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Leaders head for the ploughing as pensions plan furrows brows

Inside Politics: Martin, Varadkar and McDonald will press the flesh in Ratheniska while avoiding each other

Crowds attending the National Ploughing Championships in Ratheniska, Co. Laois. Photograph: Tom Honan

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Pat Leahy
Wed Sep 21 2022 - 08:17

Politics moves south today, to the rolling fields of Ratheniska in Co Laois when politicians of all stripes descend on the National Ploughing Championships to put on their wellies and press the flesh with the tens of thousands of farmers and other attendees.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald (accompanied by Stormont leader Michelle O’Neill) will all be there today, trying hard to meet as many people as possible while avoiding each other. At least it’ll be a quiet day around Leinster House.

No doubt the farmers and their representative organisations will put their case with some vigour, citing the special difficulties that many farmers are experiencing because of the energy crisis and longer-term changes in the market. The farm lobby isn’t as politically powerful as it once was; but it’s still important, especially in rural constituencies. It’s also a well of support for Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that Sinn Féin hasn’t really cracked, so the political competition is intense.

Michael D Higgins was down yesterday for the opening, as Ronan McGreevy reports.

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Pensions clashes

Elsewhere this morning the papers carry plenty of coverage of the launch of the Government’s plan for pension reforms by the Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys yesterday. Jack Horgan-Jones writes in our lead story that the chairman of the State’s independent budgetary watchdog, the Fiscal Advisory Council, has warned that large increases in PRSI — the social insurance tax paid by all employees and employers — will be needed to fund the pensions envisaged under the plan in the future. Sebastian Barnes also noted that the Government had not supplied any costings for the plan, and said that with people living longer — and therefore higher numbers of retirees on pensions — more substantial changes will be needed to the tax and welfare system.

We have seen, of course, the appetite for that in recent weeks when Varadkar dismissed some of the recommendations (he was kinder about others, in fairness) of the Commission on Taxation as “straight out of the Sinn Féin manifesto”. There are some people of course who would take that as a compliment. But it was not meant as such. And few members of the commission interpreted it as such.

Jack also has an analysis piece wondering if the pensions time bomb has been deferred or defused. But our editorial is in no doubt: it’s a cop-out that will hit the young.

There were, inevitably, clashes between the Government and Sinn Féin on the issue. Attending a press conference of the Cost of Living Coalition — and ad hoc group organising a march in Dublin on Saturday — McDonald slammed the pension plans as a “Trojan horse” designed to introduce a higher retirement age. She repeated the line in the Dáil at Leaders’ Questions, drawing the accusation from Martin that she was “deliberately not telling the truth”. Dáil report here. Expect further exchanges.

Expect also Government politicians to be keeping a close eye on the numbers for that march in Dublin at the weekend. People Before Profit’s Richard Boyd-Barrett was predicting “thousands and thousands and thousands” of people would attend. If it gets up to several tens of thousands, then the Government will start having nightmares about the water charges. Anyway, the report — which includes Fr Peter McVerry describing Ireland as a “failing state” — is here.

Elsewhere, there is much political attention being given to the incident in Cherry Orchard in Dublin on Monday night when a Garda car was rammed by joyriders, to the evident delight of many onlookers. There were full-throated denunciations all day yesterday from politicians in all parties. Conor Gallagher et al report that the ramming was an act of revenge against the gardaí, and say arrests are expected soon.

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Daniel McLaughlin has a grim report from the site of the mass graves discovered in Izyum in Ukraine, where war crimes investigators are gathering evidence after the liberation from Russian forces.

Alex Kane wonders if the DUP will trust Liz Truss, or if the party will eventually feel it has been betrayed by yet another British prime minister.

Miriam Lord on the cat that got out of the bag and turned into a Trojan horse.

Meanwhile, Martin Wolf has a warning for the British government. On its front page, the FT describes the Truss tax cutting plan, which she announced yesterday, as a “profound shift in policy”.

PLAYBOOK

As mentioned above, the ploughing is where it’s at today. But there’s plenty of business in Leinster House all the same — Leaders’ Questions at noon (though without the actual leaders), several hours of Government legislation (including the Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill) and then the weekly votes are at 8.30pm before the Dáil adjourns at the reasonably civilised hour of 9pm.

Lots of business in the Seanad too, including statements on the procurement process for the Coast Guard aviation service, and a Fine Gael motion on school transport. At the committees, Norma Foley is in for a grilling on school transport at the education committee, while Paschal Donohoe will get an earful on banking issues at the finance committee. The HSE will answer questions about University Hospital Limerick, while the transport committee will discuss the issues facing the taxi industry.

There’s a full schedule here.

Elsewhere, the Social Democrats are launching their budget proposals. And Simon Coveney is in New York at the UN; the Taoiseach arrives tomorrow.