When the cloud of Covid-19 eventually lifts, you sometimes feel that, politically, somebody will have pressed a pause button for the whole of the pandemic.
All of the issues and rows that dominated Irish politics prior to the outbreak will still be there, exactly as they were, ready to resume once the play button is hit.
Last week, the Government parties got a sharp reminder that the housing crisis has not evaporated. In the Seanad yesterday, a Galway Senator Seán Kyne raised the issue – for the first time in many months – of hospital overcrowding and trolleys at University Hospital Galway.
And as our main lead shows, the spectre of new charges – on water and of further increase in carbon taxes – has emerged following a critical 10-year review from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Ireland should introduce water charges, raise carbon taxes and waste charges - OECD
Support among politicians for principle of simple majority for United Ireland
Gaining recognition of status easier for trafficking victims under proposals
Councillors seek to protect their role against Land Development Agency
As Kevin O’Sullivan reports: “Calling for bolder actions, the OECD warned that the State’s carbon emissions, waste generation and agriculture-caused pollution all rose with strong economic growth prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, and will do so again.
“Despite international pledges made by the State to cut CO2 emissions by 51 per cent by 2030, Ireland will fail to meet its obligations unless the link between growth and emissions is cut, says the Paris-based body.”
Needless to say, the phrase ‘water charges’ is a red rag to a bull to the Opposition. It was one of the main issues in the 2016 general election, and the subsequent solution arrived at by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael as part of its confidence and supply agreement was a classic political fudge. Essentially, you will be liable to water charges only if you happen to be running the Niagara Falls in your back garden.
There was an immediate and sharp reaction from the Opposition along the lines of ‘over my dead body’.
Eoin Ó Broin of Sinn Féin said: “The debate over domestic water charges was lost in 2017. A cross-party Oireachtas committee report assessed the funding model for water services and recommended that normal household usage should be paid for by the State in the form of general taxation.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said the “push” to bring back water charges “should be completely rejected”.
Minister for Climate Action and the Environment Eamon Ryan was, unsurprisingly, more enthusiastic. The report strongly backs Green Party policy.
“There is no avoiding the fact that our environment has deteriorated dramatically in recent decades, particularly in our water quality . . . but also in our use of fossil fuels,” he said. “That all needs to change.”
Antigen? Or anti-Antigen?
It’s not just about Lidl selling same-day antigen testing – the whole concept has become contentious and divisive within Government.
Early in the pandemic, several governments (notably in the UK and the US) championed mass antigen testing as the way to curb the spread of the disease and spent billions on buying test kits. But it was quickly realised that the low accuracy of the tests made them unsuitable for such a purpose.
Antigen testing has a much lower accuracy than PCR tests and can generate false positives, and – crucially – false negatives. But they do have a role in screening and can pick up cases, especially at crowded settings, such as concerts, sports events and third-level campuses.
A debate over relying on antigen testing is raging within Government, as Pat Leahy and Paul Cullen report.
Indeed, those divisions were apparent when a six-person expert group commissioned by Government examined the possible use of antigen testing in Ireland. The group was divided, with four favouring the use and two members dissenting.
Ministers and the Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan differ on the issue.
“Ministers and the leaders of the three Coalition parties are strongly in favour of rolling out the use of such tests to help with the reopening of many sectors of commercial and social life, including sports and cultural events, and, in the autumn, colleges and universities,” we report.
Holohan’s objections were laid out in an interview yesterday: “For every two cases of the disease where an antigen test is done, it will miss it in one of these cases. We can’t have people behaving as if they don’t have the disease when they do,” he said.
Last night, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly told The Irish Times: “I believe rapid testing has a role to play in our fight against Covid-19.”
It’s going to take a bit of sorting.
Best Reads
In a thoughtful column, Fintan O'Toole weighs in on the Eoghan Harris controversy, with a very sharp criticism of the defence of anonymity for a Twitter account used by the erstwhile Sunday Independent columnist.
“The willingness – and the ability – of writers to name themselves is an important marker of the development of an open society, of democratic discourse and of the public sphere,” writes O’Toole.
‘Hear, hear’, says every working journalist.
It's grim up North for the British Labour Party, which is in chaos after a poor byelection in a former 'Red Wall' stronghold of Hartlepool. Denis Staunton reports on the continuing fallout for party leader Keir Starmer.
Psychologist professor Orla Muldoon of the University of Limerick discusses the problems that will stem from the significant minority expressing vaccine hesitancy.
The body representing councillors will tell an Oireachtas committee today that the new Land Development Agency could usurp its role in the planning process. Pat Leahy has the report.
My favourite assignment yesterday: a little sliver of hope on the housing front. Great to see homeless people being given the keys to the door to such beautiful homes.
Quote of the Day
It’s the 50th anniversary of the death of Seán Lemass today. At an oration in Deansgrange, Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin will point to the qualities that distinguished his predecessor. There might be a bit of wishful thinking to be discerned as the Fianna Fáil of today is having a big (and possibly losing) struggle in trying to be identified with those traits, or in articulating them. Here’s the core of Martin’s speech.
“In promoting reconciliation and cooperation with Northern Ireland, Lemass took many risks but, without these risks we could not possibly have an agreed framework for our island and we could not have begun the slow and far from complete work of reconciliation.
“Lemass also set us on a path forward which respects the fact that you cannot set social and economic goals in conflict with each other, they must work together. He was very interested in left wing ideas, but because of his intellectual curiosity and integrity he studied not just the theory, but also the practice of different approaches.
“He believed that a rigid approach of the right or left simply could never work, that the creation of good jobs, of essential economic development, required a support for enterprise and an openness to the world. But equally, he saw economic success as an essential enabler of social progress. In this, he has been proven right time and again.”
Playbook
The Dáil is back to three days a week. Isn’t that exciting or what?
What’s more, the Seanad is now sitting on Mondays and Tuesday to be more family friendly. The bad news for the denizens of the Upper House is that they have to trek across the river to the Convention Centre, where they will be almost so socially distanced in that huge hall they will have to conduct proceedings by Zoom.
So the Dáil will be in Leinster House tomorrow and then do its musical chairs thing with the National Convention Centre.
The Cabinet is meeting this morning. There are a number of things on the agenda, but big ticket items on housing and on the national development plan won’t be proposed today.
Hildegarde Naughton, who is in charge of the human rights aspects of Justice during Helen McEntee’s maternity leave, is proposing changes that will give agencies other than the Garda the power to classify a person as a victim of human trafficking.
The summer programme for children from special schools is quadrupling its intake to 81,000 and doubling its budget.
There’s also an action plan to try and improve the health of the population – 56 actions targeted at people from newborn to elderly, focusing particularly on the disadvantaged.
In the Dáil, prepare for some soaring prose and sizzling exchanges as the Dáíl makes statements to mark Europe Day. Will it be a yawnfest? Maybe not. But I’m sure it will have its soporific moments.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney is taking priority questions. Expect the North-South dynamic, Brexit, and Israel/Palestine to be the big topics.
At committee the Climate Action Committee will hear chastening tales of endangered ocean life and polluted waters from the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, the Atlantic Salmon Trust and the Sustainable Water Network.
The Housing Committee is examining the Land Development Agency (LDA) Bill, one of the cornerstones of the Government’s policy to address the housing crisis. The LDA will be all about building social and affordable homes on State-owned land. Two local authority organisations will tell the committee they are worried it will diminish the power of councillors.
Foreign Affairs is looking at Palestinian displacement, which has been an issue for the whole of my life and many lives. The Education Committee is examining the problem of school bullying, while the Children’s Ombudsman is before the Children’s Committee to talk about his report, Unmet Needs.
