The Business

First to China and two stories that feature in the papers. Firstly a headline in the Financial Times that China is back… bringing profit and perplexity for Western Business. And secondly a CIA classified document leak that claims Beijing is building cyber weapons to hijack enemy satellites We’re joined from China by Edward White, Financial Times correspondent.

A Silicon Valley type parent becomes a parent and decides it's best to limit their children's access to the same technology they’ve built a career getting the rest of us to use. Liz Carolan, Executive Director of Digital Action and mother-of-one, has been reflecting on this very twenty-first century dilemma.

Finally, if you happen to work for the kind of company where free teabags are regarded as the ultimate perk, you might not have too much sympathy for the Google workers in the US who were told recently that, as part of a cost-cutting measure, the company was whisking away a number of privileges, including their entitlement to a weekly massage. During the dotcom era, there was a lot of attention given to the whole culture of beanbags and foosball tables - while in this country the phrase “mercs and perks” has long been associated with what are generally perceived to be overpaid jobs or cushy numbers. But are perks becoming a thing of the past? Aifric O’Connell of 2FM is here to tell us more.

My next guest is a Professor of Sociology and principal investigator at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. Growing up near Route 66 in Arizona…he worked three jobs while putting himself through college, one of which was fighting wildfires in a forest near his home. In 2008 he decided to focus his research on the housing crisis; so he moved into a mobile home park in Milwaukee, where he befriended the families who lived there. His subsequent book ‘Evicted’ won a Pulitzer Prize and a Carnegie Medal, as well as a string of other awards. In 2016, he was listed by Politico as one of 50 American people who was most influencing the national political debate. His new book is called ‘Poverty by America’ and he joins me now. Matthew Desmond, can I begin by asking you how personal the subject of poverty is to you?

You'll probably already have heard about ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot which was developed towards the end of last year by the US-based research laboratory, Open AI. Well, things in the world of human-like chatbots just got a whole lot more interesting – and competitive – with the recent launch of similar products by some of China’s biggest tech companies. I’m joined now by Elaine Burke, tech journalist and Host of the ‘For Tech Sake Podcast’ to discuss these latest developments.

“A partnership for the ages”. That’s how US President Joe Biden described his country’s relationship with Ireland during his historic address to the Oireachtas on Thursday. But what about the enduring relationship that exists between Presidents and Royals, and some of the businesses that hosted them during other high profile visits to this country over the years? Siofra Mulqueen has been meeting some of them.

New figures released this week from the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation have shown that there were 1.7 million international visitors to Ireland in the first three months of this year - which is down 16pc on pre-pandemic numbers. But after this week's Presidential visit, and with the United States being our second biggest source of visitors, will there be a Biden Boost for tourism? To discuss this, I’m joined now by Paul Kelly, CEO of Failte Ireland

The newly released film ‘Air’, tells the story of what happened when the Nike brand teamed up with a little known basketball player called Michael Jordan. To talk about the movie and the book, ‘Shoe Dog’, that its based on…and the multi million dollar trainer industry, I’m joined now by Tom Lyons, Chief Executive of The Currency

Recent surveys point towards a new generation of younger workers who are far less inclined to beat a path to the pub at the end of the working week than their predecessors. Psychotherapist and burnout consultant Siobhan Murray has been reflecting on the subtle shift that seems to be taking place in our attitude towards boozy lunches and teatime tipples.

You’ll have heard lots of coverage on the airwaves in recent days of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. While tributes have been paid to the many politicians who were central to getting the deal over the line, we’d like to mark the role played by a businessman who also worked behind the scenes on brokering that deal. Brendan Duddy started out running the family fish and chip shop in Derry before going on to create a business in retail, hospitality and entertainment. Motivated by a desire to bring an end to the violence that was engulfing his city, from the early 1970s onwards he became a crucial go-between, hosting conversations with leaders from both sides of the divide in his own home…often with a turf fire burning and a bottle of whiskey close to hand. I’m joined now by Jim Fitzpatrick, Investigative Reporter with the media platform, Open Democracy