The hot political issues of 2017

Predictions, Enda Kenny told The Irish Times Brexit summit last month, quoting the old Danish proverb, are difficult, especially about the future.

They are also, in the age of searchable online newspaper archives, especially perilous for journalists who are wont to find their confident assertions disproved within a few months by events.

Nonetheless, it is already clear that certain events and issues which will arise in 2017 will be of significance in Irish politics. Some of these will be affected by forces – internal and external, political, social and economic – that are already apparent.

Two major international questions overhang 2017. Probably the most consequential global political event in the new year is Donald Trump’s move to the White House in January.

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The most pressing question for the rest of the world is how Trump changes the decades-long American openness to the world, for example by withdrawing from or renegotiating trade agreements. If a global slowdown in trade follows those moves, then Ireland, with its globalised, free-trading economy, is likely to feel negative effects.

Trump’s move to the White House will probably be the most consequential global political event in the new year.

The second major question is what sort of Brexit the UK will pursue, and – not the same thing – what sort of Brexit is eventually likely. British prime minister Theresa May said she would outline more of her plans for Brexit in a major speech in the new year. Nowhere will it be watched more closely than in Dublin.

The decisions taken by the British government and those taken in Brussels about Brexit will have profound consequences for Ireland, north and south.

How much influence Enda Kenny’s Government can bring to bear on those decisions is now a vital consideration for the country’s future. There is not a great deal of optimism in Government circles about that. We shall know more early in the new year.

One of the reasons the coalition government has survived until its first Christmas is that it has been able to postpone dealing with difficult issues that could threaten its future. Sometimes this is wise; other times it is a result of weakness. Several of those issues will reappear in the first half of 2017. And the Government cannot continue to postpone dealing with them.

Public-sector pay

The Department of Public Expenditure will begin discussions with trade unions in January on public-sector pay – indeed, initial contacts and preparations have already begun. The process has three strands. First, and most urgently from the unions’ perspective, talks in January will focus on the implications for public-sector unions of the Labour Court ruling in the Garda case last month.

The Court’s recommendations averted an unprecedented Garda strike, but at the cost of some €4,000 a year on average for gardaí in new allowances – sparking fury from other public-sector unions, who want their members to be afforded the same treatment. The Government pointed out this would cost several hundreds of millions, thus appropriating most of cash intended for public-service improvements, capital spending and tax cuts and giving it instead to existing public servants.

Once that issue is dealt with, focus will move to the new Public Sector Pay Commission, set up to examine how public-sector pay compares to that in the private sector and also to public-sector pay internationally. It will almost certainly find that public servants are comparatively well-paid on the whole, and that their pensions and job security offer further advantages.

But this will not be stem the demands for pay increases among the 320,000 public servants, many of whom have seen their take-home pay savaged during the recession.

The third stage will be the formal beginning of talks on a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement, likely to begin next summer. The Government hopes it can get through all this without substantially re-opening its budgets for 2017. That’s optimistic, to say the least.

Industrial relations will be a more prominent political issue than for many years, and not just in the public service. Bus Éireann is facing a funding crisis while also fending off pay demands from its workers. Last month, the company warned it could be facing insolvency.

Irish Rail faces even greater threats, with the rail network needing the investment of hundreds of millions of euro to maintain existing tracks to an acceptable safety standard. Needless to say, a review has been ordered. But decisions will be required when that review concludes.

Future of water charges

The future of water charges, postponed to allow the Government to be formed, will return to the agenda in March, when the special Oireachtas committee concludes its consideration of another expert report.

Another postponed issue that will certainly return is the future of Enda Kenny as Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader. Kenny’s intimates believe he has resolved to continue as leader for at least another year. But he will not get through the year without that position being questioned, at the very least. Who does the questioning will be interesting: will any of Fine Gael’s big guns break ranks?

A number of social issues requiring policy responses from Government will surface regularly on the political radar.

The Government hopes the issue of abortion will not arise in 2017, but that might be optimistic. The Citizens Assembly will report by the end of June, at which time the future of the eighth amendment will edge towards the political stage, when a special Oireachtas committee begins its examination of the issue.

The committee may not come to its conclusions until 2018, but with the campaigns to repeal and retain both preparing for the next instalment of Ireland’s abortion wars, the subject will never be far from the political agenda. The procession of private members’ bill on the issue in the Dáil is likely to continue. And individual cases can explode at any time.

Homelessness and the housing shortage is probably the biggest current political issue and it will remain prominent in 2017. The Government has introduced a range of measures, including limited rent control, still going through the Oireachtas, but – like the plans to build social housing and to stimulate private house building – their success will be judged by the numbers of units produced. In 2017, we will see if they are actually working.

As 2016 draws to a close, politics throughout the west are in a state of flux. Foreboding – about Brexit, about Trump, terror in Europe and the reaction of fed-up voters to it – characterise the political mood. France and Germany face defining elections. There is a great sense of an era ending, and a new, more fearful one, beginning.

In Ireland, the changes have been less dramatic, but significant nonetheless. Since the recession first began to remake Irish politics eight years ago, we have seen the destruction of the old order of the two-and-a-half-party system and the rise of left-wing and anti-establishment groups – although the old order has demonstrated a remarkable resilience and adaptability to the changes foisted upon them.

There is no reason to believe that the process of change will not continue in 2017. If anything, it is likely to gather momentum.