Single-issue politics has never really taken off in Ireland, but now an opportunity presents itself on the left for this to change.
We've had the Green Party for the past 30 years or so, which has put forward an attractive mix of cycling, vegetarianism and business-friendly policies, although getting into bed with Fianna Fail in the short-lived 2007 coalition which presided over Ireland's second famine (this time, economic). They have strong enough convictions on climate to appeal to the eco warriors but not enough hair dye to turn off the middle class voters in the suburbs. It's a happy medium. Things are looking up, with today's Sunday Business Post poll is showing their support surging to 7%. The Greens can attribute this bounce back to perhaps the youngest and oldest environmental activists we have - Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough - who are converting the masses to their cause. I think the Greens will only see their support head in one direction, given that climate change is set to be the biggest issue of my generation.
On the other side of the political fence, Aontu is standing in this year's Local Elections on a pro-life ticket. This is entirely a fool's errand. Remember that referendum we had last year? Oh yeah...
You'd be forgiven if you had never heard of Aontu. It's basically a re-fried, reformulated, but not genetically-modified version of Renua. Renua, you may recall, really only came to be out of necessity. Its members were jettisoned from Fianna Gael after rejecting the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act and thus a single-issue pro-life party was born (no pun intended). Embarrassingly it got no seats in the 2016 General Election and its capable leader Lucinda Creighton lost her seat. Now the party has been taken off the trodden path, having had at least a few experienced people who knew how to do politics, and is guided by an Offaly County Councillor who feels threatened by people wearing hoodies. It appears that Renua has transformed into a dual-issue party tackling abortion and the burning issue of teenagers wearing of hooded jumpers.
A single-issue political party will only succeed, or at least gather traction, if the issue that it campaigns on it at or near the top of the political agenda. This was never really the case with abortion, in the party-political way. Besides, now the pro-life lobby is largely redundant given that the country's abortion laws have been liberalised. Therefore I have limited faith in Aontu and I fail to see what Peadar Toibin, its ex-Sinn Fein leader, thinks he can actually achieve.
So what is the number one item on the political agenda in these clement days? There's always a few hovering close to the top: Brexit, the health service and nebulously, 'the economy'. In fact a foremost economic analyst - the taxi driver who dropped me home a few weeks ago - told me the next recession is so close that he can 'smell' it. Taxi drivers aside, all of the parties are offering their own utopian vision for the Irish economy.
In a roundabout way, after a small rant about the government's housing policy, this brings me to my point... Why doesn't one of the parties on the left in Ireland - Labour, Social Democrats, Boyd-Barrett Before Profit, Solidarity - galvanise public dissatisfaction and set out their stall as a single-issue party on housing? Granted all of these parties have policies on housing, some more extreme than others, but I think there is a gaping whole in the political spectrum for a party which solely focuses on radical solutions for Ireland's housing and infrastructure deficit.
We've had the Green Party for the past 30 years or so, which has put forward an attractive mix of cycling, vegetarianism and business-friendly policies, although getting into bed with Fianna Fail in the short-lived 2007 coalition which presided over Ireland's second famine (this time, economic). They have strong enough convictions on climate to appeal to the eco warriors but not enough hair dye to turn off the middle class voters in the suburbs. It's a happy medium. Things are looking up, with today's Sunday Business Post poll is showing their support surging to 7%. The Greens can attribute this bounce back to perhaps the youngest and oldest environmental activists we have - Greta Thunberg and David Attenborough - who are converting the masses to their cause. I think the Greens will only see their support head in one direction, given that climate change is set to be the biggest issue of my generation.
Aont-who?
On the other side of the political fence, Aontu is standing in this year's Local Elections on a pro-life ticket. This is entirely a fool's errand. Remember that referendum we had last year? Oh yeah...
You'd be forgiven if you had never heard of Aontu. It's basically a re-fried, reformulated, but not genetically-modified version of Renua. Renua, you may recall, really only came to be out of necessity. Its members were jettisoned from Fianna Gael after rejecting the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act and thus a single-issue pro-life party was born (no pun intended). Embarrassingly it got no seats in the 2016 General Election and its capable leader Lucinda Creighton lost her seat. Now the party has been taken off the trodden path, having had at least a few experienced people who knew how to do politics, and is guided by an Offaly County Councillor who feels threatened by people wearing hoodies. It appears that Renua has transformed into a dual-issue party tackling abortion and the burning issue of teenagers wearing of hooded jumpers.
"We're not dealing with a normal protest here.....there was a lot of people wearing hoodies"— Mary Mc Intyre (@Mc1988) September 12, 2018
Ffs! Is it any wonder Renua have no seats #TonightVMT pic.twitter.com/kiPyG4LSiI
A single-issue political party will only succeed, or at least gather traction, if the issue that it campaigns on it at or near the top of the political agenda. This was never really the case with abortion, in the party-political way. Besides, now the pro-life lobby is largely redundant given that the country's abortion laws have been liberalised. Therefore I have limited faith in Aontu and I fail to see what Peadar Toibin, its ex-Sinn Fein leader, thinks he can actually achieve.
So what is the number one item on the political agenda in these clement days? There's always a few hovering close to the top: Brexit, the health service and nebulously, 'the economy'. In fact a foremost economic analyst - the taxi driver who dropped me home a few weeks ago - told me the next recession is so close that he can 'smell' it. Taxi drivers aside, all of the parties are offering their own utopian vision for the Irish economy.
Raising the Roof
The number one on the agenda at the moment is housing. Yesterday thousands (estimates of up to 20,000) took to the streets for the Raise the Roof protest to express their dissatisfaction at the government's response to the housing crisis. We've had years of complaining about the government's approach to housing, but perhaps yesterday's protest is a harbinger for this dissatisfaction playing out at the ballot box. It has somewhat surprised me that the housing crisis hasn't been met with thee response to that of water charges. In late 2014, the water charges protests saw around 100,000 people protest nationally and calling for politicians to 'shove their water meters'... you know where. I think there is potential for the response to the housing crisis to meet this level and as the water charges issue did, to bring those who are not traditionally of the protesting persuasion out onto the streets. |
| The Raise the Roof protestors in Dublin on 18 May 2019. (Source: https://www.rte.ie/news/2019/0518/1050253-housing-homelessness-rally/) |
Water Under the Bridge
In the lead up to the 2014 local elections there was effectively one issue on the agenda: water charges. In the heat of austerity, after 4 years of wage cuts, tax increases and reductions to public services, the introduction of water charges was the final nail in the coffin. You may remember how Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail campaigned on an anti-austerity ticket, principally in favour of reversing water charges, and increased their number of seats by 15% and 25% respectively. In a cynic's eyes this illustrates the fickleness of voters (who had decisively rejected Fianna Fail in 2011 but suddenly seemed to think they weren't all that evil), but I think it also illustrates the power of single-issue politics, provided the right issue is chosen.Capitalising on Housing Issue
Back to housing... There is a clear market failure in Ireland. Take one of the state's ISEQ listed homebuilders, which only managed to build a paltry 275 houses in 2018. The delegation of housing policy to the private sector is patently not working. Without adopting a socialist conspiracy, it appears that there is at least some ideological hesitance among the current Fine Gael government towards the mass construction of social housing. Then there's the Housing Minister, Eoghan Murphy, who adopted the poisoned chalice in 2016 from Simon Coveney. At a time where estimates of homelessness are edging towards 10,000 he seems to be excelling at aggravating people.NOBODY WANTS CO-LIVING. It’s an absolute nonsense cooked up by companies seeking to squeeze maximum profit out of every square metre.— Una Mullally (@UnaMullally) May 18, 2019
Housing protest today, Parnell Sq, 1pm. https://t.co/eO0hFEO3ET
In a roundabout way, after a small rant about the government's housing policy, this brings me to my point... Why doesn't one of the parties on the left in Ireland - Labour, Social Democrats, Boyd-Barrett Before Profit, Solidarity - galvanise public dissatisfaction and set out their stall as a single-issue party on housing? Granted all of these parties have policies on housing, some more extreme than others, but I think there is a gaping whole in the political spectrum for a party which solely focuses on radical solutions for Ireland's housing and infrastructure deficit.
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