Ellen Coyne and Jack Horgan-Jones join Hugh Linehan to look back on the week in politics:

· The posters are going up, and candidates are preparing their pitch, but could Sinn Féin come up empty-handed in both the Dublin Central (party leader Mary Lou McDonald’s constituency) and Galway West byelection when the votes are counted on May 23rd? And does a vote against Government no longer mean a vote for the republican party?

· Given how many prominent Irish politicians retire and become silent, perhaps former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s unguarded opinions should be viewed as refreshing. The recent release of his book Speaking My Mind and various podcast contributions point to someone unafraid to give their unvarnished opinion.

· And President Catherine Connolly made her first trip overseas, attending the Defence of Democracy conference in Spain. Traditionalists might argue her first visit abroad should have been to meet another head of state.

Plus, the panel picks their favourite Irish Times pieces of the week:

· Michael Jackson in Cork and the 10-year-old at his hotel, the ascent of Green Party leader Zack Polanski, and the cultural obsession with the 1990s.

Correction: In the course of a conversation about the aftermath of the fuel protests, Hugh Linehan said that carbon tax is applied pro rata to the price of fuel. That is not correct. Carbon tax, as the name suggests, is calculated on the carbon emissions of a fuel, not the price. Therefore price fluctuations do not affect the rate of carbon tax which is charged.

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