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NEWS
ISSUE 9 | 13th FEBRUARY 2023 ¦ UNIVERSITY EXPRESS
THREE YEARS SINCE THE LAST IRISH GENERAL ELECTION
WRITES ATAKAN UZUN | DEPUTY NEWS EDITOR It is often said that a week is a long time in politics. By that logic, three years is a political lifetime. Recent days have marked three years since Ireland last held a general election, which took place on the 8 th of February 2020. The environment in which the election was held represented a vastly different one to what we know today. Notably, it was just a couple of weeks before the country would be hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, and eventually enter into a two-month lockdown to prevent the spread of the virus. Consequently, one of the main issues, which would become highlighted during the pandemic that became the catalyst for the holding of the snap election was the state of the health service. After a no-confidence motion was called by Independent TD for Cork South-West, Michael Collins against the Minister for Health Simon Harris due to the problems, surrounding the health service, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar decided to seek a dissolution of Dáil Éireann on the 14 th of January 2020. That was because it became apparent that the government would not have the mathematical support of 50% of the 157 TDs to survive the no-confidence motion. The eventual agreed election date of the 8 th of February paved the way for a three-week election campaign to elect 160 members of the 33 rd Dáil. Fine Gael entered the election as the incumbent party with a total of 50 seats.
Fianna Fáil, who were touted as the likely party to emerge from the election as the largest party, had 44 seats in the previous Dáil. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin, who many were tipping to lose seats after their underwhelming performance in the 2019 local and European parliamentary elections came into the election with 22 seats in defensive mode. The previous government was led by a Fine Gael minority coalition government with a number of TDs from the now-defunct Independent Alliance, kept in power through a confidenceand-supply arrangement with Fianna Fáil. This meant that the 2020 general election represented a cross-roads for many political anoraks and observers to draw conclusions on the potential parties of the next government. In the campaign, Fine Gael ran on a slogan of ‘A future we can look forward to’, which placed Brexit as the centre piece issue of its manifesto, whilst Fianna Fáil focused on its message of ‘An Ireland For All’, promising to address the housing crisis through measures to increase home ownership. It also focused on measures to increase cash transfers in social welfare, along with a mix of tax cuts. Through its manifesto, ‘Giving Workers and Families a Break’, Sinn Féin placed Irish unity at the centre of its manifesto, and fixated on a number of state-led solutions to address the accompanying problems of housing and economic inequalities. They also promised to
Seven debates took place throughout the campaign with three on RTÉ One, three on Virgin Media One, and one on TG4. The first debate held was a straight head-to-head between Fine Gael leader, Leo Varadkar, and Fianna Fáil leader, Micheál Martin, which was hosted on Virgin Media One by Pat Kenny. The most notable event during this debate was Varadkar failing to address what was perceived as a lack of empathy on his part during his time as Taoiseach. The following two debates, one on RTÉ One, hosted by Claire Byrne included a broad range of the parties in Dáil Éireann from the largest parties, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin to the smaller parties, the Social Democrats, Labour, Solidarity – People Before Profit, and the Green Party. The next debate was the one which attracted the most controversy. Prime Time, which hosted two debates to accommodate all party leaders, caused controversy as the original schedule for debates consisted of a head-to-head debate between Varadkar and Martin and excluded Sinn Féin president, Mary Lou McDonald. Sinn Féin, who issued a legal threat to the exclusion of McDonald, eventually withdrew this legal challenge after RTÉ opted to reverse their decision. The latter two debates of the election campaign took place between the deputy leaders of each of the respective large parties. During the campaign, six public national opinion polls were held. As the election drew ever closer, on the 30 th of January, the RED C/Sunday Business
Post poll put Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, level on 24%, with Fine Gael trailing behind. An election, which was once considered to be a walk-over for Fianna Fáil, and an underwhelming one for Sinn Féin would turn out to be the most historic election since the first election in 1918. The next Ipsos/MRBI/Irish Times poll gave Sinn Féin the sole lead with 25%, in comparison to 22% for Fianna Fáil, and 17% for Fine Gael, respectively. Sinn Féin would end up winning the highest percentage of first preference votes with 24.5%, compared to 22.2% for Fianna Fáil, and 20.9% for Fine Gael. However, as previously outlined, because Sinn Féin ran its campaign in defensive mode, it did not run enough candidates, meaning it could not be the beneficiary of the vote transfers. Instead, its vote transfers would end up aiding other left-wing candidates from a number of parties, including Bríd Smith of Solidarity – People Before Profit. In the end, despite not running enough candidates, Sinn Féin won 37 seats, compared to 38 for Fianna Fáil, whose Ceann Chomhairle was automatically elected, and Fine Gael, who returned with 35 seats. Out of the smaller parties, the Green Party and the Social Democrats were the biggest achievers. Despite winning 7.1% and 2.9% of the first preference votes respectively, they both increased their seat share to end the election with 12 seats for the former, and 6 seats for the latter. Labour, comparatively continued to experience the