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One recent evening Insider watched the 1967 Jean-Luc Godard film La Chinoise in which a small group of French students sit around their apartment, located in what is described as a “workers’ district”, and engage in theatrical discussions about how they must overthrow the bourgeoise and, in particular, the hierarchal French university system which saw students as passive receivers of knowledge handed down by their god-like professors, rather than participants in a dialectical exchange in which both students and teachers learn from each other and grow as a result. No one, with the exception of chairman Mao, is radical enough for most of these students. The French Communist Party which, to draw an Irish parallel, would have been more or less the political equivalent of present day Sinn Féin, is condemned as hopelessly “revisionist”. The Soviet Union, in particular its then president, the now largely forgotten Mr Kosygin, is convicted by the students at their kitchen table discussions of failing to do enough to support the Vietnamese in their war against Lyndon Johnson. And the French working class, with whom said kitchen table debaters absolutely sympathise, are seen as hopelessly passive. In a mix of desperation, madness, and idealism, the students decide to mount a campaign of terrorism, which will involve them doing something they have singularly failed to do for most of the film; getting up from that kitchen table and going outside. They plan to kill the visiting Soviet minister for culture who has been invited by President de Gaulle’s own culture minister, the novelist and decayed Stalinist intellectual Andre Malraux, to open a new wing of the university. After that, they hope to bomb the Sorbonne in the belief that this will spark a revolution. Insider is against blowing up universities. Partly because he knows such actions more often provoke backlash than revolution. But also because Insider happens to teach at a university and coming out in favour of blowing up universities might lead to an awkward email from one’s department head.

Galway East TDs must vote against the controversial Mother and Baby Homes Bill which comes before the Dáil this week, as it would seal the records relating to such homes for up to 30 years.

Elderly people, and those on lower incomes, across County Galway are set to be hit with higher fuel bills than expected this month, due to a combination of stalled energy upgrades for homes, and the carbon tax increases.

The Asthma Society of Ireland this week released its Pre-Budget Submission 2021, which presents to the Government five asks to be considered in the 2021 Budget that it states could greatly improve the lives of people with asthma in Ireland.

Aontú representative for Mayo, Paul Lawless, has hit out at Taoiseach Micheál Martin over remarks he made in the Dáil on Wednesday regarding the EU cross border directive.

A Covid-19 cluster in one part of Galway could see a lockdown imposed across all the county, under the Government's new measures - a move that would be "extremely unfair" on the public, and detrimental to businesses.

Ordinarily, at this time of year, there is a sense of renewal as politicians, with their batteries recharged, return to work and a new Dáil term begins.

The "massive backlog" of 72,738 people awaiting a driving test is a problem that will only grow and become more serious, especially once schools re-open.

Covid-19 has exposed "a decades-long failure" to build a public health system that has enough doctors, nurses and beds, and with the pandemic far from over, this is a situation which cannot be allowed to continue.

Like everyone else, Insider needs occasional harmless distraction on social media, so a recent challenge to 'write the first sentence of your 2020 memoir' was tempting - until I realised most of us had the same depressing pun: It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times.