Paul McElhinney: Sinn Fein may find itself in a stronger position at the next election

Most recently (November 29, 2024), elections took place in the south for the Dáil with important implications for both north and south. Of the main parties, Fianna Fail won 46 seats, Sinn Fein 38 and Fine Gael, 37.

With such a strong showing by the two traditional parties of government (Fianna Fail and Fine Gael), there was little likelihood of any role for Sinn Fein in such a government. Fine Gael still regards Sinn Fein as ‘a toxic brand’. They are not much liked either by Fianna Fail and its leader, Micheal Martin.

With no single party gaining an overall majority of seats, discussions are still ongoing on the formation of a government. It is now over six weeks since the November election, as the deadline for forming a government is fast approaching. The likelihood is for there to be some deal with a requisite number of independents to ensure safe passage of legislation.

The election result for Sinn Fein can only be seen as a notable failure for the party. Many pundits and party stalwarts had been pointing for many months to the election as being the opportunity for Sinn Fein to make the final breakthrough into government.

With a government facing mounting problems with the electorate on issues such as health, housing, immigration and the cost of living, the auguries looked good for Sinn Fein capitalising on this turmoil. This was not to be and much criticism for the failure has fallen upon the shoulders of party leader Mary Lou McDonald for her strategy in the election.

The result was also a major blow to Sinn Fein’s all-Ireland strategy. Having already succeeded in gaining the largest number of seats in the latest Northern Ireland Assembly elections, the icing on the cake for them would have been winning a majority in the Dail elections.

The southern electorate was clearly not prepared to stomach such an outcome. For many southerners, Sinn Fein’s dark past is still a live issue. Equivocal responses by the party’s leadership to past events or past IRA figures do little to instil confidence in the southern electorate that the party has fully turned the corner.

In the pre-election period and even more so in the post-election scenario, Sinn Fein was unable to consolidate a left alliance with such parties as Labour and the Social Democrats to aim at cobbling together a governmental alternative to the Fianna Fail/Fine Gael behemoth. The party now seems consigned to the opposition benches over the course of the next Dail, albeit as the largest opposition party.

What is certain is that the party needs to engage in a serious and in-depth analysis of what went wrong for them in the 2024 election. With such positive opinion polls sometime prior to the election, the party’s failure at the election needs to be explained to their party faithful and corrected.

What implications has this for Northern Ireland? Northern unionists clearly will not be disappointed at Sinn Fein’s poor performance and at the fact they will not be forming part of a southern government. At the same time, this optimism may only be short-lived if Sinn Fein is able to re-group over time and be in a stronger position by the time of the next election.

Other parties like Alliance and the SDLP will not shed any tears for Sinn Fein, north or south of the border, and are probably happy with the maintenance of the status quo.

The southern election showed little enthusiasm among most of the parties for a border poll, Sinn Fein doing a ‘solo run’ on the issue. Brexit is now less of an explosive issue in North-South and Anglo-Irish relations, but a weather eye needs to be kept on the issue as it has the potential to sour relations among all parties.

Northern unionists should also take comfort from the generally better relations forged by Martin and Harris with the new UK government under Starmer. Setting the right tone in which to do business is important and the new principals in Anglo-Irish relations have made great headway in a relatively short period of time.

Relations should be further improved with a continuation of the more pragmatic, emollient and clear-sighted leadership of Micheal Martin and Simon Harris. As mentioned, discussions are ongoing to fine-tune a deal between the main parties, but the outcome is already virtually pre-ordained. A broad continuation of the ‘status quo’ is expected.

Understandably, unionist concern with Sinn Fein is more focused on what they do north of the border. That said, they should be careful not to assume that Sinn Fein’s recent poor performance in the south is necessarily part of a long term trend.

Inevitably, the new southern government will face the usual brickbats from the electorate which all incumbent governments face. A newly-revitalised Sinn Fein may thus find itself in a stronger position at the next election. There is all to play for for all the main parties in the south over the next several years.

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l Paul McElhinney is a full-time writer living in Wexford. He was an official in the Department of the Taoiseach in the 1980s and a corporate executive with an international oil and gas company in London and Washington D.C. in the 1990s. He has also acted as a consultant and has lectured at third level. He has had published a biography of Sir George Beamish, ‘The Lion of the RAF’, and his main interests are in politics, history, sport and culture.