If and when Sinn Féin undertakes a postmortem on its performance in this general election, the party will be able to point to some undeniable strengths. One of these has been its effective seat maximisation strategy, which saw the party returning more TDs to the new Dáil than Fine Gael, despite trailing that party in the popular vote.
Sinn Féin can also congratulate itself on its message discipline. That has been particularly in evidence during this post-election period, with senior party figures lining up to declare that this was a good result for them.
Sometimes, though, what may appear as strengths are actually weaknesses. If Sinn Féin lets its positive seat return mask its failure to make ground with the electorate, and if it tells itself the story it is attempting to tell the public, it is storing up problems for its own future.
In fact, the scale of the party’s setback is striking. It has been noted how Ireland’s election bucked the international anti-incumbent trend. The corollary is that this was one of the rare contests where the leading Opposition party saw its support actually fall. While other Opposition parties in the State received more votes this time than in 2020, Sinn Féin lost one in five of those who had supported it at the last general election.
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When its support began to tumble earlier this year, the party moved to shore up its base. Following the defeat of the family and care referendums, Mary Lou McDonald swiftly dropped her pledge that a Sinn Féin-led government would re-run those votes. After its poor performance in the European and local elections, the party radically changed its tone and policy on the treatment of applicants for temporary or international protection. It then completed a sharp U-turn on hate crime and hate speech legislation, not only calling for the removal of the speech elements but also opposing its more expansive definition of gender.
In executing these policy changes Sinn Féin tacitly accepted that the broader electoral coalition, which had brought it to dizzy heights in opinion polls a year earlier, was crumbling, and that it needed to prioritise its traditional base.
To some extent the retrenchment worked, although it will hamper the party’s scope for future growth.
It now seems unlikely that it can rebuild that old electoral coalition. If Labour and the Social Democrats stay out of government, Sinn Féin faces greater competition on the Opposition benches, along with further criticism of the apparent ease with which it has jettisoned policies.
The time has clearly come for the party to conduct a rigorous and searching examination of its policies, leadership and internal culture. If it fails to do so, it will surely find itself once again at the next election failing to offer a convincing alternative to the incumbent government.