More Slowdown Than Showdown

Anthony McIntyre ✒ A long time in the making, Prime Time's debate between Darragh O'Brien and Eoin O Broin had been billed as "the Housing Showdown the country was waiting for."

For those with an eye for the gladiatorial, this massive housing debate had the promise of a night to remember, one of Madison Square proportion. With a long suffering audience primed for fight night the big beasts from the Bruiserweight division who had for long eyed each other to the din of hype, would at last step into the ring and slug it out.

The problem, if not the solution, was at least crystal clear:

Over the past two decades, Ireland’s population has increased from 3.6 million to over 5 million. In that time, the number of people living in each household has also decreased – from 4 people in every home to just 2.7 – that means as households have fewer people, we need more homes.

O’Brien held the belt but the pretender to the throne, O Broin, seemed odds-on to strip him of it. Only one outcome seemed possible: with the housing crisis so bad on the holder's watch, the challenger merely had to turn up to claim at least ninety percent of the success. The Sinn Fein housing spokesperson had thrown down the gauntlet on many occasions. Now it was the Toichfaidh Ar La moment - his time had come. The penalty kick awarded by Prime Time need merely be stroked home. The Fianna Fail Housing Minister was supposedly in nets with arms much too short to deal with a well placed shot from the Sinn Fein front bencher.

It wasn’t to be. If anything the Dublin West TD came off second best. This will have disappointed those desperate for homes and eager to see the government flayed with a Sinn Fein whip. The party had rode to success in the opinion polls in no small part because of its very vocal critique of what it had adroitly and persuasively framed as government inaction.

It is not that O Broin does not have the arguments. As well briefed on the housing crisis as anyone, with a number of books on the topic to his name, he was more than equipped to tackle what is a gaping deficit in public policy. Yet he seemed way off his game, at times hesitatingly uncertain during the exchange. While his adversary never laid him out on the canvas, O'Brien had O Broin on the ropes often enough to cause jitters in the Sinn Fein corner.

To be sure, it was not the mauling that former party leader Gerry Adams underwent at the hands of Michael McDowell in a 2007 televised debate. There is a poverty of words to positively describe Adams' understanding of economics, whereas McDowell fired salvo after salvo of dictionaries in the direction of his bleating opponent. O Broin, unlike his former leader, is not ignorant of the subject matter. On the night his was a failing of application which resulted in a points victory for Darragh O’Brien which given the pervasiveness of the housing crisis, he had no right to achieve.

To be fair to O Broin, Professor Tony Fahy in a 2019 review of his book Home: Why Public Housing Is the Answer, observed that. 'Ó Broin comes to the question with policy experience and a left-wing perspective but with no simple solutions.' It is admirable that O Broin sought not to resort to the simple soundbite to explain what is a highly complex problem. Still, it did not see him spared from the merciless use of the same from his Fianna Fail adversary.

Although O Broin is an impressive performer, and he will surely come again, this was not his night. I headed for bed, feeling that while there is a desire for change within society, it is not a yearning for Tweedleduh to join the circus of Tweedledee and Tweedledum.

⏩ Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.