The Irish Times has assembled a panel of readers, drawn from across the State and from a cross-section of age groups, to discuss the general election campaign. This week the panel gathered to talk about the shape of the campaign so far. The focus was on housing, the message of change and the party leaders’ performances.
Housing
Robert Kennedy, a business owner, said political parties are promising to build hundreds of thousands of houses but he remained unconvinced about how this could be done. “What I can’t figure out is how they’re going to build them. We know they can finance the houses. Who’s going to build them?”
The panel was asked if it had heard anything in the campaign so far that sounded like a feasible solution on this topic.
Ken Harper, a former railway executive from the UK, said he was canvassed by Sinn Féin and was given their Home of Your Own housing policy document during that.
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He felt there was a willingness in their policies to address certain issues that needed to be looked at before building could start, such as making sure the sites were serviced. “I suppose that was a step change in recognising that it’s not just a question of promising to build houses, but actually getting the ducks in a row before work can actually commence. I get the sense that Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and Labour are willing to embrace something a bit different…whereas with the big two parties it’s really just promising more of the same.”
Rebecca Saunders, a primary schoolteacher, recently bought her first home. She said that in Dublin, “all you can see is cranes on the skyline. Stuff is getting built everywhere but what is getting built are hotels and build to rent developments”. She believes the Government’s Help To Buy scheme is “not providing housing in any meaningful way”.
Aisling O’Reilly, a 29-year-old tech worker, said she had a “baffling” conversation with Fine Gael Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe when she was canvassed by him during the week. She said she asked him about the Help To Buy scheme, telling him it could not help her buy anything in the area around her as it does not extend to homes that are not newly built. “His response to it was ‘sure we couldn’t extend it to the second hand homes because that would push up the price’…I just thought it was a really interesting one.”
Jo Cahalan, from Abbeyleix, Co Laois, said she has not been impressed with anything that she has heard. “They are just giving away money now. I’m kind of calling it the political version of Black Friday.”
Jo’s comment led us to our second topic: does the panel feel that any party offers a realistic path to change?
Jo felt that “we don’t have a real alternative. We will simply have a mismatch of all different parties, amounting to the same thing.” She said the number of election promises being made “makes me very nervous”.
Gretta Fitzgerald, an advocacy adviser with Concern Worldwide, said she believes the “more left-leaning parties do seem to have a bit more ambition around really tackling some of the issues, such as housing” rather than “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.
Seán Ryan, who lives in rural Co Limerick, said there are “two main government parties (who) are going to get the same vote that they got the last time. The combined opposition, if everyone were organised in three or four parties, then there’d be an alternative. But if 20-25 per cent of the population are going to vote for their local Independent, most of whom are gene pool from one of the traditional parties anyway…”
Rebecca Saunders said in relation to Sinn Féin: “They’re not going to be an alternative. They won’t get in. And if they do I think there would be concerns about how they run their party.”
Catherine Bergin, a public service worker living in Dundalk, said “I wouldn’t be a supporter of either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, but I certainly wouldn’t want to see Sinn Féin in.” She said there may be anxiety among the public about a possible shock to the public finances, which would mean people may not want to “rock the boat”.
Tommy Cole, who lives in Tralee, Co Kerry, said that in terms of the parties who are seeking change, “there needs to be the numbers. And most of these parties don’t have the numbers.” However he said that if people did not vote for change then the future would look much the same.
We then did a quick-fire round of questions, asking the panel what they thought of the party leaders’ performances in the campaign so far
Robert Kennedy felt that Mary Lou McDonald came across as “a touch nervous” in the Katie Hannon leaders’ debate.
Rebecca Saunders was unimpressed with Simon Harris, and said he was “the worst kind of insincere”.
Catherine Bergin felt Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin was “an honourable person in comparison to a lot of the more recent leaders” and she felt he was “assertive” in the debate.
Tommy Cole was impressed with the performance of People Before Profit leader Richard Boyd Barrett in the debate.
Jo Cahalan said she felt Ivana Bacik came across “really well and genuine”.
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