The Politics Fix

Twitchiness abounds as Gucci Government awaits invite to Trumps’ Irish jamboree

Your essential end-of-week politics catch up: End of Dáil fireworks brings spending and housing to the fore

The Politics Fix
The Politics Fix
Jack Horgan-Jones's picture
Jack Horgan-Jones
Fri Feb 07 2025 - 13:01

Story of the Week

It was back to business in the Dáil this week - without the fireworks of recent exchanges. One opposition TD remarked to us yesterday that even the Dáil business committee, which sets the agenda for the following week, and is usually a good bellwether for rows to come, seemed a little “punched out” at its private meeting on Thursday.

That’s not to say everyone was getting along swimmingly, as the old reliables from the last Dáil took centre stage during the first leaders’ questions of the term - housing, government spending - and were supplemented by new matters. As people (finally) have their power restored, Storm Éowyn may slide down the news agenda. But there is genuine concern within government at the seemingly brittle nature of communications and utility networks that it exposed - not to mention obvious political frustration with comments by the ESB chief executive which suggested that households still without power may ultimately foot the bill for reinforcing the electricity grid.

Add to that the thorny issue of the Occupied Territories Bill - placed front and centre by Sinn Féin in its first Private Members’ time of the year - the whipsaw nature of dealing with the Trump presidency, and the unpredictability of a government majority resting on Independents, and the new Dáil term is beginning to look trickier for the government - and more lively for the rest of us - than might have been thought during the long winter weeks of endless government formation talks.

Bust up

Both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris were targeted by the opposition over their claim, foregrounded during the election campaign, that there would be 40,000 homes built last year. In the final reckoning - as had been strongly suspected at the time - the real outturn fell massively short of this, missing even the lowballed Housing for All target for 2024.

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Micheál Martin pleaded ignorance, but it wasn’t a great look - however, he bounced back in an exchange with the Social Democrats’ acting leader Cian O’Callaghan, lambasting his housing policy and leading to a fiery exchange where O’Callaghan accused the Taoiseach of not reading it - and Martin parried that the Social Democrats were more interested in getting out of government negotiation talks in time for the 6.1 bulletin than playing a role in coalition. Tasty.

Banana skin

The White House invitation for the annual St Patrick’s Day jamboree will come. Won’t it? Probably. But for as long as the current occupant of the Oval Office holds out (apparently it usually comes mid-February), there’ll be a twitchiness about this that belies the wider pressure on the occasion this year.

Winners and losers

Winners: Peadar Toíbin for his steadfast dedication to the “Gucci government” moniker for feckless State spending. He unearthed another example from the OPW this week, a wall at the Hill of Tara that is taking upwards of 14 years to build, with materials costing €124,000 so far. His alliterative political slingshot is a bit clunky, but it might just be starting to land, earning a front page in the Irish Daily Mail on Friday.

Losers: Has to be Michael Lowry and the Regional Group of Independents. Tied the place up in knots for weeks only to be on the receiving end of a bombshell slapdown from Verona Murphy on bank holiday monday. We probably haven’t seen the last of this, but they may not have the stomach - or support -to march all the way up the hill again on this one.

The Big Read

Pat Leahy has another batch of data on how people North and South of the border feel about unification and the questions it poses. Tomorrow: How do North and South feel about a united Ireland joining the Commonwealth and Nato?

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The good ship Inside Politics continues to churn out its indispensable fare. Listen here.

Europe gets serious on security. Will Ireland follow?

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