Donaldson does time, committee drug proposals, seagulls swooping around Leinster House and what Westminster change will mean for Ireland

I mean, it's the story of the week, the story of the decade in Northern Ireland, really, isn't it? The fall of Geoffrey Donaldson.

We heard the judge say, take him down.

And he is in MacGabrie prison.

And that is where he is likely to be.

for a long, long time.

It's kind of one of the weirdest events in politics I've come across, isn't it? Just each of your thoughts.

I've seen Sam McBride make this point as well from even a media perspective.

He's one of the most accessible political leaders for media even.

Here on RTE, I've interviewed him several times myself, including at election camps in the north as well.

So to see somebody who you had dealt with on so many occasions to be accused and ultimately convicted of the most heinous crimes in one of the most extraordinary court cases we've seen, it is something hard to get your head around.

I was struck by Vincent Kearney's piece as well.

Our colleague, he wrote, a long read.

He made the point that just two weeks prior to his initial arrest, as you say, Geoffrey Donaldson was befeated in Washington, wasn't he? At a black tie event and critically, John Boucher was there on that occasion, the chief constable of the PSNI and he was careful to not shake hands with Geoffrey Donaldson, not take photographs.

Micheál?

Yeah, it's just what does it, where does the impact really lie for the DUP now, I suppose, and what happens there and already dealing with that, those kind of conspiracy theories during the rounds as to whether why this is, they ultimately gave the Irish Protocol the thumbs up, that conspiracy theory.

Well, it's a question the

TUV's

Jim Allister has been raising.

Yeah.

raising the political stakes and the political temperature on the DUP so obviously it's a colossal fall for race but there is that lingering impact now that will have to play through the system.

You can only admire the courage Juliet of the two victims of this abuse both of whom came forward after an lengthy period of time and both of whom had to put up with the trial and had to put up with being accused of lying and being untrustworthy.

So the courage that they showed in taking all of that on, that's one of the things many people have been talking about this week.

Noreen Blackwell was very strong on that, talking about how that was something that could never be taken away from the Rape Crisis Centre, obviously, and herself, an esteemed lawyer, that something could never be taken away from these two women was that They have now been proved to be true.

Their testimony, they go from being accusers to being victims in the legal technology.

Complainance, wasn't that the word? Indeed, exactly.