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Could the Government’s tendency towards throwing public money at problems be taking its toll?

Brexit makes yet another cameo, and the clock ticks down to handover of Taoiseach’s office

The Coalition leaders appeared to be at odds over how to handle proposed motorway toll increases. File photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill//The Irish Times

Pat Leahy's face
Pat Leahy Political Editor
Tue Nov 22 2022 - 08:29

Good morning.

As one great international boondoggle comes to a conclusion in Sharm El-Sheikh, another gets under way over the road in Qatar.

Coverage of the Cop27 conference is winding down (Kevin O’Sullivan has a summary here) but you’ll have noticed that the World Cup finally started on Sunday, with the first full programme of games taking place yesterday. As you might expect, the sports pages leaked onto the front pages in the UK after England’s thumping 6-2 win over Iran yesterday. “LIONS OF ARABIA,” booms The Sun. Looking forward to a month of this. Although the decision of several countries’ captains not to wear the “OneLove” armbands, an item declaring their solidarity with LGBTQ minorities, on the threat of yellow cards from the referees draws much coverage too. Wonder what an Irish captain and the FAI would have done?

Anyway, back in Dublin the clock continues to tick down towards the changeover in leadership of the Government, due on December 17th (same day as the third-place play-off). Tánaiste Leo Varadkar was positively gushing in his praise for Micheál Martin – not yet being referred to as “outgoing Taoiseach Micheál Martin” but give it a week or so – at his party’s ardheis in Athlone at the weekend, and excitement in his party is growing at the prospect of taking over the Taoiseach’s office. The three Coalition party leaders, and the senior officials who work for them and make things work for them, will be having their discussions about the future shape of the Cabinet soon. Maybe Varadkar is trying to butter up Fianna Fáil? He has his work cut out.

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The Cabinet meets this morning at Government Buildings, and Jennifer Bray has word of a windfall tax on energy companies likely to be approved.

In addition, Ministers have been making noises all weekend about delaying or cancelling or somehow interfering with the decision by Transport Infrastructure Ireland (a Government agency, actually) to hike motorway toll charges, although there was a sharp divergence between what Leo Varadkar was saying (he’d like to see it nixed) and what Eamon Ryan was saying yesterday (he was “reluctant” to interfere).

As Jack Horgan-Jones and Arthur Beesley report in our lead story this morning, the three party leaders floated the usual Coalition compromise last night – the State would pay for it. In fairness, at €25 million the bill is relatively small, but you’d worry (and certainly some people around the permanent Government worry about it) that the habit of addressing every political problem by throwing public money at it is going to run out of road at some stage. The full story is here.

Elsewhere, Jennifer Bray reports on the latest deliberations between the parties and within Government about the proposed inquiry into abuse at certain secondary schools, prompted by the testimonies of victims who attended Blackrock College. Most people in Government acknowledge that some sort of an inquiry – or a scoping process in advance of a formal inquiry, some say – is inevitable. But they don’t know how such an inquiry could be contained, and prevented from escalating into an endless, unlimited, rolling process that covers all abuse at any of Ireland’s 4,000 schools. Underlining the point, Jack Power reports today of settlements made by the Dominican Order to abuse survivors who attended Newbridge College.

Perhaps a full-scale, unlimited inquiry is what will ultimately be required; but if so, that’s a different conversation to an inquiry into incidents at Blackrock College. This is a question unlikely to be settled this week, although it is expected that Minister for Education Norma Foley will meet victims this week for discussions.

Brexit strategy

Brexit’s back. Is it?

British prime minister Rishi Sunak yesterday forcefully denied a Sunday Times report that his government was considering seeking a Switzerland-style relationship with the EU in order to boost economic growth. Brexiteers went barmy at the story, which suggested that the UK would be prepared to accept increased migration, pay into the EU budget and abide by EU rules in return for frictionless trade relations. The trajectory of the story and response was closely watched in Brussels and Dublin – including that someone in the UK government wanted to float the idea, and that Sunak had to rule it out. Three prime ministers in, and we’re not yet done with Brexit, it seems. Reports here.

Meanwhile, Naomi O’Leary reports that the EU is preparing to seize assets of Russian sanctions evaders to help pay for the rebuilding of Ukraine.

Naomi also reports that having formally lodged his nomination for a second term as Eurogroup president yesterday, Paschal Donohoe has as yet no competitors for the post. Nominations close on Thursday.

Best reads

Jade Wilson on the Afghan women who sought safety from the Taliban in Ireland

Freya McClements on the recent attack on the police in Northern Ireland by the New IRA

China is still struggling with Covid

Mark Hilliard and Sarah Slater on protests against the arrival of asylum seekers in the East Wall area

Playbook

Cabinet at Government Buildings this morning, and the Dáil meets at 2pm for Leaders’ Questions. Order of business for the week will see the usual rows, while Taoiseach’s questions are at just after 3pm. Sinn Féin has a motion in its private members’ time asking the Dáil to declare a housing emergency in advance of a national demonstration on housing run by a coalition of organisations next Saturday.

The Seanad has a couple of Government Bills on personal injuries and water resources, while at the committees, there will be much attention focused on Minister for Integration Roderic O’Gorman when he briefs his departmental committee on accommodation for Ukrainian refugees. A full list of the Oireachtas schedule is here.

At the World Cup meanwhile it’s Argentina vs Saudi Arabia, Mexico vs Poland, Denmark vs Tunisia and France vs Australia.

Details of all the above as it happens will be available on irishtimes.com. World Cup results and fixtures are here.