Hugh Linehan is joined by Pat Leahy and Harry McGee to look back on the week in politics:

• Taoiseach Simon Harris’s sure-footed performance as he delivered an apology to the Stardust tragedy victims.

• Less good was Minister for Justice Helen McEntee’s appearance at an Oireachtas committee, where she struggled to answer a question about the State’s handling of international protection applicants.

• Discussions about budget spending are starting early this year, a sign of the auction politics to come in the run-up to the general election.

Plus the panel pick their Irish Times articles of the week:

• Justine McCarthy on the growing number of journalists becoming Government advisors.

• Finn McRedmond in defence of snobbery.

• And coverage of the dysfunction in University Hospital Limerick, as revealed by a coroner’s report on the tragic death of teenager Aoife Johnston.

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