Taoiseach Simon Harris appears on The 2 Johnnies Podcast

James Cox

Taoiseach Simon Harris was the latest guest on The 2 Johnnies Podcast, hosted by comedians Johnny 'Smacks' McMahon and 'Johnny B' O'Brien.

The tone of the podcast is comedy-oriented, so the pair said Mr Harris discussed his term as taoiseach and the upcoming general election along with lighter topics such as "his favourite biscuit" and whether he'd rather go for a pint with Mattie McGrath or the Healy-Raes.

On immigration and asylum seeker accommodation, Mr Harris said: "No one gets a veto about who lives next door to them. Noone asked my next-door neighbour if it was OK for me to live next door to him.  I do think there has to be better engagement with a community and we need to show communities what process we actually go through when we are considering opening a new facility – what’s the checklist,  what do you do…"

On why he does a job that takes such a toll on his personal life, Mr Harris replied: "I love it, I got involved in this completely by accident, my brother was born with a form of autism. I was a moody opinionated teenager in my hometown and I said why the hell can things not be better for my family and I started campaigning with people to make sure the local school had autism classes and got sucked into politics that way."

Mr Harris also recently appeared on Ryan Tubridy's podcast, The Bookshelf with Ryan Tubridy.

The 2 Johnnies finished their two-year stint on RTÉ 2FM in May.

The 2 Johnnies Podcast episode 351 with Taoiseach Simon Harris is streaming from Monday, November 4th, exclusively on Spotify.