EMPHATIC ‘NO’ TO REFERENDUMS
On the face of it, the plan seemed so simple. Ministers sat around the Cabinet table and agreed that the Constitution should be updated and that “outdated” references to a woman’s life within the home should be removed. What better day to do this than on March 8th, International Women’s Day?
While there was a creeping anxiety within Government ranks about the plans, politicians hung on to the fact that countless forums, groups, committees and conventions had met to consider the issue, and that all, in 15 separate reports, had recommended some form of change.
But there were landmines there from the very beginning, and what would transpire would be one of the largest-ever percentage No votes in the history of Irish referendums. The referendum on family – which proposed extending the definition of family to those based on durable relationships as well as those based on marriage – was defeated with 67.69 per cent voting No.
The referendum on care – which proposed deleting the reference to a woman’s life in the home and a mother’s duties in the home and replacing it with a recognition of care within the family – was also heavily defeated, with 73.9 per cent voting No.
There were a number of reasons why the public so emphatically rejected what was proposed. When it came to public consideration in the Dáil and Seanad, the process was seen as being a rushed affair. Secondly, Opposition politicians made it clear that their support was given to the Government with great reluctance. They thought the proposal did not go far enough, and that care within the community should have been recognised rather than limiting it to care within the home.
But the biggest problem was that many people with disabilities felt left behind in the referendum debate. Senator Tom Clonan’s arguments really cut through with the public. Clonan argued that the proposed article 42b “gives constitutional expression to an ableist view that disabled citizens must rely on family members for care – and deliberately excludes the right to an independent, autonomous life in the community”.
A TAOISEACH RESIGNS
Although Leo Varadkar said that the defeats of the Family and Care referendums had nothing to do with his shock decision to step down as taoiseach in April, it was evident that the Government which he headed up had significantly misread the room. This was the backdrop to the morning of Wednesday, March 20th, when word flew around political circles that a big announcement was in the ether. Someone very senior was resigning.
When the press notice went out stating that Varadkar would address the media, it was clear there was a political earthquake brewing. Declaring that he was “no longer the best person” for the job of taoiseach, Varadkar said there were “loyal colleagues and good friends contesting the local and European elections” and “I want to give them the best chance possible. I think they will now have a better chance under a new leader.”
Giving an insight into some of the potential personal reasons behind his decision, he said that “politicians are human beings. We have our limitations. We give it everything until we can’t any more, and then we have to move on.” His dramatic resignation triggered a leadership contest in Fine Gael, which Simon Harris won comprehensively.
The Wicklow TD would be faced with a unique problem as no fewer than 18 Fine Gael TDs planned to step away from the politics at the general election, with speculation mounting over the summer about when that election would be. As Harris’s personal approval ratings climbed towards the end of the summer, pressure from within the ranks of Government TDs grew to call a snap election, and that election called for November 29th.
SINN FÉIN TAKES A BATTERING IN LOCAL ELECTIONS
After making historic gains in the 2020 general election, it seemed for a while as though the Sinn Féin juggernaut could not be stopped. The party’s popularity peaked at 36 per cent in the summer of 2022, according to The Irish Times Ipsos polling series. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald had promised that Sinn Féin would be the strongest and loudest Opposition in the history of the State, as frontbench TDs got to work presenting themselves as a credible government-in-waiting.
The emergence of immigration as a white-hot topic in the public sphere put the first dampener on the party’s march. At anti-immigration protests, posters of Sinn Féin members were held aloft with the words “traitors” as the party, to its credit, did not bow to forces on the far-right. After months of simmering tensions, an attack on a school in Dublin triggered riots in the capital in November of last year.
Sinn Féin’s response was to call for the resignation of the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee. Some believe that this strategy misfired, with a sense creeping in that any such move to remove the Minister would be destabilising, and a further boon to the far right. This year, the party’s misery was compounded by its decision to not only back the family and care referendums, but also to promise to re-run them if they were unsuccessful, a pledge that was swiftly dropped when the results came in. In the lead-up to the local elections, candidates reported a palpable anger against Sinn Féin, particularly in working-class areas.
[ What on earth happened to Sinn Féin?Opens in new window ]
McDonald said she couldn’t walk the length of her own shadow without being told that she had not run enough candidates in the 2020 general election, and so she announced that she would run 335 candidates in this summer’s local elections. In the end, against those headwinds, Sinn Féin won less than 12 per cent of the national vote and only 102 of those 335 candidates were successful.
FIANNA FÁIL EMERGES ON TOP
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman stole Taoiseach Simon Harris’s thunder when he told journalists that he felt the general election should be called early and held on November 29th. It turns out that this was exactly the plan. Further compounding the sense of anti-climax, Fianna Fáil leader Michéal Martin also broke cover on The Irish Times Inside Politics Podcast to change his stance from wanting an election in February 2025 to being open to an earlier polling day.
At the outset of the campaign, Fine Gael had an early lead with 25 per cent in The Irish Times/Ipsos poll. Behind the scenes, Fine Gaelers celebrated the advantage. A series of campaign missteps, however, would conspire to work against the party. These included controversial comments about teachers made by Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary during the campaign launch of Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke; a tetchy interaction between Harris and a care worker in Kanturk resulting in a viral clip; and a surprisingly stumbling performance by Harris in the leaders’ debates on TV.
An Irish Times election readers’ panel also reported feeling anxiety about the number of big-money promises being made by all of the main parties during the campaign at a time when a new Trump administration was promising to target Ireland’s corporation tax windfalls.
The end result was an election campaign which left many voters cold. With Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald stumbling over policy questions, and Harris trying to overcome those campaign missteps, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin emerged as something of an experienced steady hand. He steered his party towards winning 48 Dáil seats and 21.9 per cent of the national vote. For a party that was regarded as financially toxic just 15 years ago, the Fianna Fáil resurgence was notable. The victory also appeared to give Martin and his government-formation negotiating team the upper hand at the outset of discussions.
AND ... A RUSSIAN SPY IN THE DÁIL?
One of the more unexpected events of the 2024 political year came in the form of a front-page story from the Irish edition of the Sunday Times. “Revealed: Putin has an agent in the Oireachtas” was the headline, on October 6th. The report alleged that an Oireachtas member, nicknamed “Cobalt”, had been recruited during Brexit talks, but had not been paid and had not accessed sensitive information. The story said the politician had been recruited by Russian intelligence services as “an agent of influence”.
The alleged Russian agent had apparently offered to help establish links between Russians and paramilitaries in Northern Ireland during Brexit talks, despite not having links to said paramilitary groups. The newspaper also reported that investigators found no evidence of the parliamentarian – who was monitored by gardaí and the Defence Forces – receiving payments from Russia. The Sunday Times also claimed that the Russians had used a “honeypot” – an agent who seeks to romantically engage a target – as part of the recruitment operation.
The reaction from senior politicians was varied. Tánaiste Micheál Martin said he did not know who the person was, or whether the story was true, but that as Minister for Defence he had never been briefed about there being a spy in the Dáil or Seanad. He said he was taoiseach during the dates when this individual was allegedly recruited.
Taoiseach Simon Harris said that while he would not comment directly on matters of national security, he stated that Ireland was “not immune” to Russian attempts to sway public opinion. “It shouldn’t come as any surprise to any of us that Russia seeks to influence public opinion, seeks to distort public opinion, and is active in relation to that across the world, and that Ireland is not immune from that.”
Pressed on whether he was aware who the alleged agent is, Harris said: “We never comment in this country, and I’m not really sure of any country that does comment in relation to security matters. Not commenting is not giving a view one way or the other, it’s saying that we don’t ever put information in relation to security, national security, into the public domain. That’s not to say that these matters aren’t taken extraordinarily seriously.”
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