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There is no doubt 2019 has been a dramatic year for Irish politics. There have been near misses with Brexit, the highs and lows of three elections and political controversies.

At the same time all politicians acknowledge more needs to be done in Ireland to address health, housing and the global issue of our time: climate.

Here our political team of David Murphy, Paul Cunningham and Maggie Doyle see what 2019 tells us about the year ahead.

Three elections in 2019 - with the big one to come in 2020

The general election is lurking around the corner, possibly in the early months of 2020. During 2019 politicians had opportunities to assess the public appetite for their policies in the Local and European elections and four by-elections.

There is a lot which can be said about the by-elections and the European contest but perhaps the strongest gauge of what might happen during a general election were the local elections held in May. That is because a massive 949 seats in local authorities were filled and statistically it gives a good indication of the standing of the parties.

The elections showed Fianna Fil enjoyed the largest percentage of the first preference vote at 26.9%, followed by Fine Gael at 25.3%, Independents at 19.6%, Sinn Fin at 9.5%, Labour at5.7%, Greens at 5.5%, Solidarity-People Before Profit at 1.9% and Social Democrats at 2.3%.

The Fianna Fil performance was a strong indication of the party's resurgence, winning 279 seats. The party won a seat in the European elections and is due to take up another seat when Britain leaves the EU. It also had a strong performance in the November by-elections, winning two out of four seats on offer.

While Fine Gael made gains in the local elections the partyfell short of its aim to win 50 additional seats - in the end it won 255. It had a strong showing in the European elections taking up four positions of the initial 11 on offer. However it had poor performance in the by-elections and failed to secure any additional TDs in the Dil.

Perhaps the biggest change in voting patterns was the significant collapse in the Sinn Fin vote in the local elections as its number of councillors dropped from 158 in 2014 to 81 in 2019. While it also lost two seats in the European elections,the party took encouragement from winning a seat in the November by-elections.

2019 was a resounding success story for the Greens. It had 12 seats going into the local elections and three days later there were 49 Green councillors elected throughout the country. It also won two seats in the European elections and one seat in a by-election.

Social Democrats won a respectable 19 seats in the local elections while Solidarity-People Before Profit lost 17 seats, leaving it with 11 councillors.

Confidence and Supply the glue that held Government together

Confidence and Supply, the deal brokered between the two big parties, Fianna Fil and Fine Gael, came under pressure in 2019.

But the pact survived to keep the current coalition of Fine Gael and Independents in place, although on much tighter numbers than before.

The agreement was renewed in December 2018 after the initial May 2016 deal took effect.

In 2018, Fianna Fil leader Michel Martin gave the go-ahead for the minority government to continue through 2019, but with the caveat there would be an election in "early 2020".

Unsurprisingly, it was health and housing that mostly put the agreement under pressure, but Fianna Fils abstention from motions of no-confidence in two government ministers ensured the Government remained in office.

During the debate on the no-confidence motion against Minister for Health Simon Harris in February, Sinn Fin presidentMary Lou McDonald criticised Confidence and Supply, saying it had "undermined and discredited the political process".

Both sides recognised the fragility of it - when the costs of the overrun of the National Childrens Hospital became apparent, Mr Martin said it was "breach" of the agreement.

Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy said the Confidence and Supply Agreement was "not a perfect arrangement" but that it had created stability at a dangerous time for Ireland during Brexit negotiations.

There was some external recognition for Irelands political harmony. Last April, after another Brexit near miss, the European Parliament Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt commended Fianna Fil, in an interview on RTs Claire Byrne Live. He said the party was working in the interests of the country with the agreement.

He said: "We need a little bit more Irish common sense in British politics."

Brexit a year of two UK Prime Ministers

Britains controversial plans to leave the European Union ate up a vast quantities of political energy.

Deadlines came and went. Red lines were crossed. An alphabet soup of arrangements, backstops, plans, deals and protocols soaked up late nights and weekends.

It was a year of two halves -the first dominated by then UK prime minister Theresa May making unsuccessful attempts get a deal across the line the House of Commons.

The second half of the year saw Boris Johnson flirting with leaving the EU without an agreement, only to be blocked by the House of Commons, finally getting a majority after an election and pushing an agreement over the line.

From the point of view of the Irish politics the main aim was to ensure that Irelands interests were a priority for EU negotiators.

Top of that list of demands was ensuring that no hard border was introduced on the island as part of Brexit and the freedom of movement was maintained.

Despite the usual sparring and jousting among politicians in Leinster House, they were aligned on Brexit.

The need to have a stable Government in place while Britain slid from one political crisis to another was paramount to many in Leinster House.

On 7 JuneMrs May resigned and was replaced by Mr Johnson later that month.

A key encounter came on 10 October when Prime Minister Johnson met Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Following that meeting a new deal was agreed with EU negotiators.

The deal abandoned the so-called backstop, but also shifted checks to the Irish Sea. That move freed the island of Britain from remaining part of the EU Customs Union - a key sticking point for hard Brexiteers.

It was met with expected opposition from the DUP which had supported the minority Conservative coalition in the House of Commons. Brexit legislation was stalled.

Britain held a general election on 12 December,giving the Conservatives a landslide majority. The development made life easy for the Irish Government and the EU as they now were dealing with a British Prime Minister who could implement their plans with help of a whopping majority.

For Ireland it meant the Withdrawal Agreement would be passed through the House of Commons quickly.

That had a further consequence for Ireland - the raison d'tre forfgener the Confidence and Supplyarrangement to remain in place lapsed -sparking speculation about a general election early in the New Year.

Budget 2020 how the Finance Minister dodged a bullet

Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Finance, had a tricky task in the run up to the Budget.

He was preparing his economic package as Britain was again flirting with the prospect of leaving the European Union without a deal on 31 October. That scenario would cause enormous economic damage to Ireland and the UK.

Mr Donohoe had two options - A) announce a precautionary Budget built on the assumption that the UK would leave without a deal, or B) assume common sense would prevail and Britain would get a deal or an extension.

While "B" happened, with Britain extending Brexit until January, Minister Donohoe and colleagues prepared for "A" a no-deal scenario.

It meant hehad the best of both worlds.

He could introduce a prudent Budget despite the booming economy. He also had the political cover of a potential no-deal Brexit as an excuse not to reduce income taxes and not to repeat the social welfare increases of past year.

On 8 October he unveiled a package which made relatively few changes.

However, he did increase Carbon Taxes by 6 per tonne which added 2c per litre to the price of petrol or diesel.

Absent from his Budget speech was a commitment to go further and make commitments to increase the tax annually in an effort to reduce emissions.

Internal affairs politicians land in hot water

"Let no person in this House, and beyond, be in any doubt this is a very serious situation which requires urgent action."

That was the assessment of Ceann Comhairle Sen Fearghal in October, when dealing with the negative fall-out from widespread coverage of irregular voting in the Dil chamber.

He said the public must have "total and absolute confidence" in the voting process and then quickly followed-up to make sure it happened. From now on, Dil deputies have to be in their own seats when voting, and party whips must guarantee that is the case.

While many TDs had voted for colleagues who were elsewhere in the Dil, it was Fianna Fil TDs who were involved in votes for colleagues who had actually left the chamber.

The cases of Timmy Dooley and Niall Collins are still before the Dil's ethics committee. Lisa Chambers was found by the Members' Interests Committee to have "inadvertently"pressed her colleagues button and given a warning.

Fine Gael experienced its own problems when Cork North Central TD Dara Murphy resigned his seat to work with the European Commission. There were calls for investigations into his Dil attendance, and expense claims, given he had been working regularly in Brussels for two years, as well as being a TD, with the European People's Party.

The party also moved to de-select its Dn Laoghaire TD Maria Bailey as a general election candidate. She garnered much negative coverage over her decision to initiate an insurance claim against a Dublin hotel after falling off a swing. Fine Gael also deselected its Wexford general election candidate Verona Murphy after her controversial remarks on immigration.

But it wasn't just the political parties who faced difficulties. The Houses of the Oireachtas also had to try to explain why a printer and related equipment, which cost 1.3m, couldn't fit into the designated building when it arrived.

None of the controversies helped the politicians reputations in the eyes of the public.

Climate the pressing global issue of our time

2019 was the year that Dil ireann declared there was a climate emergency - and thereby Ireland became only the second country in the world to do so. Campaigner Greta Thunberg was impressed, tweeting: "Great news from Ireland!!! Who is next?" But it was a strange affair in May: only six TDs were in the Dil chamber at the time.

Two months earlier, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Action published a cross-party report entitled: Climate Change: A cross-party consensus for action. The document was a substantial achievement, building on the work of the Citizens' Assembly the previous year. It was supported by Fine Gael, Fianna Fil, Labour and the Greens as both balanced but radical. However, consensus remained elusive - Sinn Fin and People Before Profit voted against it, arguing green taxes hurt low income earners unfairly.

In July, the Irish Government published its Climate Action Plan. Its objective is to ensure Ireland reduces carbon emissions by 30% between 2021 and 2030, and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

At the UN climate change summit in Madrid in December, Minister for Climate Action Richard Bruton declared that "Ireland is determined to play its part" in tackling climate change.

At the meeting, the Climate Change Performance Index found that Ireland had improved its position by seven places. However, it remains languishing at number 41 out of 61 countries.

Sometimes politics is criticised for promoting the urgent ahead of the important.

For leaders across the globe the extent to which they take concrete action to limit the effects of climate change will be a critical issue in 2020.

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Elections and controversies dominate political year - RTE.ie

In that time, the EU was forced to pay less attention to other problems among its member states. Problems that present a far greater long-term threat to the European project than Brexit ever could.

For the EU is being undermined by nations within its ranks ignoring the rule of EU law, deviating from Europe's high standards on human rights and laughing in the face of freedom of expression.

The court's words might be a little dramatic. The proposed reforms, which would allow the government to punish judges for engaging in political activity, ignore the EU's requirement that courts act independently of government. But that doesn't mean Poland is going to get kicked out of the EU.

First, you cannot officially expel an EU member state. It's possible to suspend a nation's voting rights under Article 7 of the treaty of the European Union, designed to punish nations that disobey the EU's founding principles. But they are officially still a member state. It would require unanimous agreement among the other member states to even have a vote on doing so. And no one who understands EU politics thinks there is any chance of this happening.

"Article 7 was never designed to deal with a situation where there was more than one delinquent state," says Ronan McCrea, professor of European Law at University College London.

Right now, there are several delinquent states causing havoc in Brussels. About 340 miles south of Warsaw, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has spent the past decade presiding over assaults on his nation's courts, academic institutions, central bank and press.

These are merely the most egregious examples of member states undermining the EU's core principles.

Croatia's government is under pressure for failing to reform existing laws enough to protect journalists from facing legal suits for doing their job. There are similar criticisms of tight press control in Greece and Bulgaria. Bluntly, the old continent is hurtling towards a crisis in mutual trust on values and law. And trust is arguably the central pillar of European unity and stability.

Agata Gostyska-Jakubowska, a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, explains that the "backtracking on the rule of law in any member states" creates "a challenge to the whole mutual trust. That is a founding principle for crucial projects such as the single market or justice."

The problem is that members of the EU are overseen by the European Court of Justice. National courts are expected to respect European law. McCrea explains that "the web of rules under which members states automatically recognize each others' decisions is threatened by undermining the rule of law. The EU is a very small bureaucracy. It largely depends on national judges and national civil servants to implement the law."

With so many European nations terrified at the prospect of the EU juggernaut taking a closer look at their alleged indiscretions, there is no way that as a bloc, the member states would give a green light to Brussels singling out one member. So Article 7 is a non-starter.

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Brexit was a distraction. Now Europe is facing a hellish 2020 - CNN

On 11 November 2019, the Council adopted Decision (CFSP) 2019/1893[1] concerning restrictive measures in view of the situation in Venezuela.

The Council has decided that the restrictive measures should be renewed for a further period of 12 months, until 14 November 2020. The Council also decided to amend the statement of reasons for eight persons listed in Annex I to Decision (CFSP) 2017/2074.

The Candidate Countries Republic of North Macedonia* and Albania*, and the EFTA countries Iceland and Liechtenstein, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Georgia align themselves with this decision.

They will ensure that their national policies conform to this Council Decision.

The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it.

[1] Published on 12.11.2019 in the Official Journal of the European Union L 291/42.

*Republic of North Macedonia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

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Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on the alignment of certain countries with Council Decision concerning restrictive measures...

The Conservative Party secured an incredible victory in Thursdays general election, capturing 364 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons. It was one of the biggest shifts in British political allegiances for decades and it marked a personal triumph for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is now the most successful Tory leader since Margaret Thatcher. The win means Britain will almost certainly leave the EU in January 2020 as, just like the Prime Minister said, "no one can now refute" his "stonking mandate" to deliver Brexit.

The era of uncertainty has therefore ended as the general election result broke the Brexit deadlock created by Theresa Mays disastrous 2017 campaign.

As MPs prepare to vote on the withdrawal agreement on Friday, unearthed reports reveal how remarkably similar Greenland's exit from the EEC the precursor to the EU is to the UKs Brexit saga.

Greenland became the first and only country to leave the bloc after a referendum was held in 1982.

As part of the Danish Kingdom, Greenland joined the bloc in 1973 but, not long after its entry, the country started fighting for independence.

Soon after the 2016 Brexit referendum, former Greenland Prime Minister Lars-Emil Johansen, recalled that quitting the forerunner to today's EU in 1985 had provoked a political storm in his country and that the process took three lengthy years.

However, the storm was soon followed by economic growth once Greenland was free of Brussels.

Mr Johansen said: It was a huge deal for domestic politics in Greenland.

The doomsday prophets said that Greenland could never get an exit deal that would be as beneficial as the conditions under EEC membership.

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"We had to do a lot of waiting."

The politician added that a massive political row erupted after two years of exit negotiations, as his government's deal came under attack "by a broad part of the population who thought we sold ourselves too cheaply on our fishing rights.

As a result, Greenland's government was toppled as a no-confidence vote triggered an election in 1984.

However, similarly to Mr Johnson's triumph, Mr Johansens Siumut party was re-elected with a big majority and the island successfully left the EU in 1985.

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Mr Johansen noted that it was only after Greenland had left the bloc that the economy expanded and opponents were proved wrong.

Since then, Greenland's leaders have consistently said that they are satisfied with the decision to leave.

In a 2013 interview with the BBC, former Prime Minister of Greenland Kuupik Kleist said life outside the EU was good and that, after a successful negotiation with the bloc, the country was left significantly better off.

He claimed Greenland had free access to the European markets for his exports but, when asked about other exported goods, he answered with a laugh.

He said: "We don't export anything else but the fish.

"We have regular meetings with the [European] Parliament, and the European Union is one of our international partners an important partner, and important for trade.

"But at the moment, there's no serious consideration for rejoining the European Union."

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Incredible link between UK's Brexit saga and Greenland's withdrawal from bloc exposed - Express

Written by Amitabh Sinha | Pune | Updated: December 21, 2019 8:04:10 am European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at a session to present the Green Deal plan, in European Parliament in Brussels last week. Reuters

The annual climate talks ended in Madrid last week with a disappointing outcome. The talks were unable to define the rules of a new carbon market to be set up under the Paris Agreement, the only major agenda before it. Nor were they able to persuade countries to commit to increase the scale of climate actions by next year, a demand being made again and again in view of scientific assessments that show that current efforts to tackle climate change were not enough.

While the meeting was still on, the European Union, whose 28 member countries are together the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world after China and the United States, came up with an announcement on additional measures it would on climate change. Called the European Green Deal, the EU announcement was hailed as a major step forward, even though it needs complementary efforts from other countries to make a significant impact.

Two major decisions are at the heart of the European Green Deal. One is about achieving climate neutrality. The EU has promised to bring a law, binding on all member countries, to ensure it becomes climate neutral by 2050. Climate neutrality, sometimes also expressed as a state of net-zero emissions, is achieved when a countrys emissions are balanced by absorptions and removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Absorption can be increased by creating more carbon sinks like forests, while removal involves technologies like carbon capture and storage.

Over the last few months, there had been a growing demand for countries to commit to net-zero emissions by 2050. The UN Secretary-General had convened a special meeting on the sidelines of the General Assembly session in September to persuade countries to commit to this target. Over 60 countries had agreed to scale up their climate actions, or to the 2050 target, but these were all relatively small emitters. The EU is now the first major emitter to agree to the 2050 climate neutrality target. It has said it would bring a proposal by March next year on a European law to enshrine this target.

The second decision pertains to an increase in its 2030 emission reduction target. In its climate action plan declared under the Paris Agreement, the EU was committed to making a 40 per cent reduction in its emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. It is now promising to increase this reduction to at least 50 per cent and work towards 55 per cent.

Even at 40 per cent, the European Union had the most ambitious emission reduction targets among the developed countries. The US, for example, had agreed to cut emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels, but having withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, it is under no obligation to fulfill even that target.

The EU also happens to be only one among major emitters to retain the 1990 baseline for emission cuts, originally mandated under the Kyoto Protocol for all developed countries. Most other countries have shifted their baselines to 2005 or even later under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Green Deal includes sectoral plans to achieve these two overall targets, and proposals for the policy changes that would be required. For example, it has proposals for making the steel industry carbon-free by 2030, new strategies for transport and energy sectors, a revision of managements of railway and shipping to make them more efficient, and more stringent air pollution emission standards for vehicles.

The European Union, as a whole, has been doing better than other developed countries on reducing emissions. In 2010, the EU had pledged to reduce its emissions by at least 25 per cent by 2020 from 1990 levels. By 2018, it claimed to have achieved 23 per cent reduction in emissions. In terms of emission reductions, it probably is on track to meet the 2020 target, unlike any developed country outside the EU.

Canada, which walked out of the Kyoto Protocol, reported last year that its emissions were down 4 per cent from 2005 levels, but compared to 1990, this was an addition of about 16 per cent. Japan, another country to have abandoned the Kyoto Protocol, said its emissions for the year ending March 31, 2018 had come to about 8 per cent below the 2013 baseline it has chosen for itself. But this is a miniscule decrease compared to 1990 levels.

Even the EU, however, has not been fulfilling all its climate obligations. The Kyoto Protocol required the rich and developed countries to provide finance and technology to the developing countries to help them fight climate change. In those respects, there has been little climate money flowing out of the EU, especially for adaptation needs of developing countries, and transfer of new climate-friendly technologies has been mired in patent and ownership complications.

This is the reason why developing countries, like India and China, have been repeatedly raising the issue of unfulfilled obligations of developed countries in the pre-2020 period, that is covered by the Kyoto Protocol.

The Green Deal is important but inadequate in itself to achieve the emission reductions that scientific assessments say would be required to save the world from catastrophic and irreversible impacts of climate change. There has been no signal from other big emitters, including large developing countries like China and India, that they were considering immediate scaling up of their climate actions.

While announcing the deal, the EU urged other countries to raise the ambition of their actions as well. As long as many international partners do not share the same ambition as the EU, there is a risk of carbon leakage, either because production is transferred from the EU to other countries with lower ambition for emission reduction, or because EU products are replaced by more carbon-intensive imports. If this risk materializes, there will be no reduction in global emissions, and this will frustrate the efforts of EU and its industries to meet the global climate objectives of the Paris Agreement.

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Explained: Why EU Green Deal matters - The Indian Express