A study after the covid pandemic established that in care homes controlled by private equity firms the death rate was more than 50 per cent higher than in other homes.

On Free State today we look at how private equity is capitalism cannibalising itself. Hettie O’Brien, author of The Asset Class, is on with us to talk about how this happened, how governments retreated from the public realm and left private equity take over the world.

She explains how they took over the things we have to have, electricity, childcare, housing when governments retreated. And as they did, things became worse. 

She explains how ideology took hold and while the masses were scolded for acquiring debt, private equity found they could live with it, or somebody else could die with it.

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More than 60 per cent of Irish jobs are in positions highly exposed to the threat from AI. So what do we do in the face of this threat? Give everyone free money.

On Free State today we look at universal basic income and how it could transform lives.

How does it work and why would it be profound? And why does the opposition to this sound like the opposition to every other great transformations in society?  

On Free State today we explain why.

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It would be harder, Jamie Bartlett says, to open a sandwich shop in Dublin than to release a large language model of near infinite power into general public use. On Free State, Bartlett talks about his new book on how to talk to AI and what we are doing when we hand agency to a personality type that is drawing from the worst of impulses. How do we protect ourselves? Is the only winning move not to play but is that even possible?

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“I’m getting in touch because I’ve written the attached open letter as a serving Garda,” this email was one of many we received since Sinead O’Sullivan came on the podcast. 

“I’ve never done anything like this before,” it continued, “but I felt I had to say something given how things are going. I wrote it out of a genuine sense of frustration with the direction the country seems to be heading. More than that, I’m writing as a father of a young family, and I’m increasingly worried about what kind of Ireland my kids are going to grow up in.”

On Free State today we ask why people hurting has been turned into an urban versus rural debate when everyone is affected. Does this tell us something about the inability of the ruling class to see beyond the short term? Why is there always a defensive attack or a short term fudge rather than leadership?

And when it comes to lack of leadership? Could things actually get worse for Mayo?

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“The bravest man it fell to my unhappy lot to execute.” These were the words of the hangman who took Roger Casement to the scaffold in Pentonville Prison in 1916.

Roger Casement’s final years were lived in pursuit of Irish independence. But was he a driver of rebellion or a hopeless romantic whose brainwaves did more harm than good? 

On Free State today, Rory Carroll talks about his book A Rebel and a Traitor about Casement and Reginald Hall, the man who pursued him.

He talks about the lover who betrayed Casement, why Irish prisoners of war in Germany didn’t trust him and the complicated legacy that persists to this day.

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When Sinead O'Sullivan created a graph which she believed illustrated the problems in Ireland, she hadn't realised what would happen next. She found herself in the middle of an argument about data with many including Leo Varadkar. It raged over what Ireland did and didn't do well. But did it highlight the real problem in Ireland today? A defensiveness from the establishment which could be seen in a broader context in relation to the protests.

Sinead O'Sullivan joins Dion and Joe on today's Free State to talk about what when wrong in Ireland, why the country is like this and how it can be changed.

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As a young Roy Keane headed on the train to Dublin from Cork for a coaching course, he saw some railway workers toiling by the track.

‘Look at them fuckers out there and they’re going like the hammers,’ he said. ‘I have to make it as a footballer.’

On Free State today we look at what drives a man like Roy Keane and how is the boy the father of the man?

Dave Hannigan, author of We Need to Talk About Roy, discusses how Ireland and Keane have got along and not got along. He explains the force that took him from Mayfield to England when many expected he would soon be back. But Keane stayed and succeeded in ways nobody could have imagined.

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This week Irish life returned to normal and Irish politics resumed its normal parlour games.

The resignation of Michael Healy Rae was described repeatedly as a ‘bombshell’ and the political parties shouted at each other in the Dail.

Outside protestors and malcontents hovered but will their protests take on those who are really exploiting the ordinary people?

Since Israel and the US launched their war against Iran, the top 100 oil companies are making an additional unearned ‘war profit’ of $30 million an hour. There are calls for a windfall tax but who will take the side of the ordinary consumer over big oil?

On Free State today we look at the real divide in society and we consider the moment when Leo Varadkar ran out of diesel

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