Paul Hosford: Refreshing to hear General Election debates about policies and not personalities
(lef-t right) Pearse Doherty, Eoin O Broin, Mary Lou McDonald and Mark Ward launch Sinn Féin's housing proposals in Clondalkin, Dublin, on Tuesday. Photo: Niall Carson/PA
In the throes of a general election campaign, there can be a tendency in politics and media to focus on the horse race.
Yes, policy is put under the microscope, but attention is often more focused on the punch and counter-punch, the Punch and Judy show. With a three-party coalition looking to separate itself as individuals like the solo efforts of a boyband, there has been plenty of bickering to go around.
But campaigns are useful to journalists and politicians alike because you meet a lot of people going about their day who want to tell their stories. They are an insight into the electorate worth 100 opinion polls. Because of that, sometimes you come across stories that are a million miles from the horse race.
For Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and the assembled press, Tuesday was one of those occasions. Ms McDonald had held court for 30 minutes at Quarryvale Community Centre in Clondalkin about the party's housing plans.
It is an area — both geographically and policy-wise — where Sinn Féin is comfortable. In one of three constituencies where it has two TDs, the party rolled out plans for the one area that a recent poll found the public trusted it most on. It was all very comfortable.
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Inside the centre's cafe, however, it got very real.
Ms McDonald was asked to sit with a young woman who wanted to outline her housing experiences. As the woman bravely outlined a litany of failures of the State as she moved between homeless accommodation, Ms McDonald's instincts kicked in.
As the story became more personal, the Sinn Féin leader asked the media to leave, something which the assembled hacks did quickly and without complaint out of respect for the young woman.
It abruptly ended the set-piece on housing for the party, but as Ms McDonald and the woman spoke for another 10 or 15 minutes behind closed doors, it was a reminder that the politics-as-showbusiness end of the election has impacts and is felt beyond a winners and losers column to be scribbled on November 30.
Coming the day after a TV debate on the issue, it was a reminder that housing is not just bricks and mortar, not just a set of targets to be hit, that the consequences of a lack of supply and of record rental prices are children spending important early years in hotel rooms.
It was a reminder that while December will focus on government formation talks, families in homeless accommodation will worry about how to make Christmas bearable for their children.
While the debate on RTÉ's Upfront show was at times disjointed and messy, it was refreshing to see a political debate that was not about personality, but about in-depth policy.
How much any audience can be expected to retain of what was debated is arguable, but from Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien, Fine Gael's Paschal Donohoe, Sinn Féin's Eoin O Broin, Labour's Ivana Bacik, Social Democrat Rory Hearne and People Before Profit's Richard Boyd-Barrett, there were genuine policy differences presented.
What all could agree upon on the night was that those 14,760 people in homeless accommodation should not be there. A number of audience members outlined their experiences in hotels and family hubs and much like the woman who spoke to Ms McDonald, they have been failed.
The point of political campaigns is not just to talk, but also to listen. In Clondalkin, Mary Lou McDonald found a voice worth hearing.
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