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Cost of mica redress skyrockets in nightmare for Coalition

Inside Politics: Condemnation of British government’s move on protocol across political system

The problem of mica-affected homes is not a new one, but Ministers have been told it is getting a lot worse. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins Photos Dublin

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Pat Leahy
Wed Jun 15 2022 - 08:54

Good morning.

Brexit may be back on the agenda but it is unforeseen calamities that often throw governments into a panic. The problem of mica-affected homes in Donegal and a handful of other counties is not a new one, but Ministers were told yesterday it is getting a lot worse.

It is turning into a financial and political nightmare for the Coalition.

Costs are skyrocketing, while the political pressure from affected householders, still unhappy with the supports offered by Government, will only grow. Jennifer Bray reports this morning that briefings from officials suggest that the eventual cost could reach as much as €3.65 billion – a staggering sum that will have a serious budgetary impact in the coming years.

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Ministers were told that there is no certainty over the final number of homes affected but the problem of defective blocks – and therefore crumbling homes – may extend beyond Donegal, Mayo, Clare, Limerick, Sligo and Tipperary. It could take years for the damage to manifest itself, so it is not possible to know the final cost to the exchequer yet. Large-scale, State-funded construction projects, it should be noted, are not renowned for being completed on time and under budget.

New legislation discussed by the Cabinet yesterday is expected to allow for the maximum grant of €420,000 to be increased by 10 per cent through a yearly review which could take place up to three times, with another three reviews allowed if the Oireachtas agrees.

Jennifer’s lead story is here.

The Northern Ireland protocol remains the number one topic of discussion around Government circles but with the ball now in London’s court, many exchanges on the subject don’t go far beyond expressing agreement on the general perfidy of the Johnson administration.

Last night the Taoiseach, some Ministers and senior officials from across Government attended a garden party at the Sandyford residence of the British ambassador Paul Johnston in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s jubilee.

There was much talk of enduring friendships but the speeches from the Taoiseach and the ambassador couldn’t avoid the elephant in the room, and didn’t; both men expressed the hope that the present difficulties in the Anglo-Irish relationship would be overcome. Among the attendees, from the worlds of politics, officialdom, business, academia and civic society, there was little expectation that things would get better soon, and some pessimism that the opposite would happen.

Earlier in the Dáil, the Taoiseach made clear, for the umpteenth time, his Government’s position on the British actions. Monday, he said, was a “profoundly dispiriting” and “damaging” moment.

“It demonstrates the degree to which the British government seems oblivious now to the various sets of relationships that it has engaged in, and indeed, to an international agreement that it itself signed up to,” he said.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald told the Dáil the move was “disgraceful and utterly reckless”. She said the Tory government was pursuing a “hostile, damaging attack against the Good Friday Agreement”.

“Mr Johnson’s belligerent approach to Ireland is part of a cynical attempt to claim to power in Britain at any cost,” she said.

There’ll be lots more of this before we’re done. Sarah Burns’ report is here.

And Miriam Lord catches the mood here.

Seeking asylum

Local authorities and Government agencies straining to accommodate Ukrainians fleeing the war in that country are also having to contend with a dramatic increase in the number of people seeking asylum from other countries.

Harry McGee and Conor Lally report this morning that the numbers are up 700 per cent on the same period last year, though undoubtedly this is linked to the end of the pandemic. Still, numbers have more than doubled since before the pandemic, and while many of these people are fleeing war, persecution, economic hardship or other threats in their own countries, their arrival here is putting a strain on adequate facilities to help them and house them.

Many officials say that the UK’s harsh policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda to wait while their claims for international protection are processed is deterring people from travelling to the UK, and diverting them to here. We haven’t heard the last of this. You can read the report here.

Housing

Finally, President Michael D Higgins makes the front page today after comments that some people in Government might judge rather cross the line into policy and politics – usually spheres that the above-politics First Citizen scrupulously avoids.

In forthright comments that no doubt many people will applaud, the President described housing as “our great, great, great failure” and not “a crisis any morel it is a disaster”.

Condemning the market-driven investment in homebuilding, Mr Higgins said that housing and the basic needs of society “should never have been left to the marketplace”.

“It is the mad speculative money that is destroying our country, which we are welcoming, which we shouldn’t be,” he said.

That rumbling you hear is the sound of Government Ministers fearful that the President is opening a second front against them. Nobody will say anything publicly because they know Michael D is a lot more popular than they are; but you can be sure that they’re frit, right enough.

The President was criticised by a Nigerian bishop (of all people) earlier this week when he appeared to link the massacre of 50 Catholics by Islamic militants to climate change, though Mr Higgins strongly denied the claims. Anyway, now he’s in the news for something else, would you believe it.

Simon Carswell and Jack Horgan-Jones’s report is here.

Best reads

The Government is scrambling to provide extra power generation capacity to meet demand, especially from energy-gobbling data centres. But there’s no guarantee it will be enough.

Michael McDowell says that Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has the fate of the Government in his hands. Anne Harris looks forward to the second coming of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach.

The country’s longest serving elected politician, who consistently topped the poll in local elections and held office for 55 years, has died. Barry Roche writes about a life spent in the service of his constituents.

Playbook

The Taoiseach is in Cork this morning to deliver the opening address at a major academic conference on the Civil War. As a historian of the period and the Taoiseach who bridged the Civil War divide in Irish politics, he is likely to explain that it’s a bit more complicated than we all thought. Mind you, writing in the Examiner on Monday, he appeared to blame the British for a lot of it. Fair enough. The event will live-streamed on RTÉ. Details here.

In Brussels, the European Commission is likely to announce it will unfreeze its legal action against the UK over the application of the Northern Ireland protocol. The action – taken because the UK unilaterally extended grace periods in which aspects of the protocol weren’t commenced – was frozen last year to allow space for negotiations. Now the commission will resume it. In addition, the commission is likely to give more detail on its proposals to overcome the difficulties that are arousing the anger of some unionists.

Wednesday’s a long day in the Dáil and business gets under way at 9.12am, and rattles through an Independent motion about energy security, Leaders’ Questions (presumably with Leo Varadkar in the hotseat) and a scatter of Government business (climate transition statements, Garda legislation, electoral legislation and the institutional burials Bill) before the weekly votes take place at 9.45pm.

It’s Government Bills nearly all the way in the Seanad too (the Birth Information and Tracing Bill is due to conclude its final stages), though there are also statements on the cost of living at 6.30pm.

Busy day at the committees too, with a couple of spicy sessions in prospect. The health committee will discuss Sláintecare with HSE officials, while representatives from the hotel industry will be interrogated on the (sometimes stratospherically) rising prices in their businesses. Meanwhile, officials from the Department of Public Expenditure will answer questions about the apparently esoteric subject of secondments in the public service. Don’t be too surprised if one secondment in particular comes up – the aborted move of Dr Tony Holohan to Trinity College. Though I think you’ll find we don’t discuss individual cases, Deputy.

Full list of Oireachtas business here.