#CargoOfBricks 4: On Ireland's draft programme for government

Slugger O'Toole

In this week’s episode of Cargo of Bricks, as the draft programme for government finally emerges nearly five months after February, Dr Theresa Reidy and I talked through the blocks and difficulties that have had to be overcome to get a sellable deal back to their parties

The main points we cover:

• The ideologically committed Greens have take harder line in the framing of the draft programme than either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil, making their more distinctive and is harder for their two larger coalition partners to usurp and claim as their own.
• WAs Sinn Féin take on, for the first time, the constitutional role as leader of the opposition, will come a challenge to develop an even greater pallet of solution based, and a need to get on top of internal operational matters that have drawn poor publicity in the past.
• In an era of "two Taoisigh", will Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar's 'spikey pragmatism' see them through? Nothing tests a government like 'events dear boy, events'. And what will happen to the first when he steps down from the top office?