We want to have our cáca milis and eat it on issues of climate and Irish unity

Recent opinion polls suggest that on two important but entirely different issues, namely climate change and Irish unity, many people in this country want to have their cáca milis and eat it.

An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll last week confirmed that there is strong support in Ireland for action on climate change, with 64 per cent of voters agreeing that it should be the Government’s top priority. In what seems to be a significant evolution of attitudes, a large majority also indicated that they would be happy, in general terms, to back unspecified climate change measures even if they involved cost and inconvenience for them.

However, those findings conflict with the replies to more specific questions put to the public in another Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll just a few months ago. That earlier poll found that, in relation to nine of the most obvious possible measures to tackle climate change, a significant majority of the public is opposed to all but one of them. According to the poll, 82 per cent opposed higher taxes on energy and fuel, 60 per cent disagreed with reducing the size of the national herd and 72 per cent opposed making it more expensive to buy petrol and diesel cars. The gap between aspiration and the required action is striking.

As regards Irish unity, the risk is of hurtling towards a legitimate and worthy objective without having engaged with the practical consequences

Similarly, this month’s Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll on Irish unity reveals a sharp contrast between strong public support for the aim of Irish unity and very limited public willingness to contemplate measures that could make unity more acceptable to those in Northern Ireland who need to be persuaded, or to support expenditure that would be necessary for it to work in practice. This month’s snapshot indicates that, while 62 per cent of the Irish public would vote for Irish unity, 79 per cent would be unwilling to pay higher taxes to facilitate it and more than 70 per cent would be opposed to several of the measures that might help to accommodate Britishness in a new Ireland – including a new anthem, a new flag or the possibility of Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth.

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These seemingly contradictory public attitudes, both on climate change and Irish unity, are understandable and perfectly legitimate. However, in neither case do the polls suggest that we have a coherent and thought-through approach. Indeed, our somewhat cost-free aspirations have something of the flavour of the very offence for which we have rightly pilloried Boris Johnson, namely wanting to have our cake and eat it. To be fair to ourselves, however, the Irish manifestation of “cakeism”, unlike that in the UK, is to be found in the labyrinth of unresolved public attitudes, rather than at the heart of explicit government policy.

The apparent coexistence, amongst the public, of ambitious objectives and strong objections to taking practical steps towards those objectives gives rise to three challenges.

Advocating the difficult practical steps that are necessary along the way is what requires real political courage

The first challenge is in our own heads. We could benefit from reflecting on the relationship between our aspirations and the realistic means for achieving them. Failure to resolve the contradictions exposed in the recent opinion polls carries significant risks in both cases. As regards Irish unity, the risk is of hurtling towards a legitimate and worthy objective without having engaged with the practical consequences. As regards climate change, the risk is the opposite one, that is failing to make urgent progress towards an existentially important goal precisely because we are all too aware of the practical short-term consequences of doing so.

Secondly, there is a challenge for our politicians across all parties. They must judge to what extent they should propose, advocate, support or even discuss publicly key practical measures that are unpopular today but that must be considered if important goals and the public’s own stated aspirations are to be met. Supporting the grand objectives is the easy bit. Advocating the difficult practical steps that are necessary along the way is what requires real political courage. Another political option for softening the dichotomy between aspiration and action, when the risk is of going too quickly rather than too slowly, is to allow appropriate time and space for the practical implications of our aspirations to be teased out.

Finally, there is the challenge for all of us as regards our political choices, including at times when we are asked to cast our ballots rather than to respond to opinion surveys. The question is whether we wish to support politicians who leave us in the comfort zone of our broad-brush aspirations or rather those who are prepared to discomfort us by challenging us to, as it were, put our money where our mouth is. Therein lies the difference between populism and leadership.

Bobby McDonagh is a former ambassador to London, Rome and Brussels