Saoirse Ronan receives awkward silence on Graham Norton

Saoirse Ronan showed her feminist colours on the Graham Norton show, interrupting Paul Mescal and the lads as they joked about defending themselves if they were attacked. 'That's what girls have to think about all the time,' she said. 'Am I right ladies?'

Cue an awkward silence until the audience erupted into a round of applause.

Too bad Minister Helen McEntee didn't display the same sisterly solidarity after the vicious attack on a US tourist in the north inner city.

In a carefully orchestrated PR stunt that ultimately backfired, she sashayed down Talbot Street flanked by gardaí and solemnly declared that Dublin was safe.

The goodwill engendered by her deft response to Ashling Murphy's savage murder, when she declared zero tolerance for gender-based violence suddenly dissolved.

McEntee's stock began to fall so that Tánaiste Micheál Martin is now eating Fine Gael's lunch, declaring Fianna Fáil the party of crime and justice.

In a hard-hitting interview with the Irish Mail on Sunday, he said 'There's a real sense of people not feeling safe in cities, in Dublin and Cork, in urban environments'.

He plans to tackle it with an increased Garda presence in our cities, although hardly at the ratio of two gardaí to every pedestrian as Minister McEntee enjoyed on her infamous Store Street walkabout.

No wonder she felt perfectly safe.