In The News

Staff at Oberstown Children Detention Campus are set to strike again on Tuesday the 25th of August.

It will be their fourth work stoppage this summer over plans to expand the capacity of the north Dublin facility for young offenders.

Members of the Fórsa trade union have already taken to the picket line this week in a protest relating to staffing levels, saying they’re “running on fumes.”

While acknowledging that management have made progress in hiring 11 new staff, they believe recent high profile events, such as wrong-way motorway driving, will further heap pressure to find beds for teenagers in trouble with the law.

Workers are concerned that inadequate staff ratios will undermine their safety, particularly in light of a spate of serious assaults on the campus last summer.

One social care worker told Irish Times work correspondent Emmet Malone these “young people often present with challenging and difficult behaviour; they’re only in Oberstown as a last resort and we regularly find ourselves in difficult, sometimes dangerous situations ... If we don’t have enough staff to operate the unit safely, properly and adequately, the young people we work with on a daily basis are suffering too.”

But if management are engaging with the union, why are staff still planning to strike on Tuesday? What are the sticking points and what might draw this dispute to a close?
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On Monday evening, thousands of people took to the streets of central London to attend a vigil in memory of Jason Arday. The former Cambridge professor was found dead in his home just days earlier - at the age of 41. In his final days Arday - who was Black and autistic - was at the centre of a global media storm.

Initially over allegations of plagiarism in his previous academic work and claims relating to his personal life, it morphed into a controversy relating to racism, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion employment practices, and press harassment. As a result, he resigned from his role as professor of sociology at the prestigious university.

In his resignation letter, he told colleagues he no longer wished to feel like he was living “under a constant spotlight, where every aspect of his life was subject to public examination and judgement”. But the media frenzy didn’t end there. Coverage about Cambridge's youngest ever Black professor continued.

Now public figures and friends of Arday are demanding a public inquiry into the press attention he received before his death. A petition has already secured more than 90,000 signatures.

In today’s episode, Aideen Finnegan is joined by Irish Times writer and columnist Hugh Linehan to talk about the media storm surrounding Arday and the public outcry following his death.
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Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey have signed a mutual defence pact that "echoes Nato’s article 5 in saying they will treat an attack on one as an attack on all". But will they? What does the pact mean for US leadership in the region, for the Iran war and for global security? We ask Denis Staunton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five people are dead and four people - including a seven year old boy are seriously injured - after a stolen BMW was driven the wrong way on the M9 motorway in County Kildare. Five teenage boys in the stolen BMW were killed instantly in the head on collision, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Three sisters and a seven year old boy were in the other car. They are all in a serious condition in a number of hospitals across Dublin. Alma and Niamh Kinsella were in the front. Their little sister Ellie Hendricken and her nephew were in the back.

In today's episode, crime and security reporter Hugh Dooley talks to Aideen Finnegan about the details of last weekend's fatal crash and why 'wrong way' motorway driving has become a worrying trend among thrill seeking teenagers.
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For more than a year, Fergie Chambers, an American multi-millionaire and self-described communist, has called Ireland home.

The 41-year-old who is heir to one of the richest families in America had been living in South Dublin, until a trip to Ibiza with his family last month ended in his arrest.

While on the Spanish Island, police arrested Chambers on foot of an extradition request by US authorities. He’s been in prison in Madrid ever since.

If the extradition goes ahead, he faces charges of money laundering with the intent of supporting terror organisations; riot; and conspiracy to riot.

Friends of Chambers say he’s being targeted because of his support for Palestinian activism. They point to donations to humanitarian organisations working in Gaza and his funding of legal fees for protesters associated with Palestine Action in the UK.

But who is Fergie Chambers, what does he stand for and why has he become a target of the MAGA movement?

And could his case further strain relations between the US, Spain and Ireland over Palestine?

Aideen Finnegan is joined by Irish Times journalists Rachel Lavin and Naomi O'Leary.
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