Irish Examiner View: Real gets in touch with the Politik

Politics that is practical rather than ideological could be the priority for most people this year as they struggle to make ends meet

Secretary-general at the Department of Health, Robert Watt's pay hikes will spur on other workers to look for their own increases.

February 2022, with the country already shouldering a pandemic cost of circa €30bn, may be marked as the moment when the Real came in contact with the Politik.

The crisis now upon us is not unique to Ireland but the manner in which it is contained and ameliorated is the metric by which the political classes will be judged. Something’s gotta give, but what will it be in a nation that has set itself high expectations on housing, health, and climate change? With inflation at its highest for two decades, fuel up by 36%, power by between 22% and 28%, home heating oil by 53%, and rents by 8.4%, with probably more to follow, this is that old-fashioned thing, a full-on cost-of-living crisis. With rising prices comes a demand for higher wages, the cost of which is then fed back to consumers in the inflationary spiral.

The speed at which a package of measures is being assembled to offset the impact on the public is recognition by political leaders that they are venturing onto thin ice with an electorate already exhausted by more than two years of restrictions and whose patience for another arduous struggle against another unseen enemy is short.

Green programme delays?

Commitments to increase carbon taxes in May as part of the Government’s green programme now look ill-timed and Sinn Féin deputy leader Pearse Doherty will not be the last politician to suggest a rescheduling of this action. We will, no doubt, hear calls for wage claim restraint among workers, so it has not been a propitious moment for a controversy over top people’s pay, exemplified by the case study of the secretary-general at the Department of Health, Robert Watt.

Mr Watt may be in line for a fourth increase this year that will push his remuneration over €300,000. Gold-plated top-tier rewards have been reviewed as part of an initiative entitled Building Momentum, the irony of which has not been lost on workers further down the pay chain.

Meanwhile, an Oireachtas committee has recommended that the State pension age should not rise beyond 66, despite previous proposals to slide it to 67 by 2031.

There are many laudable aspirations that will gather differing levels of support. And that is where the concept of Real Politik comes in — basing politics and principles on what is practical rather than moral and ideological priorities. The priority for most people this year is to make ends meet.