The Politics Fix

With the Christmas niceties over, Pearse Doherty goes in studs up. What will the visitors think?

Your essential politics catch up from this week’s bust-up to how it all affects you

The Taoiseach announced to the Dáil, as he does every year, that the Government had formally granted permission to Santa Claus to enter Irish airspace
The Taoiseach announced to the Dáil, as he does every year, that the Government had formally granted permission to Santa Claus to enter Irish airspace. Photograph: Gareth Chaney/Collins
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Pat Leahy
Fri Dec 15 2023 - 12:32

Story of the Week

It’s Christmas! The Taoiseach announced to the Dáil, as he does every year, that the Government had formally granted permission to Santa Claus to enter Irish airspace on the night of the December 24th. It’s a nice Christmas tradition. Though as one waspish British commentator tweeted, sure we couldn’t stop him even if we wanted to. We’d have to ask the RAF to do it. Anyway, the Dáil adjourned yesterday until January 17th, with the Ceann Comhairle presiding over the final session like Santa Claus himself and even the politicians wished everyone peace and goodwill before they tore strips off each other for the final time this year.

Bust-up

“Nollaig shona agus athbhliain faoi mhaise dóibh go léir,” Pearse Doherty warbled sweetly in the first official language. “To all of the staff in Leinster House, in catering, cleaning staff and everyone who makes everything possible for us,” Micheál Martin agreed. “I hope they have a good break and a lovely Christmas.”

Pleasantries completed, Pearse went in with studs up on the Coalition’s record on housing.

“On anybody’s watch, this is a complete shambles. Not only are these targets too low but the Minister is simply incapable of delivering on them. On every metric the housing crisis is deepening under its watch and that of the Government.”

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Micheál was having none of it. “By every measure, of home permissions, of completions of home purchases, first-time buyers and mortgage drawdowns, we are seeing very positive momentum.”

The tone of the exchanges deteriorated alas, and there several outbreaks of what the official Dáil record describes as “interruptions”, prompting an exasperated Ceann Comhairle, who was just about to introduce a South African delegation in the Distinguished Visitors Box, to complain: “Good God, do know what, could we at least behave ourselves when there are visitors present?”

Read between the lines

So what’s going on here is that Sinn Féin is seeking to pivot the political agenda back to housing – where it reckons it can hurt the Government most. Mary Lou McDonald did housing on leaders’ questions on Wednesday as well, and Eoin O Broin tabled legislation on Tuesday to introduce a ban on evictions. There was a strong sense around Leinster House in recent weeks that the focus on law and order in the wake of the Dublin riots did not help Sinn Féin and an ill-judged no-confidence motion in Minister for Justice Helen McEntee was followed by a few bumpy poll results. So back to basics this week. Housing, housing, housing. Reports here and here

No room at the inn

This week the Government announced it would change the entitlements for Ukrainians who come to Ireland in the future. From now on, they will be provided with accommodation by the State for just 90 days (not indefinitely, as has been the case until now) and their welfare payments, for those not at work, will be reduced from the full unemployment benefit of €220 a week to the rate available to asylum seekers from other countries: just €39 a week. The changes will not apply to Ukrainians here already but are intended to dissuade future arrivals – because ministers fear that they have basically run out of accommodation. Here is my analysis on the matter this week where I conclude that immigration policy is definitely tightening and that process is likely to continue.

Cop on

A last-gasp agreement was reached by negotiators at the Cop 28 climate conference in, er, Dubai this week after the talks had teetered on brink of collapse over the objections of fossil fuel producers that the world should seek to use less of their products. The deal was not perfect, said Eamon Ryan who spent the past fortnight negotiating his socks off, but it was progress. Kevin O’Sullivan’s report is here and here he outlines six things we learned from the conference about our overheating world.

That’s all very well, but does any of this affect me?

Gosh no, it’s only the future of the world at stake.

Brussels pouts

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar spent half the week in Brussels, wrangling over the EU’s support for Ukraine and its position on Gaza. On Thursday the leaders agreed to open accession talks with Ukraine, overcoming Hungarian leader Viktor Orban’s objections, but Orban blocked the release of €50 billion in aid for Ukraine in the early hours of this morning. The bloc also remains split between countries which want to take a tougher line with Israel over its bombardment of Gaza after the October 7th attacks on its civilians, and those reluctant to take sides against Israel. The summit continues on Friday, and Jennifer Bray and Naomi O’Leary are there for The Irish Times.

The Big Read

Watch out tomorrow for our interview with Louise Richardson, the Tramore woman who rose to lead one of the world’s top universities and who came home to chair the Government’s forum on security policy and neutrality earlier this year - only to find herself at the receiving end of a broadside from Michael D Higgins. In preparation, have a read of Jack Horgan-Jones’s profile of Ms Richardson from earlier in the year.

Hear here

In this week’s Inside Politics podcast, Hugh Linehan poses an “impossible question” about the reality of Cop28 goals to Helen Thompson, a professor of political economy at Cambridge.

There has to be to be medium-term optimism even, if it’s not well founded, to create an investment environment in which there’s any possibility of getting there