The 29 November parliamentary elections in Ireland marked the end of a tumultuous mandate. For the first time, power was shared between the country’s two main centre-right parties, Fine Gael (FG) and Fianna Fáil (FF), along with the Green Party. As in other countries, shocks such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine presented significant challenges for the government. There were also domestic upsets, however, such as controversy around the state’s response to institutional abuse, far-right violence targeting asylum-seekers, and a double defeat for the government in the Family and Care referendums earlier this year. The latter led to the resignation of the Taoiseach (prime minister) Leo Varadkar (FG), with Simon Harris (FG) stepping in as a replacement. Harris was the third to occupy the position during the mandate, which had been held by Micheál Martin (FF) for the first half of the term, in line with the terms of the coalition agreement.  

Back to the good times?  

In deciding on the timing of the election, the government faced two key considerations. First, it was keen to reap the benefits of its latest budget, which pledged generous investments in a range of public services as well as measures to ease the cost of living crisis, particularly for families. The so-called “giveaway budget” was made possible by a relatively healthy economic context, with government finances bolstered by a windfall of corporate taxes – a far cry from the ruinous situation the country was faced with 16 years ago, and the austerity policies which followed.  

At the same time, the government hoped to capitalise on positive popularity ratings for its key figures, as well as to take advantage of difficulties faced by its opponents. The main opposition party, Sinn Féin, was mired in a series of scandals, and had suffered a significant drop in its poll ratings – which had been in decline since reaching an all-time high of 36 per cent of voter intentions in 2022.  

Despite promising a “new energy” as its main slogan, Fine Gael’s offer to voters was characterised by investment in key areas such as housing and health, but also economic prudence and responsibility, with Harris emphasising the need to put money aside for a “rainy day”. Fianna Fáil adopted a similar approach, promising to secure the country’s economic future while easing the burden of inflation on families and businesses and investing in schools, housing, and healthcare.   

The Green Party’s central strategy was to defend its record through its mantra that “Greens deliver”. Having been in government for several years, the Greens recognised it would be difficult to present themselves as a break with the past, so instead they sought votes primarily from those who approved of the government’s performance. “We emphasised stability but also that we knew how to make change happen in government,” says Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman. The party’s campaign highlighted initiatives to alleviate the cost of childcare and improve public transport, as well as key campaign promises that had been kept – such as passing ambitious climate legislation.  

Lines of attack 

For the left-wing Irish republican Sinn Féin (SF), the watchword was “change”, with the party aiming to present itself as a plain-speaking alternative to the establishment and a challenge to the hubris of the two large governing parties – or as leader Mary Lou McDonald put it in the final leaders debate, putting an end to “a century of Tweedledum and Tweedledee”.    

SF criticised the government for failing to find adequate solutions to the housing crisis and overseeing widening inequality and declining living standards, in spite of a booming economy. Other opposition parties also took up this narrative of the government mismanaging public funds. The recently founded right-wing party Aontú drew attention to controversies surrounding the construction of a 300.000-euro bike shed on the grounds of the Oireachtas (parliament), and projects such as a children’s hospital and housing for refugees that had massively overshot their planned budgets.  

The left-wing Social Democrats also denounced “costly vanity projects” and described the government’s attitude as “wasteful”, promising to invest heavily in public services. The Labour Party made similar pledges and also adopted a strong focus on environmental and sustainability questions. As a result, Labour was ranked first by environmental NGOs in their assessment of the parties’ climate action pledges, followed by the Social Democrats. Greens came third, while the three largest parties were all deemed to have failed.  

Housing consensus 

Exit polls showed housing, the cost of living, and healthcare were the biggest issues for voters at the election. But these priorities were not equally shared across society. Housing and homelessness were twice as important for those aged under 25 as it was for those over 65, and residents of the capital Dublin were most concerned. The cost of living was also a bigger issue for younger voters, while health was a greater preoccupation for older citizens. 

During the campaign, the chronic situation facing renters, would-be homeowners, and the homeless, was a central topic. Ireland has been experiencing record homelessness and relentless rent inflation. Housing rights organisations such as Focus Ireland drew attention to the fact that there are currently 14,760 people in emergency accommodation – the highest number ever recorded in the country, and one which has increased month on month over the past two years. The proportion of the adult population renting their homes has also doubled over the past two decades.  

Being held responsible and punished for the failings of a government despite their limited power within it is something the Greens have prior experience of.

There are a number of reasons why successive governments have struggled to effectively address this issue. Ireland’s housing system is heavily financialised and commodified. Like the UK and the Netherlands, the Irish system is characterised by the intensive use of mortgages, with much less emphasis on social housing. Much of the limited social housing stock was sold off, allowing people to buy their social houses and resell them at market rates, pocketing the difference.  

Michael Byrne, a lecturer at University College Dublin, argues that the current crisis has made housing a much bigger feature of political debate in Ireland, but also, paradoxically, much less polarised. Right-wing parties have generally favoured relying on the market while left-wing parties called for a larger public sector. Since right-wing parties have generally been in power, government intervention in the housing market was very limited until the 2008 financial crash.  

Since then, the intensity and scale of the housing crisis have increasingly blurred the difference between government and opposition. While SF was able to take considerable ownership of this issue at the previous election, there is now broad consensus that affordable housing schemes must be radically scaled up. Despite being centre-right parties, the policies of FF and FG, particularly on rental accommodation, put them to the left of most social-democratic parties in Europe. Initiatives like Rent Pressure Zones have ushered in some of the strictest rent controls in the world. This political alignment has meant the debate has become much more technical in nature, with parties focusing on implementation rather than the substance of which type of housing policy to pursue.  

Certain divisions remain, however. FF and FG want to expand their support for first-time buyers purchasing private housing; SF, the Social Democrats, and Labour all argue that such measures are inflationary and therefore counterproductive – they want to phase these schemes out in favour of an exclusive focus on public housing options. The opposition parties also want to further reduce costs in the rental sector. FF and FG, on the other hand, are proposing no new protections for tenants.  

Lessons learned 

Ahead of the election, it was predicted that migration could be among the most salient, and divisive, topics in the public debate. Ireland has seen a sharp rise in asylum applications, and government initiatives to house refugees have generated a strong backlash in some parts of the country. Several right-wing and far-right parties emphasised migration in their manifestoes, as did some populist independents, but ultimately it proved to be a secondary concern for voters. Some suggested the heat had been taken out of the issue following public debates around the European and local elections that took place earlier in the year, which led to many parties hardening their stance on the issue.  

To prevent disinformation from undermining civic debate, the government brought in additional staff to support communications and issued new, enhanced guidelines for broadcasters.  

In October, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue highlighted the inadequate response of platforms to posts making false and misleading claims around the local elections. It warned that, “before a crucial general election, the state’s ability to respond to the threat posed by bad actors, disinformation and electoral interference remains dangerously ineffectual.” 

Later, an investigation by Global Witness revealed that video-sharing platform TikTok approved ads containing disinformation ahead of the election, pointing to a lack of adequate moderation, particularly regarding content in the Irish language.  

Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman noted a stark difference in the tone of the election campaign which was “less tense and less polarised” compared to the one which preceded the local and European elections, when “people were very angry, and very angry with the Greens in particular.” During that campaign, “Migration was coming up all the time,” he said, but “significantly less so this time.”  

Taking stock 

This anger may have faded but the Green Party still suffered a significant defeat in the elections – losing more than half its vote share (4.1 per cent) and all but one of its 12 TDs (members of parliament). Only O’Gorman was returned to his seat. This blow came after the party lost both of its seats in the European Parliament in June.  

FF emerged as the biggest winner of the elections, with 48 seats, an increase of 10. SF followed with 39 seats, while FG took 38. Labour and the Social Democrats both made significant gains to reach 11 seats each, while 16 seats went to independent candidates.  

Even if Irish politics has not witnessed the bolstering of extremes as seen elsewhere in Europe, there is a broader trend of fragmentation at work.

The result suggests evidence of geographic and generational divides. A majority of those over 65 voted for FG and FF, while SF proved popular among young people – more so than Greens. SF saw their best performance among voters in Dublin and northern counties, while independents did well in more rural areas. Labour and the Social Democrats did best in Dublin and less in rural parts of the country. Right-wing populist party Independent Ireland achieved the largest number of first preference votes in rural Roscommon-Galway.  

The results also showed an increasing degree of votes being transferred between FG and FF, whereas in the past the divisions between supporters of the two parties have been sharper – a century-old legacy of Ireland’s civil war. Finally, the results confirmed once again the importance of the local dimension in Ireland, with incumbents and those with a strong profile in their local communities often having an advantage.  

A tough climate for Greens 

The Greens’ campaign message of pointing to their record of delivering in government failed to hit its mark, as did its promises to deliver change. “We fell between two stools,” says O’Gorman. While SF and other progressive parties scooped up most of the votes for change, “the stability vote all went to FF and FG.” He added: “There has been a retreat to those two parties from most people, as in previous elections.” 

Being held responsible and punished for the failings of a government despite their limited power within it is something the Greens have prior experience of. The Green Party suffered a similar wipeout following its role in the coalition government between 2007 and 2011. But there were other dynamics at work this time. “The narrative that Greens have added to people’s cost of living was very strong,” O’Gorman explains. This belief was based primarily on the impact of carbon taxes. Greens did their best to counter it with the facts about their achievements in government, including those to assist people with the cost of living such as bringing down energy bills, but “it was hard for that to break through”. The narrative gained traction as it was reinforced not just by opposition parties (McDonald described carbon taxes as “punitive”) but also by the party’s coalition partners. 

As in recent elections elsewhere, Greens suffered from environmental and climate issues being superseded by other priorities. Despite the recent floods in Spain attracting some attention, “climate was largely absent” from the debate, O’Gorman says. The role it played in public debates in the run-up to 2020 was something of an exception, and it has returned to being “a tangential issue in Irish politics” – a reminder that “Greens need more arrows in the quiver than just the climate” if they are to win elections.  

As it enters a phase of rebuilding following the disappointing result, the party remains in a better position today than 13 years ago – having cleared the 2 per cent threshold to receive state funding as well as retaining a seat. For O’Gorman, there are key lessons to be learned: first, the importance of the party asserting ownership of its proposals and victories in government from the outset, in order to be seen as a bearer of solutions and improvements to people’s lives. And second, the need to “fight vigorously from day one to defend yourself from those who attack you.” 

Trends of fragmentation 

Reacting to the result, SF leader McDonald proclaimed it marked the end of “two-party politics”. Yet while SF’s vote share has increased substantially over the past decades, in these elections the party suffered the biggest drop in support for any party (6 per cent) and the first fall in its vote share in 35 years. This drop in support also suggests there is little chance of any significant developments in the campaign for Irish reunification in the mandate ahead (McDonald had pledged to call for a vote on the issue if SF emerged as the winner of the election.)  

The path for power remains unclear and coalition talks may be difficult: FG and FF are two seats short of the required number for a majority but both ruled out SF as a coalition partner during the campaign. As a result, they will need to strike a coalition deal with other smaller parties or independents. 

The failure of far-right parties to break through in a significant way has been attributed to their narrow outlook – with campaigns that deployed typical anti-establishment and anti-immigration rhetoric, but were vague on the core issues voters prioritised. However, the overall vote share of far-right candidates continues on an upward trajectory. Therefore, even if Irish politics has not witnessed the bolstering of extremes as seen elsewhere in Europe, there is a broader trend of fragmentation at work: while either FF or FG have been in power in Ireland for the past century, their combined vote share is in decline. 

This time, however, it seems voters have opted for continuity and the familiar, over radical change. It remains to be seen, however, whether the centre-right can implement solutions to tackle people’s key concerns – which in areas such as housing are becoming increasingly urgent and public debate increasingly heated – and what the consequences of failure may be. The continued fall in voter turnout, which hit a record low of 59.7 per cent, is also a cause for concern when viewed in the context of the rising number of emboldened far-right voices in the political landscape.