Left Field
General Election 2024
The general election this year came as a shock to all the people of Ireland after it was announced that it would be held on November 29th. Simon Harris, the Taoiseach, had announced this election outside the Dáil House saying “The time is now right to ask the Irish people for a new mandate for the government.” At the beginning the polls were pointing towards Sinn Féin taking a large lead over the two outgoing coalition parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, although this is a common pattern for Sinn Féin, and doesn’t often translate into actual votes.
Posters were quickly erected onto lamp posts, walls, and anywhere else in sight, starting as soon as the election was announced. This election also saw an increase in the amount of total seats in the Dáil, giving the parties an opportunity to run more candidates, with an increase from 160 to 174 seats up for grabs. Coming from the last election, Fianna Fáil had won 38 seats in 2020, Fine Gael won 35, and Sinn Fein won 37. As the election drew closer polls were strongly indicating that Sinn Fein would have a large majority in the Dáil and beat the two competing major political parties. As the election began the exit polls corroborated this pattern, with Sinn Fein appearing more popular than the party in second, Fine Gael by 0.1%. Along with this, Fianna Fail dropped suddenly to 19.5%.
These exit polls trends didn’t last long however, with the final result on the morning of the 1st of December having Sinn Fein winning only 39 seats, whilst Fine Gael won 38, and Fianna Fail, who were projected to do the worst out of the 3 largest parties, won 48 seats in the Dáil House. One of the possible reasons for the exit polls being so flagrantly inaccurate in terms of the final result is the elderly population of Ireland, who are more likely to vote for the more conservative parties and are more hesitant of taking polls about how they voted, inflating the statistics in favour of Sinn Fein.
What does the “new” government mean for Ireland? Well it is very likely that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael will enter into another coalition, the same coalition it was before the election. They have made a few new promises to their voters however, most notably the promise to make the Leaving Certificate an “Open Book Exam”, possibly trying to appeal to younger voters. This has faced a lot of opposition from Teaching and School staff, who say this puts more pressure to learn topics faster in a shorter amount of time. The country is facing many challenges, such as the Housing Crisis, Cost of Living, and the Controversy around Immigration. But how will the controlling parties handle these? Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have a history of not handling these well, with homelessness getting worse and worse and the cost of living rising exponentially during the past 20 years of their power. In 2011, 3,808 people in accommodation for the homelessness, compared to 14,000 in 2024, 4,000 of this being children. Fine Gael has been very vague on how they’ll alleviate the crisis, and has never given a number to the amount of houses they plan on building for the homeless.
This election has been full of surprises, and all we can hope is that the current government serves the needs of Ireland, and Ireland's people to their fullest extent.
Ciarán Kildee-Doolan
General Election 2020 - Shift to the Left?- Kian Zambra
With the 2020 General election over with, it's fair to say that this election was one of the most historic in our country's history. Sinn Féin grabbing 37 seats, their best ever since the very first Irish general Election back in 1918. Fine Gael fell down the pecking order a lot, losing 15 seats, the second ever worst election in their history. Fianna Fáil also dropped seats in this election as they lost out on 6 seats. It was a very different election this time around, it wasn't all about FF or FG but in fact SF were clearly the opposition party. It was like a battle, a realization that FF and FG are not going to get it all their way like they have for the past eight decades nearly. It was simply Leo Varadkar and Micheal Martin vs Mary Lou McDonald.
McDonald was left out of the first RTE leaders debate and there was outrage over it. People clearly were seeing the rise of Sinn Féin during this election and McDonald deserved to be on it. When McDonald was included in the second RTE leaders debate it became clear that Mary Lou McDonald and SF were not going to back down to the two dominant parties of Irish politics, FF and FG. Under FG, the housing and health crisis was a mess and if FF comes back into power I doubt anything will change. So why not change? Give a chance to someone else to change this country for the better. FF or FG would be quick enough to help out the bank if they were going through a problem but i don't think they'd be quick enough to help with the homeless crisis. Why not give that chance to Sinn Féin?
Their manifesto states that they plan to build 100,000 new homes, bring in rent freezes and also to drop down the pension age to 65. Some might believe they will do this and some might not, but its a change, a new idea. Sinn Féin have never been given a mandate to be in the position they are in now. They will need to talk to other parties if they want to enter the next government, they need to use this mandate they have for proper change in the country. It's clear that people in our republic are tired of the FG-FF rule and the people have made their voices heard.
The FG leader Leo Varakar didn't even get a first preference vote in his own constituency. In fact the first ever Taoiseach to do so and he also got elected on the 6th count. Does that not cry out for change? I would like to see Sinn Fein take charge of our next government alongside the Green Party, Social Democrats and more others so that they can establish a real left government. It could take weeks until a new government or maybe even a second general election. All I know is that there is a real urge for change in Ireland and it looks like the FG-FF rule will be slowly but surely coming to an end in this state.