Should religion be taught outside of school hours?

For weeks we’ve been hearing about delays in people getting their passports, or issues with the online tracking system. Siobhan Byrne, Director of the Passport Service joined Kieran to explain some of the reasons behind the difficulties people have been facing.   Listen and subscribe to The Hard Shoulder on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify.      Download, listen and subscribe on the Newstalk App.     You can also listen to Newstalk live on newstalk.com or on Alexa, by adding the Newstalk skill and asking: 'Alexa, play Newstalk'.

One in 10 people will suffer with back pain, making it one of the most common ailments and one of hte leading reasons for employees being off sick from work. So why is it so common, and can we prevent some of the more common forms of back pain? Prof Seamus Morris is Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon at Beacon Hospital and he leads The National Spine Institute there - he had plenty of advice for sufferers.

Today is World Heart Day, and who better to feature on The Hard Shoulder Health Check than Dr. Robert Kelly, Consultant Cardiologist and Lifestyle Medicine at Beacon Hospital.  He answered listener queries about everything from post-vaccine palpitations, arrhythmia, and high cholesterol.

UTIs are very common among the adult population but children are just as prone to these nasty infections. The challenge with children is that they may only have the ability to vaguely describe their discomfort or they could be too young to tell you at all.   In this weeks Health Check Fardod O’Kelly, Consultant Paediatric and Adolescent Urological Surgeon at Beacon Hospital joined Kieran with advice on what to look out for and how best to treat childhood urinary tract infections.