On Tuesday morning, the country awoke to news that a house fire in Waterford had claimed the lives of four members of the same family.

Within hours of the blaze, Gardaí ruled out an accidental cause and upgraded the investigation to a murder inquiry.

Though the investigation is at an early stage, detectives believe the attack was related to a drug debt. It’s thought a petrol bomb was thrown at the front door of the house, in an effort to intimidate the family.

In recent years, the number of petrol bomb attacks on Irish homes has risen sharply. It's been described as 'the new epidemic'.

So who’s carrying out these attacks? How difficult are they to investigate and why are drug gangs turning to petrol bombs to intimidate and extort?

Irish Times crime and security editor Conor Lally has the latest.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

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US president Donald Trump announced on Sunday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed an “energy ceasefire” effective immediately, warning either side against breaking the deal.

The only problem was that the warring neighbours, who have made attacking each other’s energy plants a key plank of their attack strategy, appeared not to have even heard of the agreement.

The statement came after another torrid 48 hours in relations between the White House and Kyiv, during which Trump ordered the suspension of sanctions on Russian diesel exports, again blamed Ukraine for failing to end the war, and said it was time for the embattled country to “get a new president”.

Do this latest round of comments from the White House indicate a fall-off in US support for Ukraine? And what might that mean for the eastern European country as it enters a winter that promises to be so challenging that analysts have suggested a humanitarian crisis could follow?

Dan McLaughlin in Lviv reports. Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before the summer court recess George Gibney (77), former Irish Olympic swimming coach, was found guilty of sexually abusing four girls in the 1970s and 1980s.

The jury found him guilty of 39 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape of children.

One of Ireland’s most notorious paedophiles, he was extradited from Florida last year where he had escaped justice for decades.

Due to reporting restrictions he was referred to as “sports coach” but as soon as the guilty verdict was announced, he could be named.

Sentencing Gibney on Monday, Judge Mícheál O’Higgins handed down an aggregate sentence of 16 years and eight months, with 14 months suspended. This results in a sentence of 15 years and six months in prison.

More than 30 years after he first broke the story about Gibney’s crimes, sports writer Johnny Watterson was in court this week as the disgraced swimming coach learned his fate. In today's episode, he joins Bernice Harrison to discuss three decades of writing about Gibney and the long road to justice for the victims.

Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For years Victor Spaggiari was a familiar sight on the streets of Galway.

A homeless man, he lived in the Cope Hostel and spent his days sitting on a bench in the city. He spoke little, caused no trouble and seemed content. When he died in 2024 aged 65, his funeral was small and he was buried in the city, far from his Italian birthplace.

Then, when his will went to probate it emerged that Victor was a millionaire and he had left his fortune to a cousin in Milan. So who was Victor? How did he come by the money? Why didn’t he spend it? And why did he spend his adult life in Ireland?

Intrigued by the story Irish Times senior feature writer Rosita Boland went to Galway to find out more about how Victor lived and Europe correspondent Naomi O’Leary – who joins me on the podcast – tracked down his cousin in Milan to discover about Victor’s childhood.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by Suzanne Brennan.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s a story that could have come straight out a John le Carré thriller. The retired German spy chief accused of selling classified information amounting to thousands of secret documents; an alleged act of treason that continued for years and was only uncovered during a kidnapping investigation involving a steakhouse heiress and ex-Israeli spies.

August Hanning, head of the BND foreign intelligence agency for seven years until 2005, faces charges of treasonous espionage after the 80-year-old was arrested during a dawn raid on his home on Tuesday.

The focus now for investigators is his post-retirement consultancy, which he set up in 2010 – the same year he is accused of buying and using classified information.

It is Germany’s greatest-ever espionage scandal as Irish Times Berlin correspondent Derek Scally reports.

Presented by Bernice Harrison. Produced by John Casey.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past two weeks, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets of Spain to protest the country’s worsening housing crisis. The demonstrations were triggered by the eviction of an 87-year-old woman, Maria del Carmen Abascal, from her home in Madrid.

Known in Spain simply as Maricarmen, she had lived in the same apartment for more than seven decades and was evicted after it was sold to a private investment company. She died in a hospital in Madrid two weeks later.

In response to the public outcry following her eviction, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez put forward several emergency housing measures. However, when the proposals were rejected by Parliament, he called a snap general election for November 29th.

But will the Prime Minister’s gamble pay off? Is it likely his party will lead the next government and could this surprise election pave the way for parties on the right to seize power?

Irish Times contributor Guy Hedgecoe speaks to Bernice Harrison from Madrid.

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