In our first episode of 2021 we're joined by activist and author Conor McCabe to discuss:  

• George Nkencho's death, mental health failures & racism
• Trump & the American Revolution II
• Will Trump pardon himself?
• The "darkest day of Covid" - "a price worth paying"
• Vaccination rollout
• Working from home allowances
• The Leaving Cert & Norma Foley
• Boeing fine
• Plans to cut property tax in rural Ireland
• Rising house prices in rural Ireland
• OECD warn against austerity

Gillian McSweeney, ex-Debenhams worker and Mandate Trade Union member talks to us about their 9 month strike with the company. 

Almost 1,000 workers were made redundant back in April 2020 and their employer failed to pay them their agreed redundancy package. Gillian talks about her experiences on the picket line and how the strike has impacted on her politically.

This week Clare and Dave look at CETA, Noel McGree Whistleblower, Tribunal Costs, An Post, PornHun, Kingspan & Grenfell, Nama & Project Eagle, Student Nurses, SInn Fein & much more

This week we’re joined by Councillor Dean Mulligan (Independents4Change) and Lilith Carroll (TENI) to discuss:

• Trans rights & bodily autonomy
• Student Nurses and Midwives pay
• The magic money tree or austerity up ahead?
• Increase in retail worker abuse
• Deaths of people in homelessness
• Palestine not being included in Israel EU vaccine deals
• Sinn Féin comments and coverage
• 17,000 undocumented to receive residency permits
• Who will pay for our pensions
• Greyhound industry v Bus Eireann
• Coca Cola – the new Apple
• Public sector pay talks
• Traveller Discrimination
• Niall O Hara death
• 4 Day Working Week

Michelle Gavin, an ex-Debenhams worker from Waterford with 27 years service, explains the strike and its impact on all workers. The workers have been on strike for 230 days now - in rain, hail and storms. She talks about government inaction and being left high and dry first by the company and then by the State. Michelle also talks about loss and trauma during the strike as well as how she has taken actions she never thought she would.  We hope this will form part of a series of interviews with ex-Debenhams workers. Because they deserve to be heard.

This week we’re joined by People Before Profit Councillor Tina MacVeigh to discuss:

• Direct Provision
• Oscar Traynor site campaign victory
• Image Based Violence leak
• RTEGate
• Autism Services
• Debenhams
• Lloyds Pharmacy
• 100 years after Bloody Sunday
• Declan Ganley suing the state
• Solas Youth Services

This week we’re joined by Eoin O’Broin TD & Sinead Redmond discuss:

• Sinn Fein: the cause of and solution to all of Fine Gael’s problems;
• The Teflon Tánaiste;
• Rewarding Seamus Woulfe;
• Data centres must provide own power;
• Oscar Traynor Road Housing Campaign;
• Dublin Airport drinking sessions;
• Domestic violence;
• Vaccines, capitalism and public health;
• Infections crisis linked to three deaths in Rotunda;
• Garda corruption;
• Precarious working in academia;
• “Eviction-hit hermit nun hellbent on selling bogus cure for cancer”;
• Slainte Care: a vision, not a plan;
• Church to pay “penal law” VAT on candles;
• Wild Mountain Thyme: an accent crime.

This week we’re joined by our new Washington correspondent Joe Guinan (Anglo-Irish exile in the imperial metropolis · Vice President Democracy Collaborative) & activist Mark Malone (activist, communicator & researcher) to discuss:

The election of Joe Biden; 

Kamala Harris and the glass ceiling; 

Irish coverage of the new President; 

Will another Trump emerge? 

Could Bernie Sanders have won? 

The importance of political education; 

The new Undercover Policing Inquiry; 

Water charges to re-emerge; 

Services for children with special needs; 

Facebook moderates ads for moderators; 

Kingspan and Grenfell tower fire; 

The long-term impact of COVID19; 

This week we’re joined by Paul Murphy TD and Ber Grogan to discuss:

• #LeoTheLeak;
• Mother & Baby Homes;
• Judges won’t sit with Woulfe;
• Abortion rights campaign in Poland;
• Pharma Companies manufacturing COVID19 vaccines;
• Homeless deaths this week;
• Direct Provision;
• Glanbia stealing water;
• Bottled water companies and data centres go unregulated;
• Coveney seeks compensation for Israeli authorities destroying Palestinian homes;
• Big tobacco firms use Ireland to avoid tax;
• Facebook workers and their shitty conditions;
• Support Ber’s Basket Brigade;
• Launch of Clare O’Connor Appreciation Society.

You can support us at www.patreon.com/leftbloc 

This week we’re joined by Dave Murphy & Diana O’Dwyer from RISE and Rupture Radio Podcast to discuss:

• The Mother & Baby Homes records;
• “Silent majority” backs lock-down;
• Zero Covid Ireland with Socialist Policies (article by Diana);
• Have we learned anything from the first wave of Covid?;
• Hand sanitizer that’ll make you sick;
• CEOs who volunteer for vaccine trials, but don’t really;
• Far right v far left – sure they’re all “extremists”;
• Arrest of John Gilligan;
• Tusla and failure to act on child abuse;
• Budget 2021 and the ‘baby bounce’ for Fianna Fail;
• Warnings of Austerity;
• The Great Gig Economy;
• “Asking too much of our younger generation” by the party saddling them with debt;
• Apple tax appeal is appealed by EU.

This week we’re joined by Glenn Fitzpatrick and Ciaran Campbell to discuss:

• The Stardust Inquest
• British State Collusion in the murder of innocent civilians
• Covid fallout with Derry worst hit region in UK & Ireland
• Mother & Baby Homes legislation rushed & hushed
• Private hospitals oppose providing extra beds to tackle Covid
• New LPG gas terminals off Irish coast
• New Look’s failed attempt to use Covid for examinership
• Private security firms free to Evict without a license
• Budget allocates compensation for “slop out” cases
• The media presentation of Budget 2021
• Airline industry crisis; &
• Brexit talks

On this special episode we talk to Mairead Farrell TD (Sinn Fein), Ciaran Nugent (NERI) and Lorna Bogue (Green Party Councillor and Just Transition Greens co-Chair) about what’s in Budget 2021 and what a left Budget would look like.

We talk about the framing of the Budget by the media, housing, education, climate action, cutting the PUP, business supports, tax breaks for high earners, SIPTUs successful pensions campaign, Capital Gains Tax cuts for entrepreneurs, lack of capital infrastructure, live entertainment supports, and we even talk about what’s not in the Budget – like a wealth tax.

This week we’re joined by Saoirse McHugh and Conor McCabe to discuss: 

• The individualisation of Covid and missed opportunities
• Covid fines
• Sick pay 
• Airlines & lobbying power
• Budget - supports funnelling into private pockets 
• Climate Action Bill
• Earth to Dan O Brien - EU debt to GDP is actually low 
• Carrickmines anniversary
• Housing agency & Build to rent 
• Spent Convictions Bill
• Fergus McCabe
• Mick Clifford: Fascists = Anti-Fascists?
• NAMA and no accountability 

Wanna find out more or support our project? Go to www.patreon.com/leftbloc

On this special episode, our hosts David Gibney and Clare O'Connor talk to Stiofán Ó Nualláin, Emma Clancy and John Barry about #LeftBloc, an exciting new media and political education project in Ireland. Included in the media hub is A Worker's Guide to Everything; The Week at Work; Nuall Na NÓg; Offshore; A news based website; and a Climate Justice podcast currently in production. 

If you want to support the project you can do so at www.patreon.com/leftbloc. And don't forget to subscribe and share. Up the workers! 

On this special episode we talk to Vicky Phelan and Gino Kenny TD about the upcoming vote on the Dying with Dignity Bill and why we need to have this important discussion now. Vicky exposed the cervical cancer scandal and is living with terminal cancer and Gino Kenny has proposed the Bill that would allow those with terminal illnesses to have assistance in achieving a dignified and peaceful end of life. 

This week we are joined by Stiofán Ó Nualláin from Trademark Belfast to discuss: COVID Island, Seamus Wolfe & the KKK, the Green Party oppose a ‘Just Transition’, Michael Darcy & TDs who lobby, education errors, a four day week, wage subsidy scheme & Debenhams, Mairead McGuinness as commissioner for financial services, Cable Street & communists banned from the US.

This week we're joined by Independent TD for Donegal, Thomas Pringle, and Community Activist Michelle Byrne to discuss: COVID & capitalism, Third Level Education rankings & student poverty, airline arseholes, flat rate expenses, Debenhams and Estee Lauder strikes, VAT cuts & spreading the virus, businesses seek to restrict protests, Dying with Dignity Bill, co-positions on co-living by Housing Minister, Spike Island sacks union activists, Red C poll, environmentally reckless capitalism, publicly funded private schools and FG Minister interferes with GMIT governance.

In this episode we talk to Bernadette McAliskey and Ciaran Campbell whose families were both targeted by loyalist death squads. We get their reflections on "Unquiet Graves", the documentary about British government collusion with the Glenanne Gang, leading to the murders of more than 120 people, including the Dublin/Monaghan bombings.