One issue has dominated the agenda on what was an already busy week for politics. The decision to lift the eviction ban was a shock reversal of what was expected from Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, according to Jack Horgan-Jones. The maelstrom of personal stories from worried renters gives the opposition an easily-understood attack line from now until the next election.
Coalition tensions are also mounting over plans to reduce private car usage, with Green ambitions to introduce congestion charges. Not only do the divisive issues have the power to destabilise the coalition, but they also prompt Hugh Linehan to ask why the government can’t seem to look around corners. From the moratorium to the climate crisis, from drone activity at Dublin Airport to stalled offshore wind farms, it “suggests the state can’t deal with the scale of the projects it takes on, and is failing.”
Cormac McQuinn also highlights the potential minefield for the government if it opts for holding three referendums relating to gender equality in November.
Plus the panel choose their Irish Times article of the week:
Matt Williams: Take a deep breath and see how Sam Prendergast copes with big Fiji test
New Irish citizens: ‘I hear the racist and xenophobic slurs on the streets. Everything is blamed on immigrants’
Jack Reynor: ‘We were in two minds between eloping or going the whole hog but we got married in Wicklow with about 220 people’
‘I could have gone to California. At this rate, I probably would have raised about half a billion dollars’
Kitty Holland’s explainer on referendums relating to the constitution’s article on ‘women in the home’
Fiona Reddan’s deep dive into why Ireland has Europe’s most expensive housing market
Conor Capplis’ passionate article in favour of Paul Mescal taking the Oscar for Best Actor at this weekend’s Academy Awards
