YOU MAY NOT know this, but there exists, among certain cohorts of the public, a perception that Ireland’s political establishment and media establishment are too intimately connected.

And what on Earth would give them that idea?

It was revealed last weekend that well-known broadcaster Ivan Yates was, unbeknownst to everyone besides himself and Fianna Fáil, double-jobbing throughout the presidential election. Yes, it turns out that Yates had rendered services to the Jim Gavin campaign in the form of debate preparation and media training, in addition to his official role as the millstone that dragged Heather Humphreys’ campaign to the bottom of the ocean.

No, wait, I’ve gotten that wrong. He was triple-jobbing! Because while he was busy helping to tank both the Gavin and the Humphreys campaigns, he also continued apace with his media duties as though he were an impartial commentator. It subsequently emerged that Yates has been providing this kind of training for several Fianna Fáil figures over the past year.

One such case was Niall Collins, the Fianna Fáil TD and Minister of State for Justice and Migration, who made the admission on-air after an off-the-cuff question from Matt Cooper.

“It’s no big deal, and I think he’s actually a very, very fine media coach, and I have no hesitation in recommending him to anybody,” said Collins, after he acknowledged that he’d received media training from Yates in the past.

No big deal. Ah, how the public loves to hear that. How we love to be told that it’s grand that Yates, who presents himself as some kind of election guru, giving what he would have always argued were common-sense opinions on Ireland’s political landscape, is also being paid to help Fianna Fáil achieve their electoral goals. 

Yates failed to disclose his conflict of interest to Newstalk, Mediahuis, and his colleague Cooper, with whom he co-hosted the Path to Power podcast. The podcast has since parted ways with Yates. 

Let’s be honest, assuming good faith from the political commentators we see on the TV and hear on the radio and read in the newspapers feels like an idea from a naive, bygone era. Nevertheless, to see the kimono torn asunder so gracelessly must jar with the public at large. People can accept being manipulated, sure, but they don’t like it as much when show them exactly how you’re doing it.

Yates had already wedged himself into the narrative of this year’s presidential election when he came under fire for his suggestion that Heather Humphreys’ campaign ‘smear the bejaysus’ out of eventual winner Catherine Connolly. 

Given what we know now about Yates’ concealed involvement in Gavin’s campaign, it seems fair to say that what this comment really revealed was not so much a personal enmity towards Catherine Connolly, but rather a disdain for the intelligence of the Irish public. 

When Yates suggested that Heather Humphreys would be best served by baselessly appealing to the public’s fear — two of the suggestions he made were to paint Connolly as a ‘provo in the park,’ and to raise the question of whether she is a Russian asset — he was not just attacking Connolly. He was openly attacking our shared information ecosystem. 

Ultimately, Yates’ contribution to the 2025 presidential election was to brazenly suggest Heather Humphreys adopt a strategy based on bad-faith accusations, before distancing himself from any connection with Fine Gael – only to pop back up once the results were in, like a zombie’s arm through the soil, his fingers creepily unfurling to reveal that he’d also crushed Fianna Fáil’s presidential ambitions in his palm.

And what should be occurring to us around this time, as we take stock of a prominent figure in politics and media, are questions like: ‘Did any of these people who pay Ivan Yates to share his opinion ask him if he had any conflicts of interest?’ Is that not a question we ask these people? It might be time for a moment of self-reflection amongst those who make the big decisions in Irish media. A gathering, perhaps, of news directors and heads of broadcasting in a hotel conference room underneath an enormous canvas onto which is projected the face of Ivan Yates and a caption that reads: ‘Is this really the best we can do?’

But tough as it is to accept, insulting the intelligence of the Irish public is kind of baked into the whole system at this point. Take for example what Minister for Housing James Browne had to say about the housing crisis this week.

“I aim to end the housing crisis in my term. I believe that can be done,” Browne told reporters midweek at the launch of a new housing development in Skerries. This is at odds with a Department of Finance projection, published this week, which suggested that the housing crisis could be set to last another 15 years.

So, either James Browne is about to save all of us with some Whovian time wizardry, or he’s got something up his sleeve that he has not shared with the rest of us. Is it houses, James? Do you have houses up those sleeves? 

Naturally, the Department of Finance’s projection that the housing crisis may continue until 2040 does not conjure feelings of optimism. But of course, the truth of the matter is worse. Trying to pinpoint a date when the housing crisis will end is a nonsense.

The housing crisis will end when steps are taken to end it. It will end when entire streets’ worth of houses can’t be bought up by vulture funds, it will end when short-term rentals such as Airbnbs are banned or heavily restricted, it will end when the state takes action on the hundreds of thousands of properties lying derelict or vacant across Ireland and puts them back into the housing supply. Until then, all we have are targets that we never meet, house prices that have been too high for ten years yet continue to rise, and homelessness that breaks new records with each passing month. 

There is virtually nothing to suggest either that Ireland’s housing crisis is improving or that people like James Browne actually see it as a crisis at all, so piecemeal are the moves made to reduce quality standards and improve incentives for developers. In short, Ireland’s housing crisis will end when those in power treat it like a crisis. 

Instead, it seems as though Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are taking a different approach. We already know that Simon Harris has begun to openly associate Ireland’s longstanding lack of resources with an increase in immigration. It’s a rhetorical mantle that others have quickly seized upon. 

Fianna Fáil Senator and former minister of state Timmy Dooley, for example, told The Tonight Show this week: “The one thing that there is a problem with is housing right across the state, and the more that come to seek asylum, the more pressure it puts on that system.”

It’s an outrageous way to frame a housing crisis whose severity far predates the recent influx of refugees and immigrants to Ireland and reveals, once again, a hope that the audience watching is stupid enough to buy into it. But hey, when you’ve nothing left to lose, just smear the bejaysus out of someone. It’s what we’ve come to expect.