Irish Examiner view: Political jockeying amid crisis

The Government has won the Dáil vote on the eviction ban which will see it lifted on March 31.

Yesterday’s Dáil vote on the eviction ban was the focus of much attention, and little wonder.

In the run-up to the vote we had many of the feature elements of political controversy: A red-button topic under discussion; an opposition motion which drew popular support outside the House; those same opposition parties with the scent of Government blood in the nostrils; Government TDs going rogue to defy the whip; the loss of long-standing pairing arrangements; and a courting of Independent TDs to tip the scales in the Government’s favour.

All can be seen as markers of significance, grist to the mill of those spectators who take a particular joy in picking out the strategies and tactics involved in parliamentary conflict.

To pick up on one of those features, the Government’s eagerness to maintain the support of TDs from the Regional Independent Group (RIG) means accepting some of that group’s demands and leading to some Government backbenchers, as reported here, grumbling in private about the fact that they have made similar demands in recent months which have not been accepted with quite the same speed.

This level of wheeling and dealing is a reality of political life and should be viewed as such, how the proverbial sausage is made.

However, the homelessness crisis is also a reality and one with life-changing consequences for those experiencing it and those at risk of experiencing it.

The easy swipe at the Government would be to look at its swift, decisive action taken to win this vote (the accommodation of those RIG group recommendations in particular) and to contrast that with its record on housing policy in recent years.

That kind of swipe is made easier by the Government’s willingness to compromise and accept recommendations to survive. It’s a fluency of operation that has been sorely lacking in the Government’s performance on housing.