Colin Sheridan: Politics is like an old-fashioned Catholic marriage — we moan and then sign up for more

Irish elections increasingly resemble marriages rather than interviews: The question isn’t about thriving, it’s whether anyone can imagine leaving.

I've never really liked numbers. That’s probably because they’re the one thing in life that refuses to negotiate.

Stories have nuance. Excuses have charm. Context can soften almost anything. Numbers, meanwhile, simply stand there with their arms folded, judging you like a teetotal aunt watching you head to the bottle bank.

You’ve got your sleep score and your BMI. Your bank statements and your mortgage repayments. Step count. Follower count. Sperm count. Even before you’ve left the bedroom, you’ve already been judged half a dozen different ways based on those unforgiving little squiggly bastards on a page or screen.

As a writer, they terrify me. But I also believe them.

Which is why, after 548 days of this Government, it seemed only fair to do what every employer, every coach, every teacher, and every disappointed partner eventually has to do: Conduct a performance appraisal.

After all, everyone else gets one. Footballers get dropped. Employees get managed out the door. Students repeat exams. Businesses go bust. Relationships fail. Friendships quietly fade away when one side keeps promising they’ll make more of an effort, and the other simply gives up believing them.

Performance matters everywhere. Except, it seems, in Irish politics.

 The Beautiful South once sang that “promises turn to dust, wedding bells turn to rust, trust into mistrust”. They were writing about relationships, but they could just as easily have been describing election campaigns.

Every five years we’re promised a better version of the relationship.

“We’re listening,” they tell us, before putting back on their super expensive noise-cancelling headphones.

“This time will be different.”

“This time we’ve learned.”

“This time we really mean it.”

And every five years, we nod along before renewing our vows all over again.

Britain changes governments with all the commitment of a Love Island contestant.

Ireland, meanwhile, approaches elections like an old-fashioned Catholic marriage. We’ll spend years complaining about the partner to anyone who’ll listen before solemnly signing on for five more years at the first opportunity.

As of this week, the current Government has been in office for 548 days. During that time, the Dáil has sat for roughly 155 days — about 28% of the Government’s lifespan. 

In its first calendar year, it passed just 21 bills into law, the lowest legislative output of any full year in the history of the State, before improving significantly this year with another 36 Acts before the summer recess.

Settling-in period is well over

To be fair, governments deserve context. Coalitions take time. Departments change hands. Oireachtas committees have to be established, and Cabinets have to settle. Except this coalition has one awkward problem with that defence. 

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have now governed together for six consecutive years. Fine Gael, meanwhile, has been continuously in government for 15. The “we’re still settling in” excuse begins to wear a little thin.

In the military, we used to conduct what was called a HOTO, a handover/takeover. Hardly novel, but sounds better when you afford it as an acronym. Officers from different countries, often speaking in second or third languages, would hand over responsibility for peacekeeping operations in conflict zones in around five days.

What you didn’t know by then, you had to figure out.

Now, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that running operations in a multinational peacekeeping mission in a highly stressful, dangerous environment is quite as complicated as inheriting a government department that has been running for a century in Dublin. 

But if something is genuinely important, remarkable things can happen remarkably quickly.

What to appraise

Which brings us to the appraisal itself.

Housing? The promise was between 50,000 and 60,000 homes a year depending on which party manifesto you read. The reality remains considerably below that, despite some improvement. Progress noted. Objective nowhere near met.

Childcare? Parents were promised costs capped at €200 a month. Most would settle for somebody finding the decimal point.

Healthcare? Still waiting.

Infrastructure? Grand ambition underwritten by gross incompetence.

The Occupied Territories legislation? Technically signed into law, just this week. You probably missed it because it was substantially rewritten before handing it in, leaving it to resemble a Temu version of a legislation that — in its original form (the iteration the governing parties canvassed on) — might have actually made some small difference. Instead, they delivered a polished turd.

Of course, there have been successes too. Public finances remain exceptionally strong. Employment remains high. The State continues to squirrel away billions into future investment funds while many European economies would gladly swap places with us tomorrow morning.

That’s worth acknowledging, because performance reviews aren’t supposed to be vendettas; they’re supposed to be honest.

What should worry us most is this: Not whether governments fail, but whether failure even exists anymore, because for the rest of us, failure has consequences.

Don’t perform at work and someone else gets your desk. Miss training and you will get dropped. Ignore your family, and eventually, they’ll set up an alternate WhatsApp group without you, using your overpromising, undelivering face as its icon.

The consequences aren’t always immediate, but they come. Politics, especially in this country, just feels different. 

Governments can miss housing, childcare, infrastructure, and climate targets. They explain away delays, announce reviews, launch strategies, and promise acceleration. 

And somehow drift serenely into the next election asking for another five years to finish the job they started in the previous five. Or 15.

Imagine telling your manager at your annual review that you hadn’t quite met your objectives but, if they’d just renew your contract first, you’d definitely get around to them eventually. Most of us would be carrying our little brown box to the car park before lunchtime.

Perhaps that’s why Irish elections increasingly resemble marriages rather than interviews. The question isn’t whether the relationship is thriving. It’s whether anyone can quite imagine leaving.

Accountability feels elusive

Maybe that’s why accountability feels so elusive.

Perhaps we’ve confused endurance with success and — especially when we sneer across the Irish Sea — stability with achievement. Longevity with competence.

Five hundred and forty-eight days isn’t enough time to solve every problem facing the country.

But it is enough time to begin judging whether promises are turning into delivery, or quietly becoming explanations.

Because every performance review eventually asks the same question. Not whether you meant well.

Whether you delivered.