Oireachtas

They wouldn't have a hope of getting it passed.

But even the joint Oireachtas report with backbenchers from Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael could not agree in a recommendation to remove the triple lock.

They also concluded in that joint Oireachtas report that this would be going back a U-turn on the Seville Declaration that was given to the Irish people in order for them to support the Nice Treaty.

So even Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael backbenchers, but particularly Fianna Fáil backbenchers, I'd say are horrified by the fact and the behaviour of their Taoiseach this week in the Dáil.

And they're running scared.

For two decades, my next guest was one of the most recognisable voices in Irish sport during her trailblazing broadcasting career in RTE.

But in 2025, she traded the press box for politics, stepping into the new role as Fine Gael Senator and Vice Chair of the Oireachtas Sports and Media Committee.

Now, I thought I was busy, but between her political career, authoring children's books while raising three of her own children, advocating for adoption rights, she is a walking masterclass in time management.

We discussed her career shift, how she manages to balance it all and her personal experience driving her policy goals.

I am laughing at us.

I mean, I love seeing you in the chamber.

I love seeing you on telly because you are the brightest person in the Oireachtas.

My Shannon

The fact that we heard that it was raining that night, he was lying in the cold, he was being dragged off the road.

like it's just you can't even describe it in words it's so difficult to put your head around it and I suppose the only bit of light and just all this darkness is that three young lads um came along they were driving by and they stopped and they saw what was happening and they went over they didn't drive by you know as I said in the Oireachtas community the last day they didn't take out their phones they didn't record it they didn't post it online they stopped they helped and They managed the situation at the same time.

They were in a very dangerous situation themselves.

There was a very violent person in front of them.

What we're trying to do is start the conversation.

As I said, I think you've identified we're not lawyers, we're not from legal backgrounds, and we're very conscious that we don't want to be stepping on other people's toes in relation to their expertise on these things.

I suppose the request really from us to government at the Oireachtas Committees the last day was very clearly set out is that we are looking at other jurisdictions and what they've done.

Australia's done amazing work.

And we'll come to Lebanon in one moment, but just a last question on the triple lock.

Government sources suggest that the legislation will be through the Oireachtas by the end of the year.

Will you use the guillotine to achieve that deadline?

Look, I don't intend to try and rush this.

There is hope...

And I'd put it strongly that the expectation in some places on the pro-neutrality side that Catherine Connolly, who let us not forget, was a very vocal supporter of the triple lock when she was a TD, will refer this bill, assuming that it passes through all stages of the Oireachtas and that's likely to happen, I think, and probably likely to happen before Christmas.

that she would refer it to the Supreme Court to test its constitutionality.

And I've heard arguments about why that might be so from a couple of places.

Jim McCallaghan, perhaps unsurprisingly, given his own professional background, doesn't seem particularly interested in dealing with any of them.

I mean, you could argue, and solicitors have argued, is that why is he so fixated on this? I mean, clearly he's a legal practitioner himself, so he knows the ins and outs of the system.

As he told an Oireachtas committee, though, his practice wasn't in crime.

He perhaps unwisely said that that's because, you know, there's no money in crime.