The Hard Shoulder

Life can be full of confusing things, but no need to worry! Every Wednesday, Simon Tierney will be showing you ‘How to do Stuff’ - bringing his best tips for those things you might not think about.

This week, Simon joins Ciara and Shane to discuss how you can avoid pushy parenting!

Executives from the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) appeared before an Oireachtas committee this afternoon, amid the ongoing fallout over the Republic of Ireland’s controversial Nations League games against Israel.

Joining Ciara to discuss this Joanna Byrne, Sinn Féin TD for Louth and member of the Committee on Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport.

For this week’s Tech Takeover, Jess Kelly, Newstalk’s Technology Correspondent, joins Shane to discuss Lidl’s launch of their own mobile network ‘Lidl Connect’ - and why it actually could be good value for your money…

Off The Ball’s John Duggan joined Ciara and Shane on The Hard Shoulder to review the week in sport and look ahead to the week’s action…

Almost two-in-five men under the age of 25 believe rape victims are partly responsible if they were taking drugs or drinking alcohol, according to new research from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC). One in five also believe there are “a lot” of false rape allegations made in Ireland.

For more on this, Ciara is by Eoghan Cleary, education expert in sexual exploitation research policy group and on the board of the Dublin Rape Crisis Center and Professor Gillian Murphy, UCC PhD Supervisor of a study looking at forms of harassment and victim blaming, celebrity victim survivors of deepfake sexual abuse.

The DRCC can be contacted online or via its 24-hour helpline 1800 778888

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that one of the pilots of a flydubai plane bound for Tel Aviv had planned to crash it and kill its mostly Israeli passengers…

Joining Shane with the latest updates on this is Dominic Waghorn, International Affairs Editor with Sky News.

“Anytime I google something, I tend to add ‘Reddit’ to the end of my query. Why? Because it’s guaranteed to find me an answer. There is nothing in all-human experience that the fine people of forum website Reddit have not encountered before.”

So writes Journalist at The Irish Independent, Saoirse Hanley, who joins Ciara to discuss.

Earlier today, Irish men’s Football Manager Heimir Hallgrimson confirmed that Sunday’s fixture with Israel will go ahead saying:

"The FAI has said we are playing both games and we will fulfill that. That was our intention when we came into this camp.”

I am joined now by Former Minister for Justice, Equality & Defence, Alan Shatter.

Alan, you were in Hungary for the game last Sunday, what was your assessment of what happened?

More than 100,000 public sector workers have begun a work-to-rule strike. Nurses, civil servants and special needs assistants are among those taking part in the action over delays in agreeing a new public sector pay deal.

For more on this, Ciara is joined by Niall Shanahan, Media Relations Director for Fórsa.

The locations of seven proposed new early learning and childcare projects were announced today by Minister Norma Foley.

Across the seven proposed locations there is potential to provide around 600 places to support the Department of Children, Disability and Equality’s policy of improving access to high-quality, affordable early learning and childcare.

Joining Shane to discuss is Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Norma Foley…