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As the Dáil resumes today, we should reflect on the time wasted over speaking rights and how extraordinary that was, with some people in the country still without power twelve days after a storm. The episode makes people wonder about those who are ‘running the country’ and those who hold them to account. The challenges we face are enormous. The housing output figures for 2024 are 25% down on what was expected. January saw another new record trolley count in A&E. Our homeless figures remain stubbornly high. One in eight young people is emigrating according to the CSO. Anecdotally, crime and lawlessness are on the rise, or, according to one prominent Irish entrepreneur, Pat McDonagh of Supermacs, ‘law and order is breaking down’. Does the incoming Government have a vision to create a better society for all? Or will the next five years be another period of lost opportunity? Will we spend our days wringing our hands at the fiscal implications of ‘America First’ rather than seeking to create an Irish society of which we can be proud? What would that society look like? It should be one where, for starters, Irish families could build homes at reasonable cost, where homelessness was seen as a national tragedy, where all lives were valued, where local entrepreneurship was encouraged, where college degree holders would pay back on the investment in their education, where citizens were proud to work in our Gardaí or army, and where crime was justly punished, and serious efforts were made to rehabilitate offenders. We need strong social solidarity to make all these things a reality, and big unifying ideas. And that means, to begin with, corrosive ‘intersectionality’ thinking, identity politics and deference to NGO sectional interests must be discarded, public transparency must rule, and realism in public policy must hold sway. Is our new Government up to the task? Will our new TDs and Senators make a difference?