also to the Minister for Public Expenditure, Jack Chambers.

So I'm sure that neither Jim O'Callaghan nor Jack Chambers appreciated those comments.

No.

What you can

And it would be quite the rebuke if the Taoiseach were to involve himself.

But, you know, the longer it goes on, you know, a comparison might be made with, you know, how Jack Chambers is is handling the public pay dispute compared to Jim O'Callaghan in this case.

Yeah, it's a bit more

Trumpian,