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.