That was then. This is now.

In the build-up to the General Election, both Simon Harris and Darragh O’Brien claimed that the number of new homes finished in 2024 would be close to 40,000. Now, 40,000 is 20,000 below the minimum number of home completions experts such as Ronan Lyons argue is needed if Ireland is to start untangling the housing crisis. But the number was, at least, in line with Government targets. 

On Thursday, the CSO confirmed that the number of new homes built last year fell by almost seven per cent to just over 30,000, a decrease largely explained by a massive fall-off in apartment completions. 

The number is sobering, as is the fact that the then Taoiseach and his housing minister felt comforted to cheerily stand by the 40,000 number just a few weeks ago.

Next Friday, the Government will publish updated figures for the number of people in emergency accommodation. Barring a reversal of fortune, the number, having breached 15,000 for the first time last month, will rise to yet another all-time high.

Over the water, in the UK, the financial markets have become eerily problematic. Bond vigilantism has returned, as certain gilt yields spiked to highs last seen in 2008. Whisper it, but there is even talk that our nearest neighbour will require an external bailout if the financial pressures escalate. 

I will return to the return of Donald Trump at another point, but, let’s put it this way, the initial signs are worrying as dangerous questions circle about tariffs, trade deals, tax, tech-bros, and much, much more besides. 

All told, Ireland’s newly-minted Government has an expanding list of pressing matters in its in-tray. 

That is what made the chaotic events in the Dáil last week, when Ceann Comhairle Verona Murphy had to suspend proceedings on numerous occasions, so unsettling. 

An irate Micheál Martin called the voluble protests of the opposition over Dáil speaking rights, protests that delayed his election as taoiseach by a day, as a “subversion of the Irish constitution”.

Martin is usually a measured man with astute political instincts. On this occasion, I feel he was wrong. 

Opposition speaking time is a finite resource, and an important one at that. There is only so much of it to go around. 

Sanctioning a backroom deal that allows independent deputies who helped negotiate a Programme for Government, and who have committed to supporting it for five years, to sit on opposition benches and use up opposition speaking time was ill-conceived. 

As a portend of how this new government will function, it was a poor look. 

Martin may well feel that the response of the opposition on this occasion was disproportionate, a clamour that was more about gesture politics than genuine grievance. 

But there is an increasing feeling on the opposition benches, not just within Sinn Féin, that they are being treated with a growing level of disdain by the Government. The decision not to allow the leader of the opposition, Mary Lou McDonald, to speak after Martin was nominated as taoiseach was ill-conceived. The two main governing parties might have parlayed with the Social Democrats and the Labour Party about government formation, but it was always seen as a box-ticking exercise in advance of cutting a deal with the independents. 

In a sense, the rancour about speaking time was a manifestation of a broader issue about the composition of this government, and it is one I suspect is shared by a great many people. 

The electorate opted to jettison the Green Party and its climate agenda in November. But those votes stayed within the centre-left family, transferring largely to the Social Democrats and Labour. That transfer was largely on the expectation that there would be a social-democratic wheel to the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael governing axis. 

This has not happened. Instead, electorate maths offered the independents a route to power. 

But I wonder how many people, bar those who voted for the individuals concerned, really want a government propped up with an assortment of independent deputies?

And how many wanted the Independent deputy for Tipperary, Michael Lowry, to be a central architect of government formation? 

Lowry is clearly frustrated at this point with the constant references to the Moriarty Tribunal, arguing that the good people of Tipperary have consistently returned him to Leinster House. He is right. But it was the good people of Ireland that paid for a tribunal that found that, as minister for communications, Lowry delivered the State’s second mobile phone licence for the businessman Denis O’Brien (at this point, it goes without saying that both men have disputed the findings of the tribunal although never challenged it in the courts).

This is the context to the furore in the chamber last week, with an editorial in The Irish Times referring to the politics of a “nod and a wink” and highlighting the fact that there is a lack of accountability in any local deals, if any, that may have been struck between independent and the two governing parties.

The Programme for Government itself has done little to dampen this disquiet with Colm McCarthy last week describing it as a “cliché-ridden list of promises to do a little for everyone”.

Nor has the distinct lack of female senior ministers around the cabinet table. It all feels like more of the same as opposed to progressive politics. 

I hope I am wrong. Because there are too many domestic issues that need to be addressed and, as Dan and Thomas outlined last week too many international issues looming large. 

We have had ill winds and ill tempers in recent days, and the Lowry-ification of politics. 

Now, we need to return to the business of governing. 

Elsewhere last week…

Crafting queen Sara Davies entered the BBC’s Den as the youngest-ever Dragon on the show. Having just stepped in to save the business she founded 20 years ago, she talked to Ruth O’Connor about her return to Crafter’s Companion and the lessons from her journey in business.

Alternative lenders, a US investment giant and a leading Austrian bank have poured tens of millions of euro into related companies buying up property used as emergency housing for homeless people and refugees. But who is pulling the strings at the Coldec group? Niall and Thomas had a major investigation.

Cork-based Green Rebel has built a thriving offshore wind supply chain business employing 85 people in four short years. CEO Kieran Ivers wishes more of its work could be in Ireland. He spoke with Alice.

 A High Court judge has refused Paddy Digan’s application for summary judgment against the founder of now-defunct Pharmapod over a contentious loan. The dispute sheds light on the circumstances surrounding the company’s demise. Jonathan had the story. 

The €9.5 billion metro is a key project under the National Development Plan. Internal project emails obtained by Niall showed that the recent discovery of PFAS-contaminated soil at Dublin Airport is proving problematic in getting the project through the planning system.

Ken Tyrrell, a restructuring and insolvency specialist with the accountancy firm PwC, believes that the number of insolvencies will top 1,000 this year. But even that will be well below the 20-year average.