But one subject on which there is little chance of unanimity is Ireland’s love affair with sports utility vehicles, despite some cheering from the sidelines here when Paris acted punitively against SUVs this week.

The mayor, Anne Hidalgo, won backing to treble parking fees for cars of 1.6 tonnes and more to €18 an hour. 

Paris is pressing on with its plans to become a “fully bikeable” city.

The sale of SUVs in Ireland is way higher than the European average. Two out of three new vehicles fall into the sports-utility category.

Yes, only 5.7% of eligible Parisians voted in favour of the parking increases (less than the 8% who voted last April to ban e-scooters), but there are more practical, political reasons why Ireland will not follow.

Tánaiste Micheál Martin may have had an old aphorism in mind when he indicated a reluctance to contemplate similar policies. It was Benjamin Disraeli who said: “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” Contemporary leaders tend to lean more towards imposing their own view of life on the rest of us. But there are shortcomings to that approach.

Mr Martin signalled that he is not in favour of a ban on SUVs in Cork City and said that people should be “brought along” with climate action measures rather than “issuing edicts from time to time”.

The Tánaiste said that a ban on SUVs was “headline stuff” and issues of substance, such as the infrastructure for public transport and cycleways, “where people opt to do the sensible thing”, were being advanced by the Government.

His comments followed a week of heightened antipathy towards private motor vehicles, headed by the comments of Environment Minister Eamon Ryan on proposals to remove cars from parts of Dublin city centre, including the quays, by August. Mr Ryan said that he also would not rule out introducing extra parking charges on SUVs.

Mr Martin believes that town-and-city traffic management should be devolved to local authorities. This must be correct in the main. Although he will, no doubt, have noticed that Cork City has now achieved a three-in-a-row for the title of being Ireland’s top parking blackspot.

Nearly 1,000 parking offences a week were detected by Cork traffic wardens in 2023, a decrease of less than 1% on the previous year. An average of 118 motorists per week were caught in just three locations: St Patrick’s Street, South Mall, and Grand Parade.

Tucked away is the statistic that approximately 40% of all motorists issued with parking tickets last year were fined for failing to register “a parking event” by phone.

And that validates something the Irish Examiner has argued previously: People either cannot use, or do not like, mobile phone parking apps.

Tucker Carlson does democracy a disservice

Readers are capable of reaching their own conclusions about the merits of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin. Paranoid right-wing commentator meets one of America’s leading conspiracy theorists?

Or iconoclastic charlatan fulfils the role of what Lenin described as a “useful idiot” — someone who can be subverted to cheerlead for a particular cause.

MEP and former Belgian prime minister, Guy Verhofstadt, falls into the latter school of thought proclaiming “this is how democracies die” adding that the 30-minute TV show “is the best thing that ever happened” to the Russian leader.

Apart from a rerun of Putin’s essay, On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians, there are few key takeaways from the first interview Carlson has done since his sit-down with Russell Brand to talk about rape claims.

Among Putin’s assertions: Elon Musk (there’s no stopping him producing a genetically engineered athlete, scientist, military man); Boris Johnson (arrogant, and sabotaged a 2022 peace deal); the NordStream gas pipelines (blown up by the CIA); Evan Gershkovich, Wall Street Journal reporter held in jail for espionage (an agreement can be reached). And, most importantly, that deploying troops to Ukraine would bring humanity to the brink of global conflict. In other words, World War Three.

This was the first public discussion — describing it as an interview gives a misleading impression of its softball delivery — between Putin and a Western media figure since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Which raises the question as to whether it should ever have taken place?

The ethics are debated in the Columbia Journalism Review where contributors draw the obvious parallels with those who parleyed with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s when his intentions, if not the full scope of his consequences, were clear.

Carson’s supporters propound the meretricious argument that he was simply doing proper journalism, finding out what Putin thinks.

Critics, who point to a record of apologism for the Kremlin, say that the lack of rigour in questioning, the failure to hold to account, serves the interests of only one person.

The liberal pundit David Axelrod told CNN that when he first heard Carlson was in Moscow, he assumed that it was to collect an award for his services. The fact is that telling the truth in Russia is a dangerous activity. Gershkovich is not the only reporter to be incarcerated. The list of journalists excluded is lengthy. There have been murders in the past.

No publisher in the West has followed the example of publisher William Randolph Hearst who offered op-ed space to Hitler and Benito Mussolini. But that is the logical development from Carlson flying 8,000km so that “Putin’s voice can be heard”.

That claim is only legitimate if such a voice is open to challenge. Everything else is propaganda.

Carlson, flag waver for the right, has done democracy a disservice.