Ivana Bacik is turning Labour into an electoral force again

Logan Roy, the media mogul and monster patriarch of TV series Succession, is master of the pithy put-down. Especially where his greedy, thoroughly dislikable offspring are concerned. It is not a spoiler to reveal that the fourth and final series opens with the kids thinking they have beaten him in a bidding war for an upmarket conglomerate.

“Congratulations on seeing the biggest number, you effing morons,” he spits in contempt. The clear implication is that big swinging numbers by themselves are not evidence of business or political acumen. The deal is in the detail.

Since the announcement of the lifting of the eviction ban, politics by housing numbers has been the modus operandi of Dáil Éireann. Thirty thousand homes built last year, says the government, 33,000 this year. One hundred thousand affordable houses over five years, says Sinn Féin.

But the Logan Roy award probably goes to Ivana Bacik, whose “Million houses over the next decade” target certainly sends the “biggest number” dial into orbit. Or does it?

Bruce Springsteen concert in Cork: Tell us your verdict

---

Esther’s review: A smart south Dublin restaurant with Mediterranean-style food

---

Is there an alternative to banning children from social media?

---

Newton Emerson: Northern Ireland is already a ‘sanctuary city’ in the UK – it could yet become one in Europe

---

“I’d rather talk to experts than listen to Ivana Bacik,” said Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson Eoin O’Broin, understandably loath to cede the housing high ground to any other opposition party.

But given that our housing crisis is now an unmanageable situation; given that it requires, by the Taoiseach’s own admission, a quarter of a million houses to solve it right now; given that Sinn Féin admits that one government term will probably not solve it; then pushing it out to a decade, as Bacik did, is probably a safe enough bet.

There was something very touching about Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó’Fearghail’s pleas for “parliamentary decorum” last week. Decorum had died like the cherry blossom in the savage gales of the eviction ban. What was left was a parliamentary debate red in tooth and claw, replete with wild accusations and hysterical interventions. This, incidentally, was in stark contrast to the polite protesters outside the Dáil. An intimation of things to come? Like the revival of the Housing Action Groups of the 1970s?

At first glance, Bacik’s million houses might belong in the canon of Labour election false promises as best summed up by Pat Rabbitte. In 2014, after several years in government, he blithely discounted Labour promises with the words “Isn’t that what you tend to do during an election?” That amounted to him jettisoning his own portfolio and the Labour Party’s credibility in one fell swoop. The party has struggled since.

But the million houses target was about something else entirely. It was the second in a trinity of bold strokes by Bacik. The first was holding a high-octane party conference in the Clayton Silver Springs Hotel Cork overlooking the reclaimed industrial docklands of the river Lee.

The third and most important was tabling that vote of no confidence in the government.

When Bacik was elected leader, the perception was that Labour was going through gendering motions: choosing a woman leader precisely because she was a woman. That the gender of a leader is high on voters’ concerns is a major political misconception. Does anybody seriously think that Sinn Féin nominated Mary Lou MacDonald because she was a woman? What marked her for leadership is less likely to have been her gender than her nationalist certainties, her oratorical skills and her ability to brazen away awkward questions about Sinn Féin’s past, not to mention about their current hypocritical blocking of housing supply.

Can Labour ever be relevant again? Ivana Bacik says yes

Listen | 40:33

Labour leader Ivana Bacik talks to Hugh Linehan and Pat Leahy about her efforts to revive the party's fortunes since taking over early last year.

One year ago, the Labour Party was so demoralised by poor poll showings that an old story, probably apocryphal, did the rounds again. It concerned a prominent Labour TD, who when asked which he would save in a crisis, the Labour Party or the world, chose the world. It was easier.

In choosing Bacik, Labour was clearly trying to save the party, to capitalise on their liberal agenda successes. She was cool: more Mary Robinson than Joan Burton, more lawyerly than leftie. That she might emerge as a powerful leader of the left seemed a remote possibility. Still less that she would retrieve Labour’s credibility with the working class.

And her first outings did nothing to shake those perceptions. A shining light of the Repeal the Eighth campaign, Bacik’s career had been all about advancing women’s rights and freedoms. She wore her feminism like a second skin. Her decision, on the eve of being elected Labour leader, to participate in the Ill-conceived National Women’s Council “protest” day, which headlined MacDonald and excluded women TDs from government parties, showed little sign of her moving out of her comfort zone.

Then came Cork, where she emphasised her lifelong trade union membership. Followed by her excoriating no confidence speech where she took no prisoners. That vibrant new warrior woman – let’s call her Ivana The Terrible – is exactly what Labour needs now.

[ Labour regroup in Cork with evidence of green shoots among younger voters ]

While its substance was over-shadowed by the screeching of Sinn Féin, tabling that motion sent a very clear signal from the Labour Party. As a credible opposition, as an alternative to Sinn Féin with historic working-class roots, it was back in business. And there is no more Mrs Lovely Lady either.

Despite the lack of Dáil “decorum”, the lifting of the evictions ban has revealed an Irish democracy in a very healthy state; a government tough enough to take an unpopular decision while trying to temper it with human ingenuity; the emergence of a responsible Independents grouping. And, for the first time in a long time, signs of a reinvigorated Labour Party.

The next election might bring some surprises after all.