Prime Time

RTE Investigations Unit reporter Aoife Hegarty spoke to Sean about an investigation into the deaths of a number of babies at the Maternity Unit in The Midland Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. The investigation features on tonight’s Prime Time on RTE 1 at 9.35pm.

European Ombudsman

Emily O’Reilly the former Ombudsman is now based in Strasbourg where she is the European Ombudsman. She began her new position in October and spoke to Sean about her experiences so far.

The Irish Culture of Food

“When one looks at an Irish crowd one could almost tell the diet of most of them. These anaemic girls have tea running in their veins instead of blood. These weakly looking boys have been fed on white bread” – that’s what the writer George Russell also known as AE had to say about the Irish diet in the last century – Irish food and cooking has often been characterised as lacking a cuisine or gastronomic flare unlike other European countries such as France – is this because of colonisation or the Famine and lingering guilt about that tragedy? To explore these fascinating topics Sean was joined by Frank Armstrong, food historian and writer.

Dail proceedings

Michael O’Regan Parliamentary Correspondent of The Irish Times gave an update on this morning’s proceedings in the Dail.

Minister James Reilly

Minister James Reilly joined Sean in studio to talk about the drop in waiting times for outpatient appointments.

Ballymurphy Killings

 On August 9^th in 1971, just hours after the British Government introduced a policy of internment without trial, hundreds of British troops entered the predominantly Catholic area of the Ballymurphy Road in Belfast.

Over the course of a three-day period, eleven civilians were shot, including a priest and a woman by the name of Joan Connolly who was 45 years old and the mother of eight young children.

Joan’s daughter, Beiege Voyle joined Sean in studio this morning...she is part of a delegation in Dublin today to meet with Taoiseach Enda Kenny to seek his support for their call for the establishment of an Independent Panel to investigate the event now known as Ballymurphy massacre.

Personal information

We don't tend to think of our personal information as a valuable commodity. Advertisers, though, are handing over billions of euro each year to take advantage of data collected by companies such as Google and Facebook to help them target more accurately the consumers their products and services are aimed at. Conor Brophy has been looking at the real value of the information we often hand over for free and joined Sean in studio .