More Status Quo please – for now

The above graphic is an RTE snapshot of the state of the parties at the time this blog was published

The results of the Irish general election are largely in, and the outlines of the result have become clear. With the number of seats increasing by 14 due to a rising population, you had to be increasing your seat numbers to avoid going backwards, and by this criterion Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and the Greens have been the primary losers with Fianna Fail, the Social Democrats, Labour and Aontú the primary beneficiaries.

Fine Gael have done badly despite only a 0.2% drop in their vote since 2020 due to some campaign gaffs by Leader and Taoiseach, Simon Harris, the retirement of many major or established party figures, and some disastrous vote management. In Cork South-West, for example, they failed to win a seat despite having far more first preferences than Fianna Fáil or the Social Democrats, because their vote simply didn’t transfer well between their two candidates.

Sinn Féin, by contrast, have lost 5.5% of their 2020 vote but have managed their candidate selection and vote management much better, thus minimising their seat losses. They have also managed to improve their “transfer friendliness” thus increasing their transfers of lower preference votes from other parties and thus winning seats they would otherwise have lost. The classic example of this was in Waterford where Conor McGuinness (SF) won far more transfers from the Social Democrats than local Independent and hospital services campaigner, Matt Shanahan, to claim the last seat.

Fianna Fail have had a miraculous recovery under Michael Martin and some excellent vote management has enabled them to hugely outperform the other parties in terms of seat gains. They managed to win 3 seats out of 5 in Carlow Kilkenny with only 36% of the first preference vote, again because of poor transfers between Fine Gael candidates. The gradual evaporation of traditional hostilities between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael has also resulted in increasing transfers between their remaining candidates when faced by Sinn Féin, left wing, or other alternatives.

Labour and the Social Democrats have been the primary beneficiaries of the collapse of the Greens and have also successfully tapped into the anti-Government sentiment that might otherwise have trended towards Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin may also have leaked some conservative Catholic support to Aontú who doubled their vote and seats as a result.

The importance of transfer friendliness is also illustrated by the experience of the “Monk” Gerry Hutch (Ind.) , the alleged gangland boss, who did very well on first preferences but eventually lost out to Labour’s Marie Sherlock because he couldn’t attract transfers from outside his core support. The same goes for the far right candidates who failed to win a seat because they couldn’t attract transfers from anyone else.

The net result of all these shifts in support has been that Ireland has bucked the international trend of incumbent governments being ousted by a sharp turn to the right. This is largely because the economy is still performing relatively well and there is widespread concern at the instability plaguing democracies almost everywhere else. It is also because of a failure of the opposition to create a coherent alternative, with little evidence that Sinn Féin, Labour and the Social Democrats are able or willing to work well with one another.

That is not to say that the electorate is happy with the performance of the government, particularly on housing, healthcare, and public services, especially in relatively deprived inner urban and rural areas. It is probably more accurate to say that the government has received a stay of execution pending the development of a more coherent alternative.

The Greens were always a marginal protest party vulnerable to any shift in public sentiment or immediate priorities, and thus have been the main casualties of anti-government sentiment. But the long term decline in the combined Fianna Fáil Fine Gael vote has continued with the emergence of a more pronounced generational gap and left-right divide.

Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will now perform a largely performative negotiation pretending to haggle over the allocation of the Taoiseach and cabinet portfolios and claiming to want to talk to all the minor parties to achieve an overall majority. But the reality is there are enough friendly conservative independents from the former Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael gene pools to create a reasonably stable government without having to risk the instability that a really assertive left wing party would create at the heart of government.

Labour and the Social Democrats have made significant gains, but all their seats are relatively marginal, and they have no need to risk the almost certain death that befalls almost every minor party that agrees to prop up a majority conservative government. The Progressive Democrats are no more, and the Greens emerged with zero seats last time and only one very marginal seat this time around. Labour fell from a high of 33 seats to almost zero the last time they were in government. Far better for them to work on forming a more coherent alternative with other opposition parties for the next time around.

The inclusion of a handful for conservative independents is probably more in line with popular and internal Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael sentiment in any case and will help to heal some ancient rifts. An Independent hasn’t brought down an Irish government since Jim Kemmy in 1982.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, trying to make a comeback as a political pundit, got his prediction that Gerry Hutch would be elected very wrong, and is also wrong to claim the next government will need somewhere in the mid-nineties seats to be stable. There are enough sympathetic independents hungry for influence or office to make that unnecessary. He probably can’t believe Micheál Martin’s success in rebuilding a party he almost destroyed. His olive branch toward the minor parties is probably more influenced by his Presidential ambitions than his knowledge of the intricacies of forming a stable government.

I will do a more detailed numerical analysis of long term voting trends in first preferences and transfer patterns when all the results are in. But suffice to say, for now, that the electorate have decided to give the status quo another whirl, despite being unhappy with aspects of their performance and worried about the future. There simply wasn’t a credible and coherent alternative in policy and political terms. It may look like a government of old men voted for largely by an aging electorate, but they are also on notice that the younger generation are voting with their feet as much as at the ballot box. The long term decline in voter turnout from 80% to 60% is a warning signal that all is not well with Irish democracy.

The old neo-liberal market based solutions aren’t delivering for many people and a much more competent and interventionist state is required to deal with the infrastructural deficits a rapidly growing population are experiencing. The vast majority may be in good jobs and houses, but they cannot but be aware that their offspring and more recent immigrants are having a much harder time trying to make a good life for themselves. Having overcome the great financial crash, Brexit and the Pandemic, divisions between young and old are opening up in Irish society which will have to healed, continuing crises in Ukraine, Palestine, Europe and the USA notwithstanding.

The same old excuses will not work again.

Frank Schnittger

Frank Schnittger is the author of Sovereignty 2040, a future history of how Irish re-unification might work out. He has worked in business in Dublin and London and, on a voluntary basis, for charities in community development, education, restorative justice and addiction services.

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