A Mayo View: Fine Gael won’t be inspiring a revolution anytime soon

by Caoimhín Rowland

Attending the launch of Fine Gael councillors for the upcoming local elections, the location chosen was the idyllic and historically apt setting of the Michael Davitt Museum in the townland of Straide.

With just 60 days out from voting in the local and European Parliament elections, it seemed a rather bizarre decision to stage hustings in the wonderful museum, considering the topic of housing encapsulates everything in contemporary Irish political life.

Fine Gael locally, however, is the opposition, yet many of their councillors still sit in chambers and dither on the future of the Imperial Hotel, a source of great ire to many locally due to its cultural significance as the home of the greatest tool of civil disobedience known to man.

Acts of outrage seem to be in vogue currently.

Fortunately, we are yet to see buildings ablaze, as witnessed in other parts of Ireland over the immigration debacle, but barricades have been erected in Ballina over the proposed utilisation of hotel rooms in the Twin Trees Hotel for refugees.

On that weekend of meetings, where all public representatives were chastised by an outraged ensemble of Ballina folk, those who spoke about realities, of which there were many, were angered over housing.

On the Monday evening, a pyrite meeting attended by close to 500 people heard from impacted homeowners, voices creaking much like the blocks of their homes as they explained for the umpteenth time the distress living with a pyrite home presents.

The housing crisis in Ireland is a malignant disease; the furore over immigration and the injustices over the defective concrete block scheme are symptoms of this cancer.

A tumour that many voters view Fine Gael to have created.

"A good landlord is as common as a white blackbird," a former editor of the Connaught Telegraph, James Daly, once opined on these pages.

While in 2024 only two members admitted to being landlords after a question from this reporter, estate agent Cyril Burke and new Junior Minister for Housing, Alan Dillon, although he confirmed his second property is currently vacant.

Deputy Michael Ring quipped he “wishes he was a landlord.”

If landlordism is even out of reach to TDs and senators like Paddy Burke, what hope do the rest of us have?

Currently, over 14,000 people are homeless in Ireland, an astronomical figure.

People are irked when they hear government ministers say things like ‘we’re delivering on housing, but homes can’t be built overnight’.

Indeed, we’ve been listening to that for over a decade; then Taoiseach Enda Kenny regularly stated that phrase.

Impacted pyrite families also grow irate when they hear the defective concrete block scheme is delivering: “We’re providing 100% redress,” we hear the spin from HQ since the delivery of the scheme last July.

Irish people can see through all of this and are now searching through Daft.ie and seeing €1,200 for a small apartment in Castlebar and €1,400 for a 3-bed in Ballycroy.

The supply isn’t there; Croí Conaithe was expected to revitalise abandoned rural dwellings, but despite the scheme heralded as a success by the Department of Housing, only three grants have been paid out in Longford and, here in Mayo, 26 out of 465 applications. As ever, a review has been promised.

On the immigration issue, we were informed that the government would move away from further enriching obscenely wealthy hotel owners by providing IPAS accommodation in state-run facilities.

The sagas in Roscrea and Drogheda proved that point, as did the weekend-long blockade in Ballinrobe, yet elected representatives find out last minute about hotels being used for refugees.

The government is the one creating much of this fear, paranoia, and conspiracy that has made its way into the public arena. Unfortunately, drowning out genuine grievances felt by ordinary people.

A failure to plan ahead is a common Irish fault; Irish government policy has been to grow the population; that’s not a conspiracy, but the fact this was the policy while building fewer houses than any other era of Irish life was a recipe for disaster.

Over a third of Fine Gael TDs now know this and are scarpering from a sinking ship.

It's not just the failure; we’re all human and make mistakes. But it’s the paternalistic hubris of a government past its best-before date that angers people.

Councillor Peter Flynn stated at the opening of the launch: “It’s great to be in Michael Davitt’s museum and it’s so important that it is recognised how we support everything he stood for politically.”

Fine Gael and Flynn are many things, but I wonder if, much like Fine Gael, their heart is in the fight anymore.

Fine Gael won’t be inspiring a revolution.

Michael Ring won’t lay the ground for peasant rebellion.

And Simon Harris would hardly fuel the fire of non-violent activism that inspired Gandhi.