Sinn Féin needs its new housing policy to resonate with voters to reverse party's declining popularity
People don't seem to believe the housing crisis is being fixed fast enough, but also seem to be happy to allow the Government parties another crack at it.
If you ask people across Ireland what the biggest issue facing the country is, housing will be up there.
In 2020 after a seismic election, housing was second only to health in the minds of voters, they told an RTÉ exit poll.
It stands to reason then, that four and a half years into this coalition, when 14,000 people are homeless and house prices continue to rise, that the Government parties are headed for an electoral drubbing, right?
Not so, according to a poll at the weekend which suggests that not only is the coalition surviving, it is thriving, with over half of people ready to cast their votes for Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens, whenever Simon Harris opts to call an election.
It is a peculiarity of the polling — people don't seem to believe the housing crisis is being fixed fast enough, but also seem to be happy to allow the Government parties another crack at it. And it is that peculiarity with which Sinn Féin must contend, having unveiled a 100-page housing plan that comes after 18 months of assembly.
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The fact the launch comes just a day after that same polling saw the party on just 18% of support has added to the scrutiny of its particulars. At the launch of the document, party leader Mary Lou McDonald was adamant that polling only matters when the election is called.
The document puts the party's housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin firmly at the forefront of Sinn Féin strategy over the coming weeks. Housing has been one of Sinn Féin's strongest suits in the lifetime of this Dáil, regularly tagging the Government on various issues around cost, availability, affordability, or the myriad issues faced by renters.
There is some sense within the party a deviation from this bread and butter — it was not uncommon to see the party raise health, housing and the cost of living and little else for weeks in leaders' questions — has seen its polling soften.
However, while Mr Ó Broin is viewed as attentive, clever and a good communicator, in the last year his offensives against Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien have been parried by his adversary's ability to simply point out that Sinn Féin had not yet published a plan on housing.
Politically, it was an astute decision as, for whatever flaws Mr O'Brien's work could be hit, he could argue that at least he had a body of work to show what he and the Government stands for. As an attack on Sinn Féin, it worked to simply discredit the party as juvenile, lacking in experience and not interested in governance.
Mr Ó Broin's document, which is granular in parts, is comprehensive and a departure from Government policy. It sets out a vision for the housing market that would be radically different than the status quo. But it is also a bet the public is either ideological about how housing is delivered or more interested in housing policy than any casual conversation might suggest.
For Sinn Féin, housing has been its go-to for some time now and it has had some success with it. But for the party to arrest its sliding polls, the public's interest in housing when polled needs to match when the country goes to the polls.
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