Neil Stokes

  Interview: Sir Michael Smurfit, KBE The warm autumnal sun glistens softly on the still shores of Monte Carlo harbour. The escarpment of the Maritime Alps looms dramatically overhead. A kingfisher struts elegantly along the marina in search of its prey. It is perfection. How fitting a place then it would seem to interview a man of such magnitude: Sir Michael Smurfit, KBE. Born in St Helens, Lancashire in August 1936, Michael Smurfit joined his father's business, Jefferson Smurfit & Sons Ltd. in Dublin, straight from school. Two years after the company floated on the Irish Stock Exchange, Michael and his brother Jeff became Joint Managing Directors, as Jefferson Senior took on the role of Chairman and Chief Executive. Then followed 30 years of acquisitions, as the Jefferson Smurfit Group became Ireland's first multinational company and the largest packaging company in the world. In 2002, Dr Smurfit took the Smurfit Group private, retiring as CEO but remaining Chairman. In t...

  Michael McGrath Interview - Minister for Public Expenditure & Reform Michael McGrath is the current Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, a role he has served in since June 2020. He has been a TD for the Cork South-Central constituency since 2007 serving as Opposition spokesperson for Finance from 2011 until his entry into Government in 2020. I began by asking him about his upbringing and early life growing up in Cork. Early Life “I grew up as one of five kids in Passage West. My late father would have been somebody who did manual work all his life in different forms, and my mum worked at home. I had a really good upbringing. My parents weren’t overtly political; they certainly weren’t involved in politics or members of any party. They did encourage taking an interest in community and in the world around us, and they would have known some Fianna Fáil politicians and would have supported the party but were not involved [directly] in any way. During my time in secondary s...

  Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been a TD for Cork South-Central since 1989 and has been leader of Fianna Fáil since 2011. The below interview touches on a wide range of matters including climate change, the housing crisis, Brexit, Budget 2022, corporation tax and his lengthy political career.  The Role of Taoiseach “As Taoiseach, you have to pull it all together; you've got to maintain cohesion” Following nearly a decade as leader of the opposition, in June 2020 Martin assumed his current role as Taoiseach and head of the Irish Government. An historic coalition with Fine Gael and The Green Party has brought with it the challenge of accommodating a wide number of viewpoints amid the backdrop of an unprecedented COVID-induced lockdown and the exigent demands of a housing crisis, among other things. As someone who has held several ministerial portfolios, Martin is acutely aware of the inner workings of Government. In comparing his ministerial positions to that of Head of Governme...

      Paschal Donohoe is the Fine Gael TD for Dublin Central (first elected 2011) and in June 2020 was re-appointed as the Minister for Finance for Ireland. He was first appointed to that role in June 2017, at which point he also held the position of Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. This is the first time a Minister had held both of the finance portfolios. He was elected as President of Eurogroup of Finance Ministers in July 2020. He is married with two children and has the misfortune of supporting Tottenham Hotspur. Early Life & Entry into Politics "There was a high awareness of current affairs"  Born in Phibsborough, Dublin in 1974, Donohoe was educated at St. Declan's CBS in Cabra, before receiving a scholarship to Trinity College Dublin. There he studied Politics and Economics and graduated with a first-class honours degree. During his time in Trinity, he served as secretary of the University Philosophical Society, primarily a debating and paper-re...