In this week's politics podcast, Irish Times political correspondent Mary Minihan discusses Enda Kenny's trip today to Brussels for an EU summit where the union's 27 EU member states hope to stabilise the financial crisis.
She also considers the publication this week of the Moriarty Report which found that former minister for communications Michael Lowry “secured the winning” of the 1995 mobile phone licence competition for Denis O’Brien’s Esat Digifone.
The tribunal described as "regrettable" the fact that Fine Gael failed to disclose to the inquiry a $50,000 donation made to the party on behalf of Esat Digifone two months after the company won the competition for the second mobile phone licence.
Mary considers the political damage suffered by the lead party in the coalition and its ensuing relationship with the Labour Party.
She also casts an eye over the performance of some of the nineteen independent TDs since their election to the Dáil a few short weeks ago,