Are we there yet? The halfway point of the general election campaign is kicking in this weekend. Yet a cursory examination of the ground traversed since the election was called on January 14 would suggest that in some respects things haven’t really got motoring.
The first half has seen a lot of what former Dublin football manager Tommy Lyons described as “arse boxing”.
The various party representatives have made tough noises, flexed muscles, knocked shoulders, but there has yet to be serious engagement on the serious issues.
That may change now that the party manifestos are dropping. Perhaps, as Regina Doherty said recently, nobody reads the manifestos. But they do provide a solid basis on which to question and hold party positions and promises to account.
Up until now, the air has been thick with soundbites but little in the way of solid plans and commitments. Some of the sluggish pace can be put down to events.
The fall-out from the horrific murder of Keane Mulready Woods in the early days of the campaign, allied to the random, brutal murder of Cameron Blair saw crime shoot up the political agenda. These kinds of tragedies scream out for a response, but in the fevered atmosphere of an election campaign, politicians reach for the easy fix.
So it was that some focused on changing the law, others on the failure of the outgoing government on law and order, and Sinn Féin even suggested it would drop opposition to the Special Criminal Court.
The murders were brutal tragedies for bereaved families, friends and communities. However, depicting the tragedies as signifiers of a country in which crime is rampant – there were comparisons with Mexico’s narco-terrorism – is fraudulent.
This is one of the safest countries in Europe, notwithstanding problems in various areas. Then again, votes are rarely lost by pandering to fears and surfing tragedies.
The other issue that has shot up the agenda is pensions. This should not have come as a surprise. Any political boffin worth their salt should tune in periodically to Joe Duffy’s Liveline to find out what is bothering the plain people of Ireland. The problem over pensions has featured repeatedly on the programme over the last twelve months.
As with other aspects of governance, the outgoing administration had focused on the big picture – raising the pension age in response to changing demographics – and ignored those who were immediately impacted.
Sinn Féin was first out of the blocks in defence of those in the private sector who were pensioned off at 65 yet had to wait one and two years before receiving the state pension. Now all parties have tuned in to the grey vote and everything has been sorted out. Kind of.
As with other areas, one of the solutions is to put the future on the never-never. The parties that see the answer as restoring the state pension to 65 are engaging in the kind of short-termism that has repeatedly banjaxed public finances with all the attendant fall-out.
Opinion polls tell us that health and housing are the main issues with the vast bulk of the electorate. Now, with manifestos being published, the various plans can be assessed and compared. In health, for instance, all of the parties are committed to SláinteCare.
So far, two years since it came into being, the plan has been struggling for life. Funding is a major problem and there is also a suspicion that elements in the big two parties are sceptical as to its viability and even whether all of society is on board with it.
Every party is promising more money for the plan, but the details will have to be thrashed out in the next few weeks.
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We will have to wait and see. (Fianna Fáil is committed to €2bn).
Housing is a different ballgame. There is no consensus on how to tackle the multi fanged problem. One thing that all agree on is that supply is key. To that extent, every party is promising to ramp up supply. Fianna Fáil’s manifesto which was also launched today includes a target of 200,000 “new homes” over the lifetime of the next government.
That’s 40,000 a year, which is double the current output. How this massive increase in provision will be actually arrived at remains to be seen.
Twice in the housing section of the manifesto it was suggested that the party was promising “250,000 new homes”. Somebody has got their sums wrong. The suspicion is that a lot of sums in the major policy areas will simply not add up when examined closely over the remainder of the campaign.
And all that is before we even turn to the burning issue of climate change. The least that can be expected during the remainder of the campaign is that we are fully enlightened on the exact positions of all the parties on climate change.