AND YOU’RE TELLING me that on top of all of this we have to watch the Six Nations as well? Jesus Christ, is there no end to the agony?

After easing off for a few days, the deluge resumed in earnest towards the end of this week, taking us very firmly into two-of-every-animal territory. 

The week began with Taoiseach Micheál Martin visiting the badly affected town of Enniscorthy to trudge around in his wellies, survey the damage, and speak comfort to those who have suffered — many of whom are now asking that the flood relief payments be expedited. 

Unfortunately, comfort is not exactly Micheál Martin’s bag these days. What he actually ended up telling those whose homes and businesses had been flooded was: “[Flood relief schemes] are complex. I’m not going to try to pretend that we can wave a magic wand and just deliver them. That would be wrong to do.” Okay, well, thanks for stopping by. Be sure to let us know the next time you can’t do anything to help. 

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m confident in saying that nobody has ever actually asked Micheál Martin to solve anything using the magic wand method. It seems to me that what the public expects is some sense of preparedness, and if not preparedness, then a sense of urgency to meet the dire conditions now faced by dozens of homes and businesses. A tall order, of course, for the Irish state to be prepared for rain of all things, but people can be demanding like that when their homes get destroyed. 

Still, irrational as the electorate can be, the mention of a magic wand only ever seems to come from those who do actually control the non-magical resources by which non-magical problems such as flooding might be addressed, either preemptively or after the fact. Granted, if our problem were orcs or the Dark Lord Sauron or something, then it would be easier to sympathise with Martin’s insistence that he is not Gandalf, but until then, it seems fair enough to ask for some semblance of a real, timely solution.

Perhaps funniest still is that there has been further flooding in the last 24 hours, with some DART tracks so submerged that the water reaches all the way up to the platform. Will Magic Wand Micheál turn up again next week to remind us that he hasn’t taken a trip to Ollivander’s since we last checked in? 

Much in the same way that we’re told that there is no magic money tree when it is pointed out that funds could possibly be drawn down from our €16 billion-strong strategic investment fund, or that housing cannot be solved ‘overnight’ even though Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have now been in government together for 3,567 nights in a row, the magic wand is a rhetorical tool whose purpose is to make it seem unreasonable for anyone anywhere at any time to suggest that we raise our standards for anything. 

Even though the public has been reminded, night after night, that housing cannot be fixed overnight, dissatisfaction with the government’s approach to the matter seems to be intensifying. A poll, published by the Irish Times this week, found that just 17% of voters believe that the government is making progress on housing. 81% of respondents want the government to build more social housing.

This widespread consensus as to the catastrophic failure of successive governments to meaningfully address (nearly typed the word ‘solve’ but Jesus Christ, let’s not even pretend they’re interested in that) the housing crisis can only mean one thing.

Cast your mind forward to 2029. Child homelessness has just broken the 10,000 threshold for the first time. Rents are quadruple what they were during the Celtic Tiger. Airbnb listings outnumber rental opportunities by 10-to-1. We haven’t missed out on housing targets because we got rid of the housing targets when we realised all we ever do is miss them. 

You’ve just stepped out into the puddle of water that has been stagnating on your front porch for the last few weeks as the rain beats your face. You pick up your sodden newspaper, and what do you see? Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael strike agreement with regional independents to form new government. You lie face down in the puddle and welcome the sweet respite of oblivion. 

Thankfully, our president was on hand this week to dutifully remind us that there is something to live for. Namely, the footage of her throwing a basketball over her head directly into the basket. In the name of scrutiny, it would be good to know just how many tries it took her, but if it should transpire that she got it on the first go, then I think it’s fair to say that this woman has some kind of gift. 

At this point, the best thing Catherine Connolly could do for the mood of the nation is spend three months at a time secretly practising a new sporting skill before reemerging in a local primary school to spike a volleyball against some hapless children or make a 147 break down at a snooker hall. 

Still, the no-look basket was not Connolly’s most impressive achievement of the week. The president faced down some deeply unpleasant hectoring from Gregory Campbell of the DUP during her visit up north, during which he told her: “A bit regrettable in your speech that you constantly referred to Derry and never to Londonderry… You’re in our country. Tonight, I’m going to your country.”

Firstly, the joining of these two sentiments begs the question: does Gregory Campbell use the word ‘Derry’ instead of ‘Londonderry’ when he’s in the Republic? One would imagine not. Connolly politely apologised, something she most certainly did not need to do, and made some remark about the importance of learning from history before presumably finding literally anybody else to talk to.  Ah, what am I saying, the no-look basket was still cooler than that, let’s be honest.

Still, it would probably be an awful lot more useful to us if she learned how to canoe.