The Dáil returns on Wednesday, sitting for the first time in two months. Here are five things to watch out for in the new term.
Budget
The coming weeks will be intense and are likely to be fractious within Government, as Ministers wrestle with the Department of Public Expenditure and its Minister Jack Chambers over their allocation for next year. This takes place behind closed doors, but sometimes it breaks cover; recently Ministers have been complaining privately (and some not so privately) about Chambers’ parsimoniousness.
But if Chambers concedes across the board, then the Government’s fiscal limits will be breached. So, choices await. The next few weeks, and the announcements to be made on October 6th, will tell us much about the character of the Government’s will on budgetary matters in the post-Paschal Donohoe era.
Cost of living
One of the primary elements of the budget will be to address the rising cost of living, cited by TDs in all parties and none as the issue that most concerns the public. And while the budget will undoubtedly contain measures designed to ease financial pressures on households, many of the drivers of rising prices – such as the cost of oil on international markets – are beyond the Government’s capacity to influence.
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With price increases in groceries, gas and home heating oil expected, the rising cost of living is going to be ever-present as a political issue, no matter what is done in the budget. At best, the Government can offer some mitigation.
Triple lock
Sinn Féin kicks off its Private Members’ time with a motion on the triple lock in the Dáil on Wednesday evening. It will set the tone for the big foreign and security policy disagreement of the term: the Government’s plans to introduce legislation to end the triple lock – which requires UN security council backing for any deployment overseas of Irish military forces – after the budget.
The abolition of the triple lock will be fought by all the Opposition parties in the Dáil and is likely to be the subject of significant pro-neutrality demonstrations outside the Dáil. There is some unease about its implications among Fianna Fáil backbenchers, given the party’s attachment to the traditional idea of neutrality, though Taoiseach Micheál Martin is likely to argue that its abolition – in the age of a gummed-up security council – preserves Ireland’s freedom of action, rather than constrains it. The debate will take place as Ireland’s peacekeeping mission in Lebanon faces winding down as its UN mandate expires.
Micheál vs Mary Lou
All these political debates will cast Government against Opposition and that inevitably pits Micheál Martin against Mary Lou McDonald twice a week in the Dáil. Their rivalry and mutual antipathy is one of the most visible features of parliamentary politics; McDonald was caught by Dáil stenographers describing Martin as a “tosser” in July (maybe she intended to be caught). It will certainly continue in the coming term.
On no issue are they more obviously divided than the prospect of a united Ireland. Comments by US president Donald Trump at the weekend are unlikely to go unremarked-upon by McDonald in the days ahead.
More Garda revelations
Nowhere can a government suddenly find itself blindsided by scandal than in the justice and policing area. Every minister for justice knows that a potentially career-ending landmine can go off underneath them at any time – witness the fates of Alan Shatter and Frances Fitzgerald. Jim O’Callaghan has had no such explosions but he is engaged in a war of attrition with solicitors, so he will watch a Prime Time special on Wednesday evening with some nervousness. You don’t actually have to have done anything wrong to shudder at the phrase “Garda whistleblowers”.
