Opinion

A bad week for Ministers who won’t play by the rules

Hypocrisy, self-interest and another case of cronyism – surely we can do better than this

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar at Thursday’s launch of Housing for All, the Government’s new housing plan for Ireland. Photograph: Maxwells

Pat Leahy's face
Pat Leahy
Sat Sep 4 2021 - 01:00

An unflattering depiction of Irish politics in three episodes from this week.

1. Hypocrisy: Do as I say, not as I do – blocking housing in the middle of a housing crisis
Virtually every proposal for a substantial residential development in urban areas is met with a barrage of objections. So there was nothing remotely surprising when the Sinn Féin leader, Mary Lou McDonald, objected to a proposal for 1,600 apartments at the Clonliffe College site, beside Croke Park in her Dublin Central constituency.

McDonald is no doubt reflecting strong local opposition to the proposal. The Irish Times reported 120 submissions on the mammoth scheme, the majority of them, including from local residents’ associations, seeking to block the project. One of the few things most people agree about in the housing crisis is that it is driven by a lack of supply; but McDonald argues that building the 1,600 for-rent apartments would make the crisis worse.

Three days after Ms McDonald’s objections were reported, she lambasted the Government’s housing plan as insufficient to tackle “a crisis that has defined life in Ireland for an entire generation”.

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Nobody believes swanky for-rent apartment developments are on their own the solution to the housing crisis. But building all types of houses and apartments will ease the chronic shortage of supply, and therefore the extreme price pressures. After all, you’d find it hard to come across a scarcity that is improved by reducing supply. But supporting building – any building – when local residents are against it might not be that popular, would it?

McDonald, in fairness to her, is not alone: local Green TD Neasa Hourigan and the Social Democrats’ Gary Gannon also objected. The other local TD, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, didn’t. Nor did local Fianna Fáil Senator (and spokeswoman for housing) Mary Fitzpatrick.

2. Selfishness: someone else can pay for it – cutting taxes while services suffer
On Monday evening, councillors in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown voted for the maximum possible reduction – 15 per cent – in the local property tax for their area. The council's chief executive, Tom McHugh, warned the councillors that if they went ahead with the proposed cut, there would be "a wide range of cuts to services in 2022". Yeah, whatever, Tom. At this point we might note that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has the highest house values in the country, with CSO figures last year showing the average price paid for a home in the area was over €600,000.

The vote to cut went through by 24 votes to 16. It was a cross-party coalition of support for the move, with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael members joining forces. They were also joined, you may be surprised (or not) to hear, by People Before Profit, which I’d guess would make them the only revolutionary socialist party in the world to be in favour of tax cuts for people whose houses are worth six hundred grand.

3. Cronyism: I know someone who would be perfect for that job (and if I say so, it must be true)
Finally, the Coalition this week demonstrated its growing talent for shooting itself in the foot. A mickied-up appointment to a made-up job for an old pal metastasised into a political crisis inside both the big parties of Government.

Instead of an honest accounting for the shortcomings – to put it kindly – of Fine Gael’s effort to look after its pal (“She seems very happy,” Coveney texted Varadkar), we have had a series of dodgy explanations and a reprise of the Coveney-Varadkar psychodrama. The stuttering of the Varadkar political project, and its failure to deliver when put before the people in the last general election, has done nothing to quieten the mutterings of those who thought the party made the wrong decision when it chose Varadkar in 2017. But now many of them look around elsewhere for the next potential leader. They look at Paschal Donohoe (says he doesn’t want it), Simon Harris (definitely wants it) and Helen McEntee (might want it). Leadership jockeying is never far away, ever.

People care more about housing and Covid and a range of other things, Martin suggested, than this sort of guff from the Leinster House bubble

But the Fine Gael outworkings of this omnishambles are less desperate than the Fianna Fáil ones. Barry Cowen was in like Flynn early on Thursday morning to point the finger at Micheál Martin. Cowen and his not-insubstantial band of co-religionists in the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party want to have a “conversation” about the leadership. If they had their way, the conversation would be short, to the point and rather one-sided. But they also need to have a conversation with voters about that. And as yet they haven’t figured out what they would say to the electorate about why they were dumping a leader who is reasonably popular and perceived to be doing a decent job, at least by the standards of these things. “Because he shafted us and we can’t stand him” might not be sufficient reason for ordinary voters, I would venture.

At the housing press conference on Thursday, Martin gave the political correspondents a lecture about “perspective”. This was only oul’ melodrama and amateur dramatics. People care more about housing and Covid and a range of other things, Martin suggested, than this sort of guff from the Leinster House bubble.

Maybe he has a point. But I think that people also care that ministers of the government they elect, who act in their name, should abide by the rules set down for them. That they comply with the checks and balances – such as the Freedom of Information Act and the obligation to account for themselves before Oireachtas committees – that preserve our democracy. That they do not act like their position in government for so long puts them above such tedious obligations. That they tell the truth. There has been an absence of that all round this week.

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