No let-up in political tempo as current Dáil begins its last full year. Let the games begin

At 2pm today , the Ceann Comhairle will call the Dáil to order for its first session of the year. As always, the proceedings will begin with a prayer in Irish and then in English:

“Direct, we beseech Thee, O Lord, our actions by Thy holy inspirations and carry them on by Thy gracious assistance; that every word and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and by Thee be happily ended; through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”

The year 2024 will certainly be the last full year of this, the 33rd Dáil. But more of that later. There’s plenty of political business to be done first. Politicians of all parties will need all the gracious assistance and all the holy inspirations they can get.

Business starts with Leaders’ Questions at 2pm to the Taoiseach, or to a stand-in, if the Taoiseach is stuck out at Farmleigh entertaining the Chinese Premier Li Qiang; later today, Leo Varadkar goes to Davos for the World Economic Forum. (It is not possible to overstate the extent to which Varadkar prefers Davos to Leaders’ Questions). After the Order of Business – which sets the agenda for the week ahead, sometimes requiring a vote if the Opposition doesn’t agree – the Dáil will debate and conclude its deliberations on two Bills to amend the Constitution.

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They propose to excise the references to women’s duties in the home, and broaden the definition of the family in the Constitution as being founded on marriage. These were debated for a couple of hours on the last day of the term before Christmas, and now are set to be finished with after a couple of hours today – despite the expectation of some TDs during the first debate that the proposed wordings would be teased out in longer debates.

No time, no time. They are expected in the Seanad next week, where they will not be long detained either. Once passed by both houses, they will go forward to the people in a referendum due to be held on March 8th. After being talked about for years, the proposals are being whooshed through the legislative process at breakneck pace.

There is not, to put it mildly, a great deal of confidence around Government at the prospects for the referendums. A poll in yesterday’s Irish Daily Mail suggested comfortable passage, but the political antennae of lots of people around Government and outside it suggest the referendums represent a very large banana skin for the Coalition in the coming weeks.

It’s not the only one. There is also growing concern about a political backlash over the hate speech/hate crime legislation that is due back in the Seanad in the coming term. In the wake of Dublin riots both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste said that the Bill would be finalised by the end of last year; but that didn’t happen. Before Christmas, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said it would be progressed early in the new year. But the Department of Justice was unable to say when the Bill will be back before the Seanad, responding only that it would be “as soon as possible”.

The hate speech/hate crimes Bill now faces the same question that confronts all the other promised legislation: will it be done in the lifetime of this Dáil?

Both the referendums and the hate speech legislation are initiatives that the Government has chosen to embark on. The most immediate and pressing political issue right now, however, has been thrust upon them by events.

Immigration – and specifically the accommodation arrangements for asylum seekers in communities around the country – have already become the hot-button political issue of 2024. The protests this week in Roscrea follow a series of arson attacks against premises earmarked for asylum seeker accommodation in Dublin and around the country. Government backbenchers are under fierce local pressure from the public and from Independents happy to use the issue to roil the Government. Far-right elements on the fringes of politics jostle for attention.

The Coalition is reportedly preparing a new communications strategy – but that rarely quells a political firestorm. Although most of the Opposition does not favour a markedly different immigration policy, they will use the controversy to hammer the Government for its failure to prepare for and manage the challenges of migration. The Government, meanwhile, will try to edge towards a more muscular implementation of the existing policy, especially when it comes to deportations. But this issue will fester locally and nationally. Just look around Europe. Everyone is playing with fire here.

All this will be happening as the parties try to prepare for the local and European elections in June – an undertaking of enormous organisational complexity for a large party – and as they contemplate the possibility of an autumn general election.

That decision will ultimately come down to Varadkar’s judgment of his and, presumably, his Government’s best political interests. He might well end up agreeing with the leaders of Fianna Fáil and the Greens and wait until the spring of 2025. Or he might not. Either way, he will want to be ready to go in the autumn of this year; he will want the option, even if he doesn’t take it. So there will really be no let-up in the political tempo this year. Let the games begin.

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