First day back in the Dáil in 2026, and it was like we were never away.
Sinn Féin sought to put Taoiseach Micheál Martin on the spot over the cost of living, a reprise of the economic issue that was the mainstay of the party’s campaigning last year.
Meanwhile, Labour fretted about the “imperial warmongering” of Donald Trump. The Social Democrats were outraged about Grok, the artificial intelligence tool that has been used to generate sexualised images or women and children without consent on Elon Musk’s X social media platform. Later the Soc Dems worried about homophobic regimes in Pakistan, Turkey and Hungary.
The exchanges may be a window into the politics of the coming months.
International affairs dominated much of the exchanges in the Dáil. It is to be expected that this will continue in the coming months, given the tumultuous international situation. But it is altogether unclear what effect that will have on national politics. Very possibly, not very much at all.
Because while international affairs will certainly continue to overshadow everything that happens around Leinster House and its environs it is not clear that they will exercise a material effect here.
International events will remain something on which people have strong views – but that is not the same thing as having a decisive effect on politics here. They did not last year.
Of course, there are a million ways in which international affairs could intrude on life in Ireland and even in Leinster House. Turmoil in the markets. A sudden hit to the public finances through a corporation tax shock. An economic war between the European Union and the United States over Greenland. You can make up your own horror show. But none of that is inevitable.
The first half of last year was taken up with dire predictions about the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the public finances here. Those warnings were sensible. But the bleak scenario that many feared did not manifest itself. It may not this year either. Our politics may well continue looking over its shoulder at the threatening international situation while actually being more concerned on a day-to-day basis on domestic matters such as the cost of living, public services, housing and infrastructure.
PJ Mara, the spokesman for Charles Haughey and election strategist for Bertie Ahern who died 10 years ago this week, used to say the secret to Fianna Fáil’s long dominance of Irish politics was that voters in middle Ireland – unideological, self-interested, pragmatic – kept voting for Fianna Fáil because they believed the party knew how to govern. In other words, they believed that Fianna Fáil would concentrate on doing the basics of government competently and not worry too much about the other stuff.
Venezuela, Iran, Greenland and so on fall into areas Mara would definitely have regarded as “other stuff” that was incidental to the business of winning votes and maintaining power.
A few decades later and with a lot of water under the bridge for Fianna Fáil, Micheál Martin has a more evolved view of politics, and certainly is intensely involved in international affairs. But he also believes voters appreciate seriousness of purpose in government, competence, devotion to the “substance” (his favourite word) of politics, rather than shallow presentation. He reckons that was the message of the last election.
So Martin is cautious not to denounce Trump, insisting to Opposition TDs that the real menace to Europe is not the US president but his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
And he knows that demonstrating competence on domestic issues requires measurable progress on housing, infrastructure, public service and the issues that affect people in their daily lives. For his Government, despite the spectre of Trump and Putin, that remains the biggest challenge for the months ahead.