The stunning result of the presidential election last weekend has delivered body blows to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, and the consequences will continue to reverberate when the Dáil returns next week.
Yes, yes, it’s a different election and, yes, history shows that the public mood in a presidential election is not necessarily transferable to a general election a few years later, when there is a different agenda, a different question (who do you want to govern?) and a different turnout.
But, but, but – remember two things: one, there is a tide in politics and that tide is now running fast and fierce against the Government parties; and two, there is at present no sign that the Coalition can turn this around by delivering on the issues that voters care most about.
So the Coalition is facing an emerging political crisis quite distinct from the questions about the short-term fallout and a possible heave against the Taoiseach.
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The real crisis is about its own capacities, its sense of direction, its self-belief and its ability to address the problems faced by the country.
Let’s be clear: this is primarily about housing and infrastructure. Not disabilities, not the cost of living, not public services. These are important, but they are second-order problems. For now, it’s all about housing and infrastructure.
These are not new problems. They have been evident – and deteriorating – for several years. This Government, and the last one, and the one before that, have proved unable to make sufficient progress on them. Unless that changes, they face a reckoning with voters on a par with the one we have just seen in the presidential election.
If the two parties want a roadmap for delivery on these issues, they should look to the essay published in The Irish Times last Saturday – just as the presidential votes were being counted – by John Collison, the co-founder of internet payments company Stripe.
Collison is hardly your average Irish thirtysomething, but nor is he your average billionaire. His views are considered, informed and pertinent. They have struck a deep chord not just in Government but across the wider political and policymaking milieu. Most reactions I have heard this week have been along these lines: of course he’s right.
Collison bemoaned the barriers to building, both national infrastructure and desperately needed housing. Excessive planning delays, Nimby objections and overregulation have all sapped the urgency needed for a country that has expanded so much in the last quarter century. Governments, he says, have allowed a system to develop that deprives them of the power to do things the country needs done.
“It’s not okay,” Collison wrote, “for our society to forget the basics of running a country.”
Some Fianna Fáil TDs get this. On RTÉ Radio on Monday, backbencher Malcolm Byrne was keener to discuss Collison’s arguments than he was to talk to about the possibility of a heave against Micheál Martin. Many of his colleagues feel the same. They want the Government to actually do things, and not just give excuses about why they can’t be done.
The one thing missing from Collison’s analysis was the role of our political culture in promoting this great slowdown of progress, this sapping of urgency. Politicians have been happy to cede power to agencies – but why? Because they think it insulates them from blame.
The Irish electoral system, and the governmental culture that has stemmed from it, has taught politicians that, above all, they should annoy nobody. So every objection is valid. Every viewpoint needs to be consulted and considered. Nobody is told: you’ll just have to put up with that because it’s for the greater good.
My sense is that the acute housing and infrastructure crisis is changing this culture and the politically profitable course is now to cultivate a bias towards action. Three things are needed if the Government is to get out of this emerging political crisis by effecting a step-change in its approach to building and infrastructure.
Firstly, it needs emergency legislation to shortcut regulation and prioritise projects of national importance. The more far-reaching the better. That is difficult, but necessary.
Secondly, it needs changes to the way judicial reviews can be used to block big building projects, both by speeding up the court processes and making sure unsuccessful litigants are stiffed for the full costs of the case.
And thirdly, it needs to accelerate the taking of many small decisions that can cumulatively change the bigger picture. Earlier this year, Progress Ireland, a think tank backed by Collison, published a document entitled “25 ideas to build 300,000 homes”. Many of its ideas – including on changes to apartment regulations and the rules governing the construction of garden rooms for accommodation – have already been adopted by the Government.
The overall goal should be to simplify the entire process of building. That process is often “impenetrable”, director of Progress Ireland Sean Keyes told me this week. “Nothing in law or the Constitution says it should be like this,” he adds.
In other words – these are our laws, our rules, made by us, for ourselves. We can change them if they’re not working for us. And they are self-evidently not.
There are two big events in the coming weeks for the Government – the new housing plan will be published and the infrastructure plan will be agreed. Elements of it are likely to advocate emergency legislation. The pace at which that legislation is drawn up and passed will be a good indication of whether the Government is capable of the sort of sea-change required.
If it’s business as usual – and the legislation trundles through the Oireachtas at a leisurely pace over the coming months – it will be the clearest sign possible that with barely a year of its term completed, this Government is going nowhere.
