David Quinn
Fianna Fáil leader Michael Martin How did you feel about the election result? How happy did it make you feel? I think a lot of people went into the election with a slight feeling of resignation. There wasn’t much enthusiasm for the Government but not enough anger either to kick them out, and for many there was no viable, realistic alternative.
The turn-out fell to below 60%. Once upon a time, it was taken as a given that three-quarters of us would cast our votes. Apathy towards politics is growing.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both won about a fifth of the vote, but given that 40% of people didn’t turn-out at all, it means that each won only about 12% of all available votes. At its peak, Fianna Fail would regularly win about 45%-plus of the vote based on a 75% turn-out.
Fianna Fáil had a good election, but mainly because they won lots of transfer. Their 21.86% of the vote was less than five points higher than their all-time low of 17.4% in the 2011 election when voters were extremely angry with them after the collapse of the Celtic Tiger.
Fine Gael won about the same as last time out in 2020.
However, overall, the result bucks what is happening in other Western countries where people are turning on their governments.
Different
Why are things different here? Why wasn’t there more of a backlash against the Government? We saw what happened in Britain with the Conservatives being swept from power after 13 years in Downing Street, and Donald Trump has regained the White House in America. In France, President Emmanuel Macron is tottering on the brink. In Germany, an election is taking place next month and the governing parties are expected to do badly.
So why did we buck the trend, albeit with a lack of any real enthusiasm? After all, we still have a big housing crisis, among other Government failures.
I think the main reason is that the economy is doing well, and the Government has lots of corporate tax money to fling at the electorate.
Yes, it’s true that the cost of living has soared since the last election in 2020, but either voters don’t really blame the Government for this, or else they believe the opposition parties wouldn’t do much better.
They might also be scared of upsetting the applecart. A Sinn Féin-led Government would be very likely to annoy Donald Trump, and he is already annoyed that so many big American companies put so much of their profits through Ireland and have such a big presence here. It wouldn’t take much to motivate him to try and do something about that. A Sinn Fein in power attacking him might be just that motivator. As it is, our multi-national sector is looking decidedly vulnerable.
Factor
Another factor is that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil voters tend to be more comfortably-off than the average. They usually are living in their own homes with their mortgages either paid off or down to manageable levels. Fine Gael in particular is a party of the ‘haves’ and Fianna Fáil is too to a growing extent. Why would such voters want to upset the applecart?
If the apathetic or demoralised had come out to vote it might have been a different story.
Two issues didn’t really feature. One was immigration and the other was climate change. On the first, immigration has been off the front pages since they managed to remove the tents from around the Grand Canal in Dublin and since the protests outside the asylum-centres petered out. That is months ago. It doesn’t mean the problem has gone away – it hasn’t by any means. And it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have a serious debate about the issue – we should, and badly – but it dropped way down the news agenda.
On the other hand, RTÉ and other parts of the media never stop covering climate change and yet the Greens were nearly destroyed anyway. People might tell pollsters they are concerned about the matter if asked, but clearly it is way down their list of priorities. The Green vote wandered off to Labour and the Social Democrats.
Aontú
Aontú had a pretty good election. They doubled their vote and Peadar Tóibín will no longer be the solitary Aontu TD in the Dail. Maybe they can continue to build from here.
Where did social issues fit into the picture? The answer is that they were barely to be seen. For example, abortion did not feature either way. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael didn’t mention it and the left-wing parties had little if anything to say about it in public. Aontu was content to let its record on the issue do the talking.
Mind you, buried away in the manifesto for the likes of the Labour party and the Social Democrats were promises to further liberalise our already very-liberal abortion law if they get into power. So, watch that space.
They also want to allow euthanasia and assisted suicide and now that the House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted suicide legislation (although the bill still has to go through other stages), that could easily grease the wheels of our pro-assisted suicide lobby. So watch that space as well.
But overall, I think that the two very heavy defeats the Government suffered in the referendums in March have spiked the ‘woke’ guns for now. That is not to say liberal NGOs and lobbyists will not be working away in the background to advance their agenda, on trans-issues for example, but the days of the Government being eager for referendums on social issues seem to be over for now. If they had won the March referendums it would be a whole different story.
Given the near inevitability of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael being returned to power even before the election began, the only thing really in doubt was who they might have as their coalition partner.
Two possibilities are Labour or the Social Democrats, with Labour being the strong favourite among those two. But either one would be very bad news from the viewpoint of the social issues and the future of faith-based schools.
I hope the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael instead turn to some of the Independents. Most of the Independents have no agenda against the Church nor will they be seeking to advance a ‘woke’ agenda. It doesn’t mean this won’t happen anyway, but the Independents won’t be pushing for it.
Given that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael were almost certainly going to be returned to power, then the best that could be realistically hoped for is that they came back with a decent new coalition partner. This might yet happen. We await coalition negotiations.