The Post Podcast

Hosted by Colette Sexton, Media Matters talks to industry experts on the issues that really matter on the first Wednesday of every month.

In the first episode of 2018, she meets Rhona Blake, who is a founding director of one of the country's biggest public relations companies, FleishmanHillard Ireland, and is also chair of the PRCA, the trade association for public relations and communications companies in Ireland.

She talks about the impact of social media and the 24/7 news cycle on the industry, and the relationship between PR people and journalists. She also discusses how the presence of successful female role-models has helped boost the position of women in the PR industry.

This week in a very special episode, the Post Podcast takes a look back at the major political events of 2017, a year in which we gained a Taoiseach and lost a Tánaiste. As well as that, Ian Guider, Michael Brennan, Hugh O'Connell and Catherine Murphy TD look ahead at what's to come in 2018.

In this episode of Legal Matters, Francesca Comyn is joined by the director general of the Law Society Ken Murphy and Sunday Business Post Political Correspondent Hugh O'Connell.

They review some of the key issues in justice in 2017, a year in which the rough and tumble of policing took out a Garda commissioner and a Tánaiste and an expected exodus of blue-chip solicitors from London to Dublin never materialised. And amid controversy over insurance costs, Murphy points the finger directly at the insurance industry.

The DUP say no deal, Leo Varadkar is not backing down and Theresa May needs to find a solution very quickly. In this week's Post Podcast, Ian Guider, Michael Brennan, Hugh O'Connell and Jonathan Healy dig into the the last few days of Brexit talks.

Hosted by Colette Sexton, Media Matters talks to industry experts on the issues that really matter on the first Wednesday of every month.

In the latest instalment, Gerard Ryle, head of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, says he would find it difficult to work as a journalist in Ireland because of the libel and defamation laws, which he describes as "pretty draconian".

Ryle, who is originally from Tralee in County Kerry, also talks about how he came to head the ICIJ, which was the group behind the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers.

Jack Horgan-Jones and Hugh O’Connell look at why lobbying is a dirty word

Below the Fold is a new podcast from The Sunday Business Post that will look in detail at one issue every episode that affects politics, business, or the economy in Ireland, getting behind the issues that really matter.

For the first episode, Jack and Hugh hold forth on why lobbying is seen as a bad thing, and how it works in Ireland. From farmers to big business to charities, politicians in Ireland are constantly subject to a wide variety of lobbying. But why? What do private interests want from public institutions, and how do they go about getting it?

They’re joined from the epicentre of professional lobbying, Washington DC, by US lobbyist Tim Lynch for a look at how things are done in America, before talking to Ireland’s first lobbying regulator, Sherry Perreault, about her work in Ireland.

Hosted by Colette Sexton, Media Matters talks to industry experts on the issues that really matter on the first Wednesday of every month.

In the latest instalment, Cathal Gaffney, co-founder of animation studio Brown Bag Films, talks about why Irish kids are growing up with US and British accents, how he is holding onto a comet since selling Brown Bag to Canadian company 9 Story Media Group and why Sadie Sparks, which will go out on Disney next year, could be its first independent global hit - watch out Doc McStuffins!

In this episode of Legal Matters, former Justice Minister Alan Shatter holds forth on Brexit, which he describes as "one of the most stupid acts of self-destruction", the eighth amendment and politics as an observer sport.

The former Fine Gael TD also talks to Francesca Comyn about the first part of his autobiography, Life is a Funny Business.

While it charts Shatter's early political career and the personal experiences of a childhood growing up in a Jewish family in South Dublin, he says the book was born from trying to grapple with and understand his turbulent exit from government.

In this week's Post Podcast, Ian Kehoe and Ian Guider peel back the layers on the tracker mortgage scandal and look at how the Central Bank can rein in the banks.

With rugby player Simon Zebo exchanging Munster for Paris, Jack Horgan Jones and Barry J Whyte talk about the future of his international career and IRFU tactics.

Moving on to stranger things, Arts editor Nadine O'Regan explains how she coaxed seven writers to forge a Halloween story with a difference.

Storm force winds battered Ireland and leaving a trail of destruction last Monday. Is there an economist's solution to tackling natural disasters? In this week's Post Podcast, economist Stephen Kinsella and political editor Michael Brennan join Francesca Comyn to discuss the big clean up and the future cost of climate change.

There is also analysis on the government's bid to plug up property tax loopholes in the budget and Roisin Burke talks about the Church of Scientology's multi-million gameplan for Dublin.