Despite global turmoil, the focus of Irish politics in 2026 is set to remain on matters close to home. Pat Leahy and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh to identify the main challenges facing the Government this year, particularly those on the desks of Minister for Housing James Brown, Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien and Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, and how global events could impinge on those domestic affairs.

Would you like to receive daily insights into world events delivered to your inbox? Sign up for Denis Staunton's Global Briefing newsletter here: irishtimes.com/newsletters/global-briefing/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

US president Donald Trump wants to acquire Greenland, asserting strategic and security needs but also a 'psychological need' to take over the vast, frozen island from Denmark. So how do Greenlanders themselves feel about this idea? Derek Scally is in Greenland's capital Nuuk to find out. He talks to Hugh Linehan about a people whose passion for total independence may have been catalysed by Trump's covetousness.

Would you like to receive daily insights into world events delivered to your inbox? Sign up for Denis Staunton's Global Briefing newsletter here: irishtimes.com/newsletters/global-briefing/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jack Horgan-Jones and Ellen Coyne join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

· The long-anticipated EU-Mercosur trade deal was provisionally approved on Friday, despite the opposition of Ireland, France and three other countries. The deal has been immensely unpopular in Irish political life for a long time, thanks largely to efforts by the farming lobby. But there is now a sense that some figures in the European Commission are disappointed the Government did not make the case for the economic upsides of the deal.

· Taoiseach Micheál Martin was in China this week on a four-day visit. Trade was also high on the agenda there, with China eager to import more high-quality food from Ireland. Human rights were mentioned in passing, and there was condemnation by the Taoiseach of Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime in Venezuela, the irony seemingly lost on the Fianna Fáil leader given the country he was visiting.

· And the Taoiseach’s party colleague, Minister for Further and Higher Education James Lawless, wants to ditch the one-bed en suites as the Government looks to move towards a co-living model involving communal space for university accommodation. A bathroom of one’s own is a luxury students can go without.

Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

· The Saipan film reopens old wounds for Kevin Kilbane, Seán Moncrieff can’t throw away all those old electronic cables, and boycotting Doonbeg is the least we can do to oppose Donald Trump’s appetite for war.

Would you like to receive daily insights into world events delivered to your inbox? Sign up for Denis Staunton's Global Briefing newsletter here: irishtimes.com/newsletters/global-briefing/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.