If Election 2024 is anything to go by Fianna Fáil’s slow growth approach seems to be working just fine

To be honest about the election it felt more like a dour mid winter scoring draw than any victory. Yet, after all the shouting’s done, the two main parties of the outgoing coalition still have the ball. This was a secure consolidation in tough conditions.

Let’s look at some of the key numbers in order to distinguish what actually happened from of the weird party spin that conjured alternative realities from the RTÉ Exit Poll which rated Fianna Fáil at the bottom (on 19.5%) and Sinn Féin (21.1%) top.

Here’s what actually happened on a national basis.

In reality, the exit poll was out by beyond the margin of error on both parties. But as you can see from how the figures turn into seats, in an uber competitive political market, the difference of just three points can have a massive effect on a party’s fortunes.

With only Cavan Monaghan left the three seats there are expected add two to the FF total (48) and one to Sinn Féin (39).

In terms of winners and losers here’s the chart that shows what happened, first nationally:

There are two clear losers here. One, most obviously on the Government side is The Green Party, which is left only with the seat of its leader. Yet it has enough local councillors to get itself into the next Seanad, and at 3% will qualify for public funding.

The other is Sinn Féin. It made gains where organisation (like Waterford) was good. And it also benefited from new seats in the Dáil.  But the gap between exit poll and the real poll meant early (wild) optimism tanked. The drop from 2020 is precipitous.

There are three clear winners too (and maybe two halves). On the opposition benches, the Soc Dems not only broke the 3% funding barrier but took vote share from Sinn Féin and Greens. With Labour, both centre left parties now stand at 22 seats.

Aontu finally won a second seat in the Dáil to sit alongside founder and former Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín. They also appear to have taken vote share off Toibin’s former party, and with public funding will continue to challenge them from the right.

The biggest winner though is undoubtedly Fianna Fáil. With vote share slightly down by 0.3%, they’ve opened up a 9/10 seat gap on second and third placed Sinn Féin and Fine Gael. They’ve performed well in Donegal, along the border and in the west.

But both Fine Gael and Labour consolidated their vote and pushed up their seat totals. In the case of the former more than half the parliamentary party are first time TDs, whilst Labour has more than doubled its representation.

And Fine Gael are now the largest party in Dublin…

Fourteen years after Fianna Fáil were trounced in 2011 leaving them with just the late Brian Lenihan in Dublin they now have a TD every constituency bar Dublin Central and are in third place, and less than 4% behind Sinn Féin (down 7.7%) and Fine Gael.

You can see what a long haul it has been and how the wider landscape has fragmented meaning it will be hard to conceive of a one stop shop part like the Fianna Fáil of old will ever become so dominant in Irish politics again from this chart…

It’s not just that Fianna Fáil has got bigger since its crash in 2011, but almost everyone else’s got smaller relatively, including now, for the first time since it entered Dáil elections, Sinn Féin. There may also be four new groups of parties/individuals.

The two centrist parties, Sinn Féin’s singular brand of left populism, the left and centre left and then perhaps an emergence of right and centre right (II and Aontu) with rural independents. That means there’s no route to power without allies.

There’s are few routes to power without strategy. Micheál Martin’s strategy has been long, hard and perhaps some of his critics would say, unnecessarily slow. But that’s to underestimate the degree to which the crash broke trust in politics and politicians.

The party has prospered in spite of the anti incumbency surge across the democratic world because it has maintained a course for left of centre policies on issues like housing which its current base don’t rate highly (only 17% of FF voters rated it highly).

Its housing policy moved away from the market led model that’s overseen shortages and price rises that alienated the lower middle and working class families who in the past had been able to buy because of a plentiful supply public rental sector.

That played to the margins FF lost in 2011 (who are still in Opposition territory). It worked because what the opposition offered was indistinguishable to the ordinary Joe and that took a lot of friction out. And perhaps made the party more transfer friendly.

By not pandering to the prejudices of their respective bases both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have managed to substantially renew their parliamentary teams. They also have the money Sinn Féin were clearly eying up to upscale house building.

And with that will come jobs, apprenticeships and opportunities for kids who don’t want to go on to third level education. As I never tire of saying demographics isn’t destiny, politics is. Nor is anything a linear  or inevitable progression.

Sinn Féin’s big opportunity was in 2020 which it didn’t see coming and so missed the chance to do what it vainly hoped to do on Friday. Something similar to quick weight loss in diets, too much growth too quickly can be only too easily lost afterwards.

On the other hand, Fianna Fáil’s slow growth approach seems to be working just fine, so far. By pruning the old fantasy of FF dominance Martin has made space for further growth. There’s still far too little done, with a hell of a lot more to do.