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Good morning – so, after today, it’s all over bar the Seanad, which will sit tomorrow to finish its work for this term on several big pieces of legislation – the Climate Action Bill, local property tax changes, changes to the fair deal scheme and the new indoor dining regime.
The Dáil sat until the wee small hours last night, kept company by some protestors on North Wall Quay. The latest/earliest selfie we saw was Neale Richmond at 2.48am. One for the people who go to bed early in the morning?
While it may be summer, the dark Delta cloud is definitely on us. At its most grim briefing in some time, Nphet warned last night that the Republic is seeing the start of increasing hospitalisatoins and tracking towards the “more pessimistic” end of models of transmission of the Delta variant.
Prof Philip Nolan said the stats being recorded on cases and hospitalisations is tracking “towards the more pessimistic end of these models”.
While he said he doesn’t expect that to be sustained, “it is important to note where we stand right now”. He said the Republic is “now in the early stages of exponential growth with Delta”.
In Government circles last night, a specific phrase was doing the rounds that is always uttered with a sense of trepidation: “The CMO is worried,” intoned one senior source gravely. It’s clear that Ireland will (yet again) face unprecedented challenges with Covid: this time, we will see if we can weather a wave of infection without backsliding on freedoms, or even worse, going into lockdown.
Colin Gleeson's front page story on the beginning of hospital increases is here.
Away from Covid (but is anything really away from Covid, these days?), the Government got its Summer Economic Statement over the line before the break. This comes after Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe and Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien went back and forth over spending on housing, with the Dublin Central TD eager to include a statement firming up the State’s commitment to balancing the deficit.
It seems he got his way, too: the Statement it commits the Government to “stabilise and even reduce slightly” the debt to income ratio, saying it will “more closely align revenue and expenditure, while allowing for the deficit to reduce in line with the economic cycle”.
The headline is that a core budget package for next year of €4.7 billion has been identified, with €1.5 billion available for new measures. Also, €2.6 billion has been set aside to provide for pandemic supports. But overall spending on Covid will reduce, with the plan plainly stating that “the resolution of the public health crisis is now in sight”.
Read on, and the tone hardens, with plans to eliminate borrowing for current spending by 2023: “Resources will be finite and choices will have to be made”.
However, looking at it another way, the plan also locks in “permanent increases of 5 per cent per annum” in spending, so while the rhetoric may be toughening, and rows are on the horizon, the shift on the fiscal axis undergone during Covid may be more of a permanent one.
Eoin Burke Kennedy's analysis of the profound shift evidenced by the SES is key reading.Pat Leahy's lead article about the planned capital spending is here.
Naomi O'Leary's front page piece on Brussels' wide-ranging plan to counter climate change is here.
Our front page is completed by the backlash over the British Government's plans to introduce a "de facto amnesty" for those involved in Troubles-related killings.
Best Reads
Miriam Lord's Dáil sketch is here.
One of the more intriguing sub-plots of the last week of the Dáil term has been the internal strife in Fianna Fáil, which never quite managed to gain momentum, but left everyone very grumpy indeed. Harry McGee's write up of their parliamentary party meeting (featuring a sneak preview of the party's review of its General Election performance) is here.
It includes a warning from the Taoiseach against damaging “briefings, leaking, and sniping” which was promptly leaked and briefed.
Gerry Moriarty's analysis of the Troubles killings amnesty is here.
Playbook
It’s a relatively early start for the Dáil.
Oral questions for Charlie McConalogue at 9am, followed by the same for Heather Humphreys at 10.30am (with her Rural and Community Development hat on). That’s at 10.30am, and is followed at midday by Leaders’ Questions from Sinn Féin, Labour, the Regional Group and the Regional Independents Group. Questions on promised legislation is at 12.34pm, before the second stage of the consumer protection (regulation of retail credit and credit serving firms) bill, at 1.44pm. At 6.24pm, there’s topical issues, before the second stage of Jim O’Callaghan’s private members bill seeking to increase maximum sentences for knife possession. That’s at 8pm, with the house scheduled to rise at 9.15pm.
Over in the Seanad, legislation to extend the period for making claims for compensation to the CervicalCheck tribunal will work its way through all stages at 10.15pm, following a motion on Belarus which will be taken without debate at 9.30am. Legislation on Workplace Relations will go through committee and remaining stages at midday, and the Land Development Agency Bill 2021 will go through Report and Final Stages at 1.30pm. The Nursing Homes Support Scheme (this is the reforms to the fair deal scheme for farmers and small businesses) second stage will happen at 4.15pm, before statements on the report of the Independent Review Group on Jadotville – at 7.15pm. The Seanad adjourns at 8.45pm.
The EU affairs committee will hear from EU Commissioner Maireád McGuinness at 9.30AM. At the same time, the Agriculture Committee will undertake pre-legislative scrutiny of the animal health and welfare bill, hearing from Charlie McConalogue among others. Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe will be at the Committee on Budgetary Oversight at the same time to discuss the Summer Economic Statement.
The foreign affairs committee will hear from Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanoushkaya at 3.30pm.
And (Friday’s Seanad business aside) that’s it for this term, and therefore from this digest for a while. We wish all our readers a pleasant and healthy summer.
