Real minefield for the Coalition

This week the Coalition has been bravely talking down the loss of two Green TDs who failed to vote with the Government on the sinn Féin motion on the National Maternity hospital.

however, the Coalition is more vulnerable than it is letting on. With a waferthin majority of just one, it now faces into a nervous six months of negotiating political land mines.

ECONOMY

For now, the economic figures remain flattering. But, like the Celtic Tiger in autumn of 2007, they can also be deceiving. if another wave of inflation brings job losses, mortgage increases, fewer houses and ‘necessary’ cutbacks, the uneasy truce between the electorate and the Government will disappear like snow on a summer rope.

TURF WARS

Despite the war in Europe and the cost-of-living crisis, turf is set to be this year’s controversy with legs. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan has fended off the issue for now. But it will burn its way back to the top of the political agenda later this summer when Mr Ryan makes his next attempt to impose a turf ban.

GREEN REBELS

Two have gone, but will there be more? The upside of being in a coalition with ideologues like the Greens is that they tend to stay in Government until the last helicopter leaves the building if they believe in something.

The downside is, if they really believe in something, they will leave just as swiftly.

A close eye will be kept on those with form such as junior minister Joe O’Brien.

RURAL WING

The rift between the Government and rural Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs is evolving, somehow, into a culture war similar to the infamous Thatcher versus the miners war. several rural TDs in the big two Government parties are nervously eyeing their seats and may quit the ranks for genuine ideological reasons if tensions with the Green Party boil over.

THE UNFORESEEN

it’s the punch you don’t see coming that usually knocks you out. And a government with a majority of one is far more at the mercy of unexpected punches than a government with a stable majority.

And for those who are counting: during this Government, no one saw coronavirus, Zapponegate, golfgate, champagne-gate, the war in Ukraine or the cost-ofliving crisis coming.