Over the Christmas break Aontú leader and Meath West TD Peadar Tóibín launched a fresh campaign against planned M50 toll increases, accusing the Government of “milking motorists dry” as charges are set to rise again from January 1st.

The TD said Aontú members took their protest to the bridges of the M50, hanging banners to highlight what he described as an unfair and unnecessary toll on Ireland’s busiest road.

Calling the M50 “the country’s main artery”, Deputy Tóibín said the road is virtually unavoidable for tens of thousands of workers. Around 160,000 drivers use it daily, he said, many of them already struggling with soaring living costs.

Since 2008, the Government has collected an estimated €2.2 billion in M50 toll revenue — a figure Deputy Tóibín described as “eye-watering”. He said the bridges on the route were originally built for £58 million and that the private company behind the project recouped its costs within just one year of tolling.

Deputy Toibin joined us on The Agenda this morning to talk to us some more about this.

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A top Venezuelan official declared that the country's government would stay unified behind President Nicolas Maduro, whose capture by the United States has sparked deep uncertainty about what is next for the oil-rich South American nation.

Mr Maduro is in a New York detention centre awaiting a court appearance on drug charges.

US President Donald Trump ordered his seizure from Venezuela yesterday and said the US would take control of the country.

But in Caracas, top officials in Mr Maduro's government, who have called the detentions of Mr Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores a kidnapping, were still in charge.

We were joined on The Agenda this morning by law lecturer at the University of Galway and political columnist with The Journal, Larry Donnelly, who gave us all the latest on this.

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Children are being “bombarded” online by so-called AI girlfriend porn apps, which are “grooming” boys to perpetrate sexual violence and girls to accept such behaviour.

Irish children’s charities and pornography researchers say the only way to combat this growing problem is to “criminalise” porn company bosses.

The call comes as the British government announced it was banning AI girlfriend and ‘nudification’ apps and websites and after Australian research showed how some sites allow boys to digitally create scenes of women and underage girls being sexually tortured by men.

“These are not girlfriends, they are sex slaves that will do whatever you tell them,” said Eoghan Cleary, a researcher with the Sexual Exploitation Research and Policy Institute (SERP) at UCD, and Eoghan joined us on The Agenda this morning to talk to us some more about this.

We were also joined by CEO of CyberSafeKids, Alex Cooney, to get her thoughts on this.

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Rural Ireland is being driven off the road by new punishing government imposed fuel taxes, transport charges and levies, with devastating consequences for small family run businesses across rural Ireland. 

That is according to Irish Road Haulage Association President Ger Hyland, who has described the current government as being completely out of touch with cost pressures facing rural Ireland.

Mr Hyland was speaking in the wake of a series of new government imposed fuel taxes, new toll charges and fuel levies that kicked in on January 1st and now mean Irish drivers are paying the highest diesel rates in all of the EU.

We spoke to Ger Hyland on The Agenda this morning to find out more about this.

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Louth County Council has condemned anti-Semitic graffiti that was daubed on two roads in Co Louth in recent days.

The graffiti was painted on the R165 and L1260 near Ardee.

The council's operations team investigated both locations, and arrangements are being made to remove the graffiti as quickly as possible.

In a statement, Louth County Council said it strongly condemns the use of anti-Semitic language or imagery in any form.

Local Fianna Fail councillor, John Sheridan, said that “targeting the Jewish community is something that cannot be condoned. The vileness of these comments, including the use of swastikas, is very evocative for the Jewish community, and speaks to how deliberate this was.”

Councillor Sheridan joined us on The Agenda this morning to talk to us some more about this.

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Gardaí are investigating an incident of criminal damage to a number of vehicles in a car park off Main Street, Duleek, Co Meath.

At around 10.50pm on Friday, Gardaí and emergency services responded to reports of eight cars on fire at the car park to the rear of a premises. No injuries were reported.

The scene has been sealed for a technical examination to be carried out. Gardaí are appealing to anyone who may have witnessed this incident to contact them.

We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Meath-based Independent Senator, Sharon Keogan, who expressed her full and unequivocal condemnation of the actions of the individuals responsible for the arson attack

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The latest litter survey by business group Irish Business Against Litter ((IBAL) shows Dundalk and Drogheda slipping from clean to ‘moderately littered’, alongside Navan, in the ranking of 40 towns and cities. Sligo finished atop the IBAL table for the first time in a study which showed that city areas in particular cleaned up in 2025. 

We were joined on The Agenda this morning by Irish Business Against Litter spokesperson Conor Horgan, who told us more about this.

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Frances Haworth

CEO of Meath Refuge & support Services

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