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

· This week saw the European Parliament approve a € 90 billion package to support Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia. The loan was approved by a comfortable majority, but among those who voted against it were Sinn Féin’s two MEPs, Lynn Boylan and Kathleen Funchion. The decision to oppose the measure put them in the company of the likes of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland, Hungary’s Fidesz and France’s Rassemblement National.

· The Government has made a U-turn on the regulation of short-term lets here. After consultation with the tourism industry, Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke decided to change the previous plan to restrict such lets in towns with populations of more than 10,000 to populations of at least 20,000, this move would effectively lift the threat of regulation from potentially thousands of Airbnbs across rural towns here.

· The mood was buoyant at the Social Democrat national conference in Cork with the afterglow of Catherine Connolly’s presidential election win in evidence, along with polls showing the party has begun to put daylight between itself and the Greens and Labour, who occupy the same political space. Are they about to spearhead a united left movement ahead of the next general election?

· Plus, sport and politics collide ahead of the Republic of Ireland’s Nations League fixtures against Israel in the autumn. There have been calls for a boycott, but the FAI confirmed on Thursday that the matches would go ahead as planned.

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How Ireland Voted is a regular publication featuring academic analysis of Irish elections. The latest edition looks at the 2024 general election and features an essay by Gail McElroy and Stefan Müller that puts party manifestos under the microscope, identifying which topics get the most attention and where the parties line up from left to right. The analysis suggests a major leftward shift in Irish politics over the past decade. Why has this happened, and who is filling the gap this move has left on the right of the political spectrum?

Gail and Theresa Reidy, who edited the book, talk to Hugh and Pat about what the analysis tells us about Irish politics. They also talk about candidate selection practices, which is the subject of Theresa's own essay.

Gail McElroy is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Trinity College, Dublin.

Theresa Reidy is a professor in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork.

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John Mearscheimer returns to the podcast to talk to Hugh about his view of geopolitics and global security in 2026.

They talk about Donald Trump's unilateralism, the security architecture of Europe, the consequences for Europe of the war in Ukraine, US Middle East policy and threats to liberal democracy.

Mearsheimer paints a pessimistic picture, warning that the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza will have poisonous long-term consequences that most people fail to grasp.

Professor John Mearsheimer is a political scientist and geopolitical analyst at the University of Chicago.

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