Good morning.
The Christmas socialising season is hitting its stride but there’s still plenty of politics to do before the holidays.
Today sees the last Cabinet meeting of the year – “barring emergencies”, says one insider – so expect a lengthy agenda.
Cormac McQuinn has the highlights here, which include two meaty items from the new Minister for Finance, Simon Harris. One is a new plan to provide €600 million in loans to small builders and developers to build up to 5,000 new homes of all tenure types in the next few years. The measure of its success will not be in the column inches that greet the announcement, however; it will be in the homes delivered in the medium term.
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Harris will also seek Cabinet agreement for the new – and long-promised – Medium Term Fiscal Framework, which will set fiscal and budgetary rules for the rest of the Coalition’s term.
This will be a first indication of the approach the new Minister plans to take after the departure of Prudent(ish) Paschal Donohoe to Washington. Though even the apostle of prudence himself broke his own budgetary rules every year, so, you know, we won’t get carried away with promises of fiscal restraint.
Still, with the international environment looking ever more threatening, the case for a conservative approach to the public finances has never been stronger. It remains a curiosity of Irish politics that the dominant economic critique of Government budgetary policy – that it is insufficiently careful – is rarely if ever heard in the Dáil. The only thing you hear is demands for more spending.
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Our lead story this morning is an interview with Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, in which he says the Government will seek to reduce further the number of people coming to Ireland to seek asylum because of fears of a “breakdown in social cohesion”.
The Minister for Justice also said the Government is likely to reduce the number of student visas available to students coming here to learn English.
Mr O’Callaghan said it was “not realistic” to say that we can welcome to Ireland everyone who wants to claim asylum, though he did not set any targets or suggest a sustainable level of asylum seekers.
“I’m not setting any numbers as a goal to get asylum figures down to. But what I do want to see is that there’s a system that is designed and is operating for the benefit of people who are fleeing persecution and war,” he said.
“Those who want to come here to work have another method of applying, which is through the work permit application.”
Elsewhere in the interview, O’Callaghan also pours more cold water on the chances of services being included in the Occupied Territories Bill – suggesting that the Government would have to “take into account Ireland’s interests”, and stressing the “sensitive” and “complicated” nature of the issue.
In the wake of the Bondi Beach attacks, O’Callaghan also said that anti-Semitism in Ireland is “something we have to confront”.
The full interview will be up on Inside Politics this morning.
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Meanwhile, the ructions in Fianna Fáil continue. Three of the party’s elder statesmen – Willie O’Dea, Pat the Cope Gallagher and Seán Ó Fearghail – yesterday called for the report in the presidential election campaign to be published as soon as possible, following a spate of recent leaks. The party leader responded with a statement denouncing the leaks and the commentary of recent days.
It’s not yet clear when the report will be delivered. Jack Horgan-Jones summarises: “There is a view among some internal critics of Mr Martin that the publication of the report could make him vulnerable to a leadership challenge – although other middle-ground TDs, while having their confidence undermined by the saga, are less certain.” It’s a reasonable summary.
Our piece on it is here.
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A couple more stories of significance:
Colm Keena reports that Sinn Féin has declared that its US fundraising arm, the Friends of Sinn Féin, is not a party subsidiary, enabling it to avoid new rules intended to ensure that parties declare all their funding and assets. How convenient.
Meanwhile, on our business pages, Emmet Malone reports that Ictu has advised unions to seek pay increases of up to 6 per cent in the private sector next year.
Best reads
Fintan O’Toole on the coming algorithm wars between Europe and the US
Strong leader on anti-Semitism, in Ireland and elsewhere
Hugh Linehan on women reporting from war zones
Playbook
Cabinet at Government Buildings this morning and then Dáil business commences at 2pm with Leaders’ Questions. Busy programme throughout the day – defence questions might be worth a look, given recent developments, while the Dáil also must pass all stages of the Appropriation Bill this week. Tonight’s adjournment isn’t scheduled until a minute past midnight.
All the details of the day in the Oireachtas, including the Seanad schedule and the day at the committees – which includes discussions about housing, the war in Sudan and the boffins from the Fiscal Advisory Council in at the Budgetary Oversight Committee – are on oireachtas.ie
