Political picture is far from rosy

HAVING entered August, it’s a natural time to reflect on the political year so far and the picture is far from rosy.

A government that never really got going has done little to silence growing dissent. Some have fared better than others, but few can claim any real progress 10 months on from casting our votes back in November.

Housing remains the most pressing issue, yet the numbers from the CSO paint a grim picture. In parts of Mayo, natural population increase is now in reverse. Both Swinford and Belmullet LEAs have recorded more deaths than births, a deeply worrying trend.

Both LEAs have some of the lengthiest lists of long-term vacant dwellings, and even with grants and remote working, little appears to have helped.

There has been no meaningful response to help encourage young families to settle across rural Ireland. As ever, the original sin of Irish public life is housing. No homes, a near-total clampdown on one-off rural builds, without an alternative offered, and persistent high levels of emigration despite record-low unemployment - all of it has left people feeling stuck, ready to blame and point fingers.

It’s worth remembering that before the pandemic, parties like the Greens and others on the left campaigned hard to 'end direct provision'.

They condemned the inhumane, for-profit model of asylum accommodation. But since the Greens entered government, a post-Covid immigration wave collided with an outdated and overloaded system. Direct provision remains in its modern guise as IPAS.

Back then, Irish people recoiled at those standards. Now, amid rising desperation, there's a grim envy. People who once condemned modular units now hope to get one for their own back garden.

When inhumane accommodation becomes aspirational, we must reflect on how low expectations have sunk. Housing figures are regressing, and the dream of home ownership is fading fast.

Meanwhile, a farcical presidential campaign seems less likely by the week. Catherine Connolly and Mairead McGuinness appear early frontrunners. Conor McGregor’s late dash to launch a petition is a publicity stunt designed to subvert Irish democracy.

If he wanted to represent the Irish people, he had three chances last year to run for local council, the Dáil, or Europe. Instead, he’s targeting the one office with no legislative power.

He remains wildly unpopular. Even much of the far-right deplore him, parroting his Covid-era rants as some sort of proof that he’s not truly 'one of them'.

Yet it is the pandemic, five years on, that continues to shape our politics.

It gave conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and far-right agitators a unifying cause. They became more organised, louder, and more numerous.

Elon Musk’s takeover of X (Twitter) accelerated their reach. Now, bad-faith actors with blue checkmarks and soft hands post decontextualised clips of people, hoping to trigger outrage.

Apparently, it’s now a crime to be East African and own a café in North Inner City Dublin, a part of the capital they’d have you believe was an untouched idyllic gem before immigration.

Anyone with a working memory, an ounce of critical thinking or who’s ever tried parking near Croke Park in their lifetime would know better. But these online slurry tanks count on you not thinking. Their bile trickles into mainstream discourse, stoking prejudice, clouding judgement, and increasingly fuelling racist violence.

This was once called the 'English disease', hooliganism, skinheads, and National Front thuggery. Now it’s happening here.

Attacks on Indian nationals are rising. Fox News is paying attention, citing bogus statistics and online gambling sites to declare Dublin one of Europe’s most dangerous cities.

We will see more of these moments, and they will shape Irish politics.

Ireland is in the spotlight, an English speaking nation consistently paddling in a different direction to its Anglophone neighbours, for now.

It won’t be McGregor who leads a far-right party into power. It’ll be the traditional parties Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, even Labour, who on current polling will replace the rural independents. They will be the ones to subtly shift their policies to reflect public anger toward immigration.

Just as the Tories and Labour did in the UK, Irish parties will bend to the ground game. And it’ll be in their interest.

After all, it was their inaction on housing that lit the fuse.

Shifting the blame might just be the strategy that keeps them in office.