Imagine a country where almost 15,000 people are homeless. Imagine over 4,000 of them are children.
Imagine, if you can, that there’s a general election about to be announced any day now and that the country’s housing Minister is hitting the airwaves with a big announcement to shore up his local vote.
Imagine that announcement is a couple of golf tournaments.
Imagine nobody thinking this is weird.
Welcome to Ireland in 2024.
For yes, that was indeed Darragh O’Brien TD, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, who puffed himself up to his full height this week, making sure he was the face of the big news that Cabinet had signed off on spending somewhere in the ballpark of €40 million to bring the two British Opens to Ireland. First the women, maybe in 2028. Then the men, possibly as soon as 2030.
That was him, taking credit for the whole shebang on a 50-second social media sting. There he was, speaking into his little clipless mic while standing in front of the entrance to Portmarnock GC. The links wind whipping at his fringe, the camera panning to the watery scrub ground of the estuary behind him.
All of which begged a few questions.
First off – would they not let him in? Here’s a man who, according to himself, has spent the past few months meeting with the R&A and Portmarnock Golf Club. Surely they’d have let him go and stand by the 18th green for his big announcement. It’s not like he’s a woman, after all.
But whatever about the small ‘o’ optics, what about the bigger picture? What does it say about us as an electorate that this doesn’t spell political suicide for O’Brien? The Housing Minister in the middle of a housing crisis weeks out from an election, warbling on about bringing the world’s hoity-toitiest golf tournaments to one of Ireland’s hoity-toitiest sports clubs. And it won’t cost him a vote.
That’s his calculation, clearly. He couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about his role in getting this done, about what this all means for investment in Portmarnock, both the area and the golf club itself. He droned on about prestige and how this was a “really world-famous event”. In the space of 49 seconds, he mentioned Portmarnock four times and Fingal twice.
None of this was accidental. O’Brien’s constituency has undergone a boundary change since the 2020 election. There were five seats on offer in Dublin Fingal back then – now there are three in Dublin Fingal East. He’s still the biggest beast in the constituency, the TD with the highest national profile. But that isn’t always necessarily a positive.
So of course he’s going to get out there and trumpet his achievement at bringing such a chunky wedge of dosh into the area. What kind of local politician would he be if he didn’t? He has votes to gather up in Portmarnock, Swords, Malahide and Donabate. Gotta get that parish pump primed.
Still, though. The neck is kind of breathtaking, is it not? This Government has, by all accounts, just over a month left to run. When they came into office, there were 8,699 homeless people in Ireland. Now the most recent number is 14,760. And the Housing Minister is trying to buy your vote with your money by spending it on hosting golf tournaments at his local club.
And not just any club, of course. Portmarnock Golf Club. The one that didn’t allow women members for 127 years. The one that finally relented – at the point of a bayonet – only in 2021. It took them a century and a quarter to consider women as being worthy of their fusty old pile of bricks. After which, it took O’Brien and this Government a mere three years to go running to them with bags of cash.
[ Portmarnock Golf Club votes to admit women as membersOpens in new window ]
The impetus for all this is the recently-announced Government strategy for hosting ‘Major International Sports Events’. By the unnecessary capitals shall ye know them.
The general idea is that Paddy likes the bit of sport so let’s see can we put some of the sport that’s on telly into Paddy’s backyard and see how that works out. Big time golf, the Euros, the Volvo Ocean Race, that type of thing.
All of which sounds good, probably, if you’re into that kind of thing. Except that the policy was launched just last week and the Ryder Cup, Euros, Volvo Ocean Race and so on were all in the books already.
And as O’Brien was at pains to point out, conversations about bringing the Open to Portmarnock have been going on for ages. So mostly this looks like the Government slapping a new label on something that was already being done and calling it fresh policy.
But maybe that’s just politics. And normally, you’d wave it off and leave them at it. A month out from an election is no time to clutch your pearls and suddenly find it shocking that politicians are looking to put their own particular spin on the ball.
It’s just that there’s something especially grating about this one, even for those of us who haven’t missed a men’s Open since the ‘80s. Are we really that cheap a date? Have we become so completely inured to the struggle so many people in Ireland are having when it comes to finding a home that we can have our heads turned by the poxy British Open?
Darragh O’Brien obviously reckons that’s the case. Or that it’s up for grabs, at the very least. Four thousand homeless kids and he’s wanging on about the colossal prestige coming our way for hosting a golf tournament. Let them eat €15 burgers in the tented village.
In a sane country, that sort of disconnect would get its answer at the ballot box. In Ireland? Let’s see.