The year gone by and the year ahead

AS we end one year and look forward to the next, it is time to take stock. In the round, it was a good year for Ireland relative to the year before and the year before that again. This shows that the country is moving in the right direction, albeit with a certain uneven trajectory, with some sections of society performing better than others but with most, if not all, somewhat better than they were this time last year. At an international level, however, there is cause for greater concern 12 months on, related to events in the European Union and specifically the manner in which the UK seems determined to execute a maximum disruptive departure; and also related to the unorthodox US Presidency of Donald Trump, whose leadership has lived up to the most grim predictions in 2017, the effect of which has been to diminish the status of a once great nation. We should submit to neither the most optimistic nor pessimistic analyses, however, either domestically or on a broader level. It was always thus. The performance of various systems of governance is never smooth. For Ireland though, and western democracies in general, the most reassuring point at year’s end is that the centre has continued to hold and that we move forward in expectation, more in hope than with anxiety.

At home, the election of Taoiseach of Leo Varadkar has been the stand-out event of the year, the immediate consequence of which, six months on, has been to stabilise the novelty that is ‘confidence and supply’ minority government and, indeed, with other participants, notably Fianna Fail, to hold out the prospect that this form of government has a future now that it has found favour with the public. The leadership of Mr Varadkar has also injected a much-needed sense of optimism, or at least excitement, not witnessed in a generation, although with a note of caution, too: the economy is performing well, better than most had expected, but the social ills arising out of the great recession are being rectified slowly — too slowly. A greater concentration of effort in the housing area, in particular, is required in the year ahead to bring resolution to a weeping sore by now running through the country.

While there is a sense that the young Taoiseach has set a steady and impressive course, there is also a view that his style of leadership, while refreshing, may need to be curbed somewhat in the year ahead according to the challenges the country may face, particularly in relation to our relationship with the UK during crunch-time negotiations and also postBrexit; and, indeed, that he should tend to this country’s interactions with the broader unionist family in the context of restoring the power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland. That said, Mr Varadkar has been the high profile politician of the year and with his young team of ministers, notably the Finance Minister, Paschal Donohoe, and Foreign Affairs Minister, Simon Coveney, has done much to renew a sense of much-needed national pride.

In the year ahead, the Government, and indeed the opposition, will likely be met with the challenge of a referendum on the Eighth Amendment to the constitution, in relation to the right to life of the mother and unborn child. The outcome of that referendum will tell us much about the state of the nation, whether times really are a changing at a pace which sometimes seems to be the case, to the discomfort of many. Alongside the ongoing Brexit negotiations, the prospect of an abortion referendum before summer will present Mr Varadkar with his first serious test as leader, which will come to define his first year as Taoiseach and even form the initial legacy of his leadership. He will also have to redefine Ireland’s relationship with Europe, a perhaps greater challenge, as the European project sets to gather ever greater momentum under the direction of a new generation of leaders, of which Mr Varadkar is indisputably one.