Stephen Collins: Coalition parties barely able to hide their delight at RTÉ's troubles

The Coalition parties are sailing into the Dáil summer recess in a serene mood after the enjoyable experience of watching the media and Opposition work themselves into a frenzy over an issue that has nothing at all to do with the Government.

Normally the last few weeks before the summer break are a torrid time for the government of the day, with the opposition parties doing all in their power to land as many blows as possible before the political season draws to a close.

This year Ministers had the luxury of being bystanders as the political world went into convulsions for weeks over the nature and scale of RTÉ payments to its star broadcaster, Ryan Tubridy. It made a welcome change from the usual pre-summer assault by the Opposition blaming the Government for everything deemed to be wrong with the state of the nation.

To make things even more sweet from a Government point of view, not only has it been able to avoid incoming fire from the Opposition, but it has been in a position to sit back and watch RTÉ inflict serious punishment on itself. Privately, many Government TDs believe that the national broadcaster goes out of its way to give them a kicking and is far more indulgent to its critics inside and outside the Dáil.

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Watching RTÉ squirm in the limelight has been a guilty pleasure for many of them. “The RTÉ top brass are getting some idea of what it is like to be on the receiving end of aggressive questioning and the selective use of information to discredit them,” said one Government TD. “This is what we have to put up with from RTÉ all the time.”

The government of the day is usually able to look forwards to a respite during the summer recess to prepare itself for the next phase of political struggle in the autumn. When the Dáil comes back in September, the first item on the agenda will be a giveaway budget. The three Coalition parties are hoping it will give them the boost they need as they head into 2024, with European and local elections scheduled in June, and a general election widely expected before the end of the year.

The latest Eurobarometer poll published this week has good and bad news for the Coalition. The good news is that people are generally happy with its performance. The downside is that housing is still rated as by far the biggest issue facing the country. This contrasts with most other EU countries on both fronts, where people are unhappy with their governments but do not rate housing as a serious problem.

Asked how they judge the current economic situation in their country, 65 per cent of Irish people say it is good, while 33 per cent say it is bad. By contrast, across the EU just 40 per cent of people judge their national economy as being good, with 58 per cent saying it is bad.

When it comes to the economic position of individual households, the results are even more emphatic. In Ireland 82 per cent of people say their household financial position is good, compared with an average of 70 per cent across the Union. This finding is reinforced by 77 per cent of Irish people saying their personal job situation is good, by comparison with an EU average of 61 per cent.

It is hard to believe that just a decade ago this country was in the throes of a jobs crisis. Unemployment was nearing 20 per cent in the wake of the financial crisis and a widespread belief that this was going to be a persistent problem in line with the country’s history.

The political question, though, is whether the electorate is prepared to give the Government any credit for this turnaround. The poll suggests that a majority of people here are open to doing that. Half of all voters say they trust in the Irish Government, while 32 per cent say they do not. Again, this is higher than the average in the EU, where just 32 per cent express trust in their governments and 63 per cent do not.

In the light of such positive attitudes from Irish voters, the question arises as to why it has become the conventional political wisdom that the Government is more than likely to lose the next election and be replaced with a Sinn Féin-led administration.

[ Do politicians have it in for RTÉ, or does RTÉ have it in for politicians? ]

The answer is provided in another poll question. Asked about the two most important issues facing the country, people rank housing as by far the biggest in Ireland, with 61 per cent opting for it, followed by 44 per cent who say it is the cost of living. By contrast, across the EU just 10 per cent pick housing as the main issue.

The conclusion from the poll is that the Coalition has a realistic chance of another term if it can make inroads into the housing problem over the coming 12 months – or, at the very least, convince the electorate that it is not the principal issue on which the next government should be chosen.