The Coalition would be mad not to call an election this year, RTE is and Mary Lou will be busted flush an first woman Taoiseach ... Yes it's Matt Cooper and Ivan Yates and THEY’RE BACK
THE trenchant current affairs partnership of Matt Cooper and Ivan Yates was a ratings hit when they hosted Virgin Media’s The Tonight Show. Now, they’re returning with a new podcast, The Path To Power, that promises to be a no-holdsbarred analysis of politics in a year that could see four elections. Our exclusive Q&A gives a taste of what’s to come.
How will the new podcast differ from your previous partnership on the Tonight Show? Is it as an alternative to conventional media in Ireland, or is it an ambition to outperform RTÉ?
■ Ivan: When we were together on Virgin Media for The Tonight Show we were co-presenters taking it in turns to put questions to ‘talking heads’, trying to get answers out of them as they were waffling. There were times when it frustrated the hell out of me, although I suspect this appealed to some viewers when I lost it with people like Michael Healy-Rae. This podcast is our insight and our analysis. This is what we think, like it or lump it.
■ Matt: Which we didn’t do on the telly, because we were asking questions instead of giving our own opinions. At least in my case, because Ivan can rarely resist from pitching in what he thinks, especially when he is putting points of view forcibly to interviewees. It’ll also be slightly different too in that I’ll be steering the podcast from topic to topic, asking more questions of Ivan than he will of me. We’re partners on this with equal say, whereas we were both hired hands on The Tonight Show, working to instructions from our producers before we tried to veer off on our own way.
■ Ivan: Our style and format will be really aimed at those who aren’t into the intricacies of politics – who’ll take the seat on the fourth count after transfers, even if I’ll do a bit of that when the time is right – but whose lives will be impacted by the next government policies on housing, tax, immigration, whatever. Matt is a journalist, I’m not, he’s trained to asked questions, my training in politics was to make decisions.
■ Matt: Or avoid making them... The podcast is a different format, where we can tease things out, debate and discuss at a length that isn’t possible, even on radio. As long as we keep it informative and entertaining we hope that listeners will make the commitment to it. Podcasts are part of an evolution that is widening all media, not just diluting the RTÉ audience, which is why we hope that Path to Power will be worthwhile listening.
Do you think you can capture a younger audience; what will you do differently to try and engage young voters on political issues?
■ Ivan: I’m confident that we can appeal to anyone who is interested in politics, no matter what age. It’s the inter-generational divide that’s informing my views. There’s a deep conflict between the over 55s and under 40s in particular that will lead to a split in voting in the next elections, a younger generation voting differently who will be attracted by the notion of change because it might deliver to them the things that the existing political parties won’t.
■ Matt: I’m now 57 but, sadly, still think of myself as young, much to the amusement of my family who suffer my delusions that I intend having about another 20 years in my career, going even longer on radio than Pat Kenny. I have five children but the three girls in particular as young adults, either in the workplace or finishing out college, inform my thinking greatly, talking about how much it is going to cost them to move out of home or the prices of other things. We also talk about how they feel about Gaza and how AI is changing work and the things that are shaping the world and this will inform how I shape the editorial of the podcast. I’m fascinated by change, but I think it comes far faster in business and technology than it does in politics, that there is a much faster delivery in the former and that politicians who make promises often are unable to enact them, partly because of bureaucratic inertia or partly because they’re afraid to make unpopular decisions.
Speaking of RTÉ, what do you each believe RTÉ should look like as a modern national broadcaster in five years’ time? Do you believe Kevin Bakhurst has shown the vision required to reform the station?
■ Ivan: I don’t believe that many inside RTÉ grasp that the fundamental economics of their model is over. RTÉ is essentially bust. With licence non-payments and a failure to address costs radically it could lose up to €90m annually. It should radically downsize and move to a Channel 4 publisher model. Kevin Bakhurst is having to manage big change but we need to see more ambition to confront the vested interests. Axing 40 jobs in the first year of cutbacks wouldn’t cut it in the private sector.
■ Matt: We need a public service broadcaster to do things that can’t be left to the private sector who will only do programmes for profit and will ignore programmes that don’t offer a financial return. However, the commercial sector does some public service things very well, including news and current affairs. The public also wants it, which is why my own show The Last Word on Today FM, for example, has had the ratings it has had in the 20 years I’ve presented it, while sitting in a schedule among musicled shows: it more than pays its own way. If the
Government gives RTÉ the rescue money it wants it can’t be at the expense of privately-owned media. It has been a disgrace the way RTÉ has been allowed to set up a website that has little to do with broadcasting, competing with licence fee money against the print media as it tries to convert to digital.
Do you believe there will be or should be a General Election in 2024 rather than spring 2025. Can you give your predictions... and which parties do you believe will form the next government?
Ivan: I think an election is mostly likely in autumn ’24. There is no chance of going as far as 2025 and it maybe earlier than autumn if Leo Varadkar gets his way. I can’t see the point of the Government waiting to take a hammering from Sinn Féin in the local and European elections and then going to the electorate for the General Election, with Sinn Féin having a slate of new councillors to put forward as general election candidates. I think Sinn Féin could get north of 70 seats, but that will still leave them well short of the majority and needing the help of Fianna Fáil to take power.
■ Matt: As Taoiseach, Leo gets to call the election but it’s not as simple as that, because the nature of this coalition means that he needs the consent of Micheál Martin and Eamon Ryan and both of them might want to put off what could be an evil day of heavy losses for as long as possible.
Ivan is far more comfortable making predictions than I am. That’s the gambler in him. I always expect the unexpected, which is why I’m far more reluctant to make predictions. But if you force me then I’d say that Fianna Fáil will be reluctant to be a junior partner to Sinn Féin, especially if it has a fraction of its seats, and that Mary Lou McDonald may have to manage a minori the support of ind wing small parties. lenging.
6 European elections: And again, who will be big winners/losers?
■ Ivan: The extra seat means that we will have 14 MEPs when the votes are counted. I’m predicting at present that FF will lose three, Sinn Féin will gain at least three and Fine Gael will at best win three. Name recognition is key, so look for incumbent MEPs to hold on. Look out for springer candidates appearing from nowhere as ‘against EU-imposed open borders’ to pull off shock wins.
■ Matt: Name recognition could also help some Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael refugees take seats, as some try to escape from the Dáil or Seanad, looking for insurance policies against the possible loss of their seats at the general election. I share Ivan’s belief that we could see some nasty right-wingers emerge, stoking social tensions in the country further and unnecessarily given that this country’s prosperity depends heavily on the immigrants who have come to live among us. We should all be anxious about this.
7 Housing, health, immigration: All key issues but which do you believe will decide the above elections? How do you rate the Government’s and opposition’s performance in these briefs?
■ Matt: What a heady mix that all is, plenty for us to get stuck into. Housing and health will remain very big issues as they were at last general election in 2020, and the Government is very vulnerable to the charges that it has not done enough. It may actually have done better in some respects than it is given credit for and some of the suggestions coming forward from the opposition do not seem rooted in reality even if they sound good, such as Sinn Féin’s belief that it can bring the price of a house in Dublin down to an average of €300,000. However, the immigration issue threatens to become disproportionately influential, especially if bad actors whip things up and conventional politicians, in the race for votes, fall into their traps of aping minority, extreme views, albeit couched more subtly.
■ Ivan: New housing and high rents being unaffordable and unavailable is going to be the key election driver for 30-45 age cohort. Immigration is the looming dark horse as the primary issue because there is a massive gulf between political/media discourse and public sentiment in working class and rural areas. We’ll be rating the performance of ministers, the Government and the opposition regularly on Path to Power. It’ll take longer than the time we have in this interview.
8 Do you believe Mary Lou McDonald will be Ireland’s first female Taoiseach? If not, who?
■ Ivan: Yes, she will be. Mary Lou, left, is the hottest personal brand in Irish politics. She is female and feisty, she is populist and urban, she has all the things needed. She might be a disaster but methinks she’ll get a chance because the change in zeitgeist is ever potent.
■ Matt: It is very likely – and only a fool would say she won’t be – but nothing is inevitable. There is a danger for Sinn Féin that she has been the Taoiseach-inwaiting for too long. I also hope that she doesn’t pander to anti-immigrant sentiment in trying to shore up the Sinn Féin vote. Her interview with Craig Hughes recently in the Irish Daily Mail was a bit of a shocker: the idea that Ukrainians would be thrown out of the country from March 2025 onwards if they did not fit specific ‘critical’ work criteria was extraordinary. These people are refugees from an illegal war waged by Russia and to deny them their special status granted by Government because of it would be unconscionable. As for other possible female Taoisigh? Nobody else from the opposition is going to have the numbers.
9 Soaring house prices and rentals: what needs to be done to help those who can’t buy and can barely afford to rent?
■ Ivan: We need to transform the planning system. We should copy Northern Ireland and abolish VAT on new homes to get prices down.
■Matt: This has been a big part of my most recent book Who Really Owns Ireland? The planning system is a disgrace, for a number of reasons. It has been understaffed, creating enormous backlogs. I would compare it to the failure of the Central Bank to regulate lending during the first decade of this century and of Bertie Ahern’s government’s failure to provide enough staff to do so despite pleas. The same has happened with planning. But we also have a culture of objecting to what is necessary, selfishness about not having anything new near what already exists. Many politicians, across various parties, are guilty of pandering to selfish interests in this regard, with Sinn Féin probably the most active opponents in Dublin. The issue is all about increasing supply. Unfortunately private capital is more expensive than it was.
10Who was a better Taoiseach in 10 this coalition, Leo or Micheál… and why?
■ Ivan: They have different qualities, they actually have been de facto co-leaders throughout, joined at the hip, and have done well to maintain cohesiveness given the mutual distrust of their parties. I’ll have to think a bit more about which one has been better, although I wonder if we’re going to see a more forceful Leo during 2024 as he tries to stake out his position prior to the election. Remember he has been in government since 2011 and was first Taoiseach in 2017. He has to persuade people they shouldn’t be tired of him but one of my iron rules of politics is that you can’t be in power for more than 12 years without people getting tired of you and wanting change.
■ Matt: It’s a good question and one that we’ll be address in the episode of Path to Power which comes out on January 6. We’re going to focus on the year ahead for the three main players in domestic politics, Varadkar, Martin and Mary Lou McDonald. We’ll also chat a bit about the possibility of Donald Trump returing to power in the United States because while domestic politics are going to be our thing on Path to Power, our economic success could be threatened if US multinational investment is affected by that dangerous idiot returning to power.