The lasting effects of the lost referendums are limited. There may be squalls at parliamentary party meetings next week, but the people have moved on. What remains, apart from lost opportunity, is electoral volatility. In a larger Dáil with 14 extra seats, the stalling of Sinn Féin’s rise with no lift for the Government parties opens the possibility of protracted negotiations between a much wider group of parties and possibly independents. There’s a real possibility that a hung Dáil with a minority government will be the best that can be done to avoid a general election.
Everything is in flux and uncertainty goes beyond the possibility of one of two defined blocks forming the next government. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are the core of one block, and Sinn Féin the centre of another.
That’s a synopsis of the status quo. The caveat in such uncertainty is that there are a lot of unenthused potential votes to tap into, if they can be motivated. We have a sceptical electorate who have largely abandoned historical loyalties or are too young to have known them. With three parties in coalition and a main Opposition party that is a broader coalition than any of them, identity is increasingly fluid.
What matters about last weekend’s result is that, except for Roderic O’Gorman, the sponsoring minister, there was little that was authentic about the Government’s advocacy. There was even less conviction. Unsurprisingly voters didn’t buy what even politicians did not seem to believe in. Ex-post disclosure by politicians with a delicate conscience that their secret ballot was different to their public posture underlines the importance of belief.
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Each of the three big parties has a widening gap and obvious weaknesses. Sinn Féin may have dropped off a historical high in opinion polls but is still the largest party, polling well above its 2020 general election result and that of its competitors. Its political base is offside on immigration, and the party is no longer a natural home for unfocused anger. “Up the Ra” came from a rage that would be unacceptable in a smoother, sleeker party. The challenge for Sinn Féin is not just to be ahead, but to be so far ahead as to make it the inevitable centre of the next government. That requires momentum across a coalition of voters and the ability to hold together its disparate base.
Of the three large parties, Fine Gael’s identity is the most compromised and its electoral fortunes the most uncertain. The referendums looked more like political tactics than conviction about constitutional change. Fine Gael is only moderately liberal in character; advanced progressive politics are not in its DNA. What was a core value was centre-right economics, a smaller state and prudent stewardship of the public finances. Instead, since 2016 it has grown the State from a €68 billion enterprise to one costing €110 billion in 2024. Allowing for the demands of Covid and the fact of inflation, a 38 per cent increase in spending, arrived at on the hoof, has changed the context of politics to its disadvantage. Having birthed the beast, it must feed it.
The bigger State is administratively inadequate, and regardless of its reach, insufficient compared to public expectation. In abandoning the centre ground and becoming a high-spending party, Fine Gael has done more than any party to deliver on a left agenda economically. It has fundamentally changed the terms and conditions of Irish politics to its own disadvantage, without understanding what it was doing. Belated bleating about holding the centre and sporadic forays about tax cutting underline its incoherence.
Fianna Fáil has permanently lost its working-class hinterland. In cahoots or in coalition with Fine Gael since 2016, Micheál Martin snatched victory from the jaws of defeat after the last election and is the architect of this Government. His degree of control over his party makes Charlie Haughey’s regime seem lax, but the recipe is simple. It is less than half the size and populated with politicians who, with exceptions, are lobby fodder, not leaders.
These are the best of times for him, but not his party. But that may not matter. What counts is that Fianna Fáil stays ahead of Fine Gael in the race for what is left of the centre. It seems well placed in rural constituencies especially, helped by Fine Gael retirements. Whichever of the two stays ahead will benefit from better transfers from the other. The bigger picture is whether separately or together they can muster more than the 73 seats they won in 2020, in a new Dáil with 14 extra seats. For now, I doubt it.
With momentum for either of the big parties failing, smaller ones and independents become disproportionately important. In the political flux, identity is further diluted, and authenticity strained. Elections used to be cause and effect. Now they are a qualifying round, and the real contest over power and policies begins afterwards. Political parties were lifelong affiliations, now they are hackney cars, hired for one trip at a time. Arrival is usually met with acrimony about whether this is the intended destination. For voters, it is increasingly difficult to get what you vote for.