The Explainer

From the €300,000 bike shed to the still-unfinished National Children’s Hospital, Ireland has a habit of letting public projects, big and small, drift beyond their budgets and original scope. Why does this keep happening? Is it a lack of oversight, political interference, or deeper flaws in how the state manages capital projects? And when things do go wrong, why is it so hard to fix them? We speak to Dr Paul Davis, a lecturer in procurement and public spending at Dublin City University, about the repeated failures and what needs to change to prevent the next scandal. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

A €500,000 vandalism incident, months of protests, and a stately home at the centre of a controversy that drags on and on. Castletown House in Celbridge, Co Kildare has become the focus of a bitter dispute over land ownership and access to public heritage. A key entrance was closed after part of the estate was sold to a private developer, sparking a stand-off between the OPW, the landowners, and local campaigners. Our reporter Andrew Walsh joins us to examine what exactly is happening at the site, what developers are asking for, and what the possible solution might be. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, the Israeli government's response in Gaza has escalated into a prolonged and deadly campaign. Human rights groups and UN officials have described the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces as potential war crimes and, in some cases, genocide. Gaza has been under siege since early March, with severe shortages of food, water, and medicine pushing parts of the population to the brink of famine. We’re joined from Gaza by Dr Abu Abed, deputy medical coordinator with Doctors Without Borders, who shares his first-hand account of the humanitarian crisis unfolding there. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

At just after midday last Monday, electricity grids across the Iberian Peninsula failed almost simultaneously, cutting off power to tens of millions. Trains ground to a halt, mobile networks dropped, hospitals switched to backup generators, and entire cities were plunged into darkness. The exact answer isn’t yet clear as to what the cause was, but there appears to have been a chain of events or a single issue that lead to a sudden, massive imbalance in how power was flowing through the grid. As renewables take up a bigger share of electricity generation, and as countries become more interconnected, experts say incidents like this could become more likely. So how exactly does a grid collapse like that happen—and could it happen here? We're joined by Dr Paul Deane, senior lecturer in Clean Energy Futures at the MaREI Research Centre of UCC's Environmental Research Institute. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Pope Francis leaves behind a complex legacy. He championed the poor, clashed with conservatives, and opened new conversations about the role of the Church in a world where fewer and fewer people are devout followers of religion. Now, attention turns to the future, and names like Pietro Parolin, Luis Antonio Tagle, and Fridolin Ambongo, one of whom could be the next leader of the Catholic Church. But who leads the Vatican in the interim? How is the next pope chosen, and what does that process tell us about the Church’s priorities today? Our reporter Diarmuid Pepper joins us ahead of travelling to the Vatican for the pontiff's funeral. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.