Scale of challenges facing Coalition becomes clearer

Only 17 more sleeps until Christmas, you know.

There are even fewer sleeps until the Dáil adjourns for the Christmas holidays at the end of next week. So both the Government and the Oireachtas have busy schedules between now and then.

Government and parliament are now well past their settling-in period. The patterns of work and interaction are more or less established now, with some familiar themes obvious, and they will probably not change much until both Government and the Dáil change.

Among the patterns: The uneasy and suspicious co-operation of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil; the painstaking pace of working out policy in Government as Fine Gael accommodates itself awkwardly to the Independents, and the Independents come to terms with the limitations and responsibilities of Government; the relentless hounding of the administration by Sinn Féin's mixture of hard work, conventional leftist politics and irresistible populism; the returning in spades of Sinn Féin's dislike of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael; and the revolutionary, anti-establishment agitation of the hard-left parties.

All of the above are immediately visible in our politics this week. It is quite the cocktail.

Enda Kenny’s Coalition is struggling with the realities of governing a country that quite understandably wants the last eight or nine years just not to have happened. The manifestations of this desire are everywhere.

Public servants, who saw the gains of the Era of the Bert slashed away from them during the years of austerity, want their money back, and they want it back now.

Yesterday the Garda sergeants and inspectors accepted the Labour Court's recommendations, as well they might. Squaring the expectations the Garda package has created in the rest of the public service with the budgetary realities that face the Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe may well be the defining task of the new year for the Coalition.

Our reports are here, and analysis is here.

But the legacy of austerity is not just in public servants' pay packets. As our page one story today reports.

Bus Eireann is staring bankruptcy in the face; a few weeks ago Irish Rail had a similar story to tell. As it happens, both of these fall under the authority of Shane Ross, the Minister for Transport. He will be answering questions in the Dáil later, a session that will no doubt be closely watched. (Mr Ross is ubiquitous in the paper today – he even has an op-ed).

The Minister’s other soi-disant responsibilities include Independent enforcer on judicial appointments legislation, and yesterday the Cabinet approved the heads of the Bill he has been agitating about for months.

But it may be a hollow triumph: Fianna Fail will vote against the Bill, making its passage unlikely.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have had a little falling-out over this one, demonstrating again that the biggest political fact about this Government remains its lack of a parliamentary majority.

An Post is also in financial difficulty. The Examiner reports all this as State agencies "on the brink of collapse".

Whatever about that, several are certainly heading for crisis. Meanwhile, universities are being held together, physically and educationally, with sticking tape (hearings continue at the education committee tomorrow).

The halls of Leinster House are thick with lobbyists and interest groups seeking favour and preference from the public purse. The Government is much less precarious than it once was, but the scale of the challenges it faces is becoming clearer.

It hasn’t gone away, you know

Another episode from the past has returned to haunt Gerry Adams and Sinn Féin. The family of Brian Stack, a prison officer at Portlaoise murdered by the IRA in 1983, pursued his case with the Sinn Féin leader some years ago.

Mr Adams arranged for Mr Stack's two sons to be driven in a blacked-out van to meet a representative of the IRA who confirmed the group was responsible for his murder, apologised and said the man responsible for the "unauthorised operation" had been disciplined.

Last February, Mr Adams wrote to the Garda Commissioner with the names of four men he said that Austin Stack, a son of Brian, had passed to him as being involved.

Austin Stack vehemently denied he passed any names to Mr Adams. Two of the men whose names were passed to the gardaí are serving Sinn Féin politicians in Leinster House.

To say there are questions about this affair hardly covers it. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin excoriated Adams yesterday and demanded explanations.

Mr Adams requested time from the Ceann Comhairle to make a personal statement to the House – a request that was pending at the time of writing.

Either way we will hear more of this today, but it is another example of the way Mr Adams remains dogged by his past. Most people accept Mr Adams made peace; they also believe that, before that, he made war. That is part of the story too.