Newstalk Breakfast

Schools must use the preferred name and pronouns of transgender students, who should also be allowed to use the bathroom of their preferred gender. That’s according to a new guide on the rights of trans people produced by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties with support from the State’s human rights watchdog the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Joining Ciara to discuss this is Prof Donal O’Shea, Consultant Endocrinologist who works with the National gender service.  

A famine-inspired board game has raised over 13,000 euros to get developed.  “The Great Hunger” invites players to build homes and families across Ireland before the “Great Blight” hits. The player with the largest surviving population is the winner.   We get reaction to this game with Nathan Mannion, Head of Exhibitions and Programme at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum. 

The Complex arts centre in Smithfield has shut its doors, after an emergency meeting to save it between the Arts Council and Dublin City Council was unsuccessful.   The Director of the centre Vanessa Fielding called this closure a “failure of cultural policy, accountability, and long-term planning within the public system”. We get reaction to the closing from Maria Fleming, Chair of the National Campaign for the Arts. 

Youtube has overtaken the BBC for the first time in Britain. That’s according to recent data that showed the video streaming platform’s monthly viewing figures surpassed audience numbers across all BBC channels in December.  Is this a tipping point for tv, and is streaming gaining on telly here in Ireland too? Newstalk’s Sarah Madden reports:  

Military personnel from Europe have arrived in Greenland as Denmark remains determined to “prevent” as US takeover of the country. US President Donald Trump has reasserted his claim on Greenland, insisting that the US “needs” the island for security.  We discuss further with Trine Mach, Danish MP and member of the Parliament's Greenland Committee. 

Elon Musk's platform X has announced measures to prevent its AI chatbot Grok from undressing images of real people, following global backlash over its generation of sexualised images of women and children.   We get all the details on this with Jess Kelly Newstalk's Technology Correspondent. 

The US and UK are reducing the number of personnel at the Al-Udeid air base in Qatar, as US President Donald Trump considers whether to take action against Iran over its crackdown on anti-government protests.  We get the latest on this with Tara Kangarlou, Global Affairs journalist and author of The Heartbeat of Iran.

New research today from the ESRI has found that there are misconceptions about how many people are immigrating to Ireland, and why they are coming here in the first place.  All to discuss with Pete Lunn, Founder and Head of ESRI's Behavioural Research Unit.

“Congestion charges won’t be popular, but they are our only way out of a jam” so wrote Sunday Independent Columnist, Eoin O’Malley, Associate Professor in political science at the School of Law and Government, Dublin City University. Eoin explained all to Newstalk Breakfast.

“I’m taking eight months’ paternity leave and it’s changing my relationship with my children”  So wrote Ilyas Nagdee author and researcher working in the areas of racial justice and human rights. IIyas chatted to Ciara on the show.