Opinion

John Walsh: Upcoming election will be about housing, not an economy buoyant on paper

Regardless of the country’s almost full employment and windfall tax takings, housing will be voters’ focus, especially in the face of increasing inflation

Michael McGrath the Minister for Finance and Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Public Expenditure, repeated on a few occasions that last year’s capital allocation for housing has been fully spent

“It’s the economy, stupid” was a maxim made famous by James Carville ahead of the 1992 US presidential election.

Carville, a political strategist for Bill Clinton, said the economy would determine the election outcome. He was right. This observation shaped the political agenda in most developed countries for the next decade and beyond. A buoyant economy generally helped an incumbent government to get re-elected.

It was a theme that Michael McGrath, the Minister for Finance, ...