John Dolan: A rally in Cork with universal support... housing is Micheál’s downfall

I’ve never attended a rally or a demonstration in my life - and that makes me part of a very large majority.

It’s difficult to pin down numbers, but polls in the U.S indicate 97% of its population have never marched for anything. I would suggest that’s fairly accurate.

In my case, the fact I am a journalist means it can be ethically tricky to throw too much weight into one camp.

It’s one thing to, say, indicate my support for the legalisation of abortion or same-sex marriage on this page, in order to stimulate debate, but quite another, I feel, to take a ‘Down With That Sort Of Thing’ sign and chant slogans down Patrick Street.

Working in the UK in the 1990s, when Margaret Thatcher’s planned Poll Tax was causing unrest, I wrote an article that was headlined ‘£427: That’s the price you have to pay for the Poll Tax’.

There was an anti-Poll Tax rally on my patch and I went along to observe. To my horror, a guy on the platform with a loudhailer asked me by name to come up and speak out against the tax - the headline suggested I had some kind of stance on the issue.

Needless to say, I made a clean getaway from that particular soapbox!

The small, but determined, hardcore of regular demonstrators in Cork will accuse people like me who don’t attend their rallies of apathy, and of failing to stand up for people’s rights.

That kind of logic reached its nadir recently when a host of celebrities and politicians suggested that those who weren’t extremely vocal and marching on the streets about Israel’s actions in Gaza were actually complicit in its actions.

I would almost attend a rally to march against that kind of extremist nonsense!

The truth is, most people are just not that political, and even those who are often have better things to do than parade along a street, no matter how worthy the cause.

I defend and respect anyone’s right to peaceful protest - but it’s the ballot box that is the ultimate arbitrator of a democracy, not who shouts loudest or whose side on any particular issue has most placards.

I certainly respect the opinions of those who have marched weekly in Cork in protest at the suffering of the Palestinian people, while at the same time harbouring the sense that their actions have not made any difference to the dreadful ongoing situation.

Since the pandemic, there has been a veritable explosion of demonstrations on our streets, and not just relating to wars in Gaza and Ukraine. There have been regular rallies for and against the hottest domestic topic of the day - immigration - sometimes even mischievously pairing one side against the other at the same time.

However, today in Cork city, there is a rarity - a rally on the plight of housing that has no discernible opposition case and that is expected to attract thousands of people, many of them not the usual demonstrators.

Called ‘Raise The Roof: Homes For All’, it is being organised by a broad coalition of trade unions, civil society groups, and political parties and starts at the National Monument on Grand Parade at 2pm.

Unlike the often heated immigration debates, there is universal agreement that the housing crisis in Ireland is a real and present threat to the wellbeing of almost every section of society - even the hapless leaders of our government would struggle to disagree with that.

The politicians in power may try to feebly quibble with the complaint that progress on this issue is going far too slowly - but I imagine it would be a pointless argument.

Housing is a disaster right now on just about every level - unless you make your money from property.

House prices and rents are ridiculously expensive, and they are spiralling ever upwards. Demand is far outstripping supply, and will surely do so for the lifetime of this government.

Furthermore, dereliction remains a very visible and incredibly frustrating problem on the streets - there are 300 vacant council houses in Cork city alone - ditto the record numbers of homeless people.

An entire generation - perhaps even two generations - of young people are being locked out of housing, and when their window of opportunity slams shut, they are left to face a very uncertain future without that most basic of human rights - a home to call their own.

The crowds on the streets of Cork city today will be emphasising all of this, and even those who won’t be there will assuredly be with them in spirit.

The only areas up for debate relate to how we go about tackling this problem. Suffice to say the parties in power don’t appear to have any workable answers.

This universal sense of outrage on the single most important facing the country is very bad news for the sitting government parties, especially the leaders of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

I’m sure Micheál Martin and Simon Harris would love to inhabit a world where their tough stances on Gaza and the riches pouring in from Corporation Tax serve to cement their credentials.

Alas, the sense that the housing crisis is unresolvable under their watch, and that they simply don’t have the tools or the wherewithal to make the necessary impact, is growing, just six months into their term of office.

The supporters of Taoiseach Mr Martin may be hoping his government goes full term, and that his rotating successor in November, 2027, Simon Harris, cops the flak for the housing crisis come the next election.

However, my feeling is that, whenever the next election is held, the electorate will hold both men and both of their parties equally responsible for the housing crisis, and the retribution at the polls will be lethal.

Moreover, with the housing crisis only set to get worse month by month, and as the mood of the electorate darkens, that day of reckoning at the polls could be coming along sooner than both men think.