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It's our final Friday wrap of the year and Jack Horgan-Jones and Jennifer Bray join Hugh to discuss the week in politics:

• The large influx of fresh TDs has brought a welcome joy and lack of cynicism to Leinster House. But the main event of the week was the election of Verona Murphy as Ceann Comhairle after some old-fashioned back-room dealing. Just how and why did it come about?

• The Regional Group of Independents, that clan of geographically diverse TDs that includes the new Ceann Comhairle, are now set to support Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil as a partner in the next government. With Murphy out of the picture, the remaining members have begun jockeying for ministerial posts.

• This incoming coalition faces big challenges in the years ahead, from fiscal threats to climate action and handling the Occupied Territories Bill. How will the new government function and can it hold together?

Plus the panel pick their favourite Irish Times articles of the week, on TikTok, the €20 billion iceberg right ahead, and the sad decline of kissing under the mistletoe.

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Hugh talks to former Minister for Housing and Fine Gael TD for Dublin Bay South Eoghan Murphy, whose recent memoir Running From Office explores how his once-promising political career went off the rails, how he struggled to get to grips with the housing crisis and what being a member of the Cabinet and of Fine Gael looks like from the inside.

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Host Hugh Linehan is joined by Jack Horgan-Jones and Pat Leahy to look back on the week in politics:

· With Labour set to exit coalition talks with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the likelihood of Independents making up the small number of TDs needed to form the next government increases. Could consensus be harder to find on issues like climate change if the next government leans more to the right?

· The question of who will be the next ceann comhairle has become harder to answer with some looking for Seán Ó Fearghaíl to continue in the role, Regional Independents putting Verona Murphy forward, and Sinn Féin also expected to put a name forward for the speaker’s position in the 34th Dáil.

· An awful week for the Social Democrats with newly elected TD Eoin Hayes being suspended on Tuesday for divesting shares in a company supplying military tech to Israel in July of this year, after being elected as a member of Dublin City Council in June.

Plus, the panel pick their Irish Times stories of the week including:

· Patrick Freyne on the Christmas stuff the MSM don’t want you to know.

· Declan Walsh writes about the gold rush in war-torn Sudan.

· Finn McRedmond cringes at Paul Mescal on SNL.

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British journalist Lewis Goodall is cohost of the UK's most popular news podcast, The News Agents. Today he talks to Hugh about the year in UK politics: why Keir Starmer has struggled to get a grip on governing, the lingering impact of Brexit and how Labour's numerical victory has hidden the fragmentation of political support across the spectrum.

Then Lewis tells Hugh how the Irish general election looks from his point of view and wonders how history will look back on this period in UK and Irish politics.

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Post-election negotiations - or “government formation speed dating” as such discussions are now also known - have been happening throughout the week, and on today’s Inside Politics podcast Jack Horgan-Jones and Jennifer Bray join Pat Leahy to discuss the main moves:

• On Friday the Social Democrats said they would not form a negotiating pact with Labour, closing the door to an idea floated by Labour leader Ivana Bacik before and during the campaign. Where does that leave Labour as it debates internally over whether to go in or stay out?

• The most important negotiations - between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil - are yet to begin. But already there are signs of tension, with Fianna Fáil niggling Fine Gael over its superior seat tally and Simon Harris saying on Friday that Fine Gael “should not be taken for granted”.

• Independent TDs are the other crucial cohort in this post-election dance. What will they want, individually and collectively, in exchange for propping up the next government?

Plus the panel pick their Irish Times stories of the week including pieces on female leaders in the next Dáil, Conor McGregor’s career in America and a letter accusing our columnist Fintan O’Toole of “reheating the old Marxist argument of false consciousness”.

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When it came to picking an alternative government, it felt to many like there was little real choice in the election just held. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil always looked likely to return to government, with only the details to be ironed out. And so it proved.

So where does that leave Irish politics? Is there any prospect of a change in the landscape before the next general election that presents voters with another option?

Theresa Reidy and Gerard Howlin join Hugh and Pat to discuss this question and others thrown up by the election.

Dr Theresa Reidy is a political scientist at University College Cork. Gerard Howlin is a public affairs consultant, political commentator and former senior government adviser who writes a regular politics column for The Irish Times.

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