Kevin Cunningham

Lecturer in Politics at Technological University Dublin

Government resilience?

The fact that there is very little change in this election compared to that of 2020 is remarkable in its own right. Governments tend to lose at least some support from one election to the next. And yet, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael lost only a tiny amount of their 2020 vote share. The relative popularity of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael seems to be the result of a perception of competence concerning their management of the economy.

Amidst significant warnings about the future of the economy there was a significant rise in the importance of this issue in the campaign. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (the former in particular) are perceived to be the most competent on this issue.

Two years ago, support for the opposition Sinn Féin peaked at roughly 37 per cent, at a time when the cost-of-living crisis was at its highest. In the intervening months and years Sinn Féin support declined just as the issue itself declined. The cost-of-living crisis was an issue previously ‘owned’ by Sinn Féin, but the government’s significant direct public spending seemed to have won it significant support and softened the issue. Those that left Sinn Féin since 2022 have gone in three directions: half have left to independents, a quarter to the ‘soft’ left and a quarter to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Those that returned to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gale were people on higher incomes who had previously held concerns in relation to the cost of living, but no longer did so.

At the end of the campaign, the Irish government attempted to focus its attention on the economy. This seems to have paid off, as there was a surge in the number of people citing the economy as determining their choice. The vast majority of them tended to vote for Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.

The result, however, somewhat flatters the parties of government and masks a rise in support for independents and other parties. In the election, Fianna Fáil won 27 per cent of the seats on just 22 per cent of the vote. This is quite a disproportional outcome for a typical Irish election. The reason for this is that independents and small parties tend to be less efficient at converting votes into seats, and in this case terribly so. Independent and others (including Aontú and Independent Ireland) rose by approximately 7 per cent, and yet have gone backwards in terms of their share of the overall number of seats. This inefficiency in the independent vote has flattered the seat totals for the other parties. 

 
The failure of the radical right and the role of the independents

The radical right failed to make any ground in the 2024 Irish general elections. There was considerable concern about the prospect of a rise of the radical right coming into this election, following patterns in other European countries.

The issue of immigration has risen significantly as a top concern following an arguably poorly handled rise in asylum seekers. The riots in Dublin last year and subsequent protests and events at asylum centres in rural villages punctuated what seemed like a never-ending ratcheting of the issue. Much of the collapse in Sinn Féin’s vote since 2022 had been voters who were concerned about immigration leaving the party. At the European elections, radical right parties achieved 4.9 per cent, not including affiliated independent candidates. At the general election, however, the four radical right parties won just 1.5 per cent.

One explanation is that the issue of immigration has declined in prominence in recent months. Another concerns the vagaries of the proportional representation with a single transferrable vote (PR-STV) in Ireland. The electoral system and political culture allow for independent candidates to get elected in numbers that would be rather unusual elsewhere. Polling data would show that the type of voter that might otherwise support a radical right party will vote for independent candidates. They are the most likely to hold both populist anti-party and anti-immigration views. Of course, not all independents align with this perspective. Many are left-wing, and many are successful as a consequence of local activity. In some respect, through their campaign activity, they nullify the impact of populism by bringing politics closer to the otherwise disaffected voter. Local activity is, in fact, quite important in Irish elections, as 55 per cent of voters report being canvassed by a campaign during the final two weeks. This partly explains the relative success of Fianna Fáil, which is the party with the strongest activity on the ground.

The role of housing

Housing remained the top concern for voters for much of the electoral cycle and it was the issue most likely to be cited as determining the vote, albeit for a minority of voters. Renters overwhelmingly support Sinn Féin – 31 per cent of those in the private rental sector and 41 per cent of those in council housing support the party.

Support for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael is much stronger among older cohorts. The two parties won  64 per cent of the vote among those aged 75 and older, but just 22 per cent of those aged 18-24. Younger women also tend to be the most likely to vote for left-wing parties such as Sinn Féin, Social Democrats and PBP-Solidarity . Much of this difference is explained by housing status. A regression analysis comparing the role of age and housing tenure indicates that housing tenure is a far stronger determinant of vote choice, and that the role of age is a mere artefact of the housing tenure. Among those in the private rental sector just 22 per cent vote for Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, and only 11 per cent of those who live in council housing.

The campaign was important

Fine Gael had called the election on foot of being the most popular party in the country. However, one pattern that was observed recently is how voters seem to move quickly during the first week of the campaign. This has happened in a number of jurisdictions. It also happened in Ireland in 2020 and again in 2024. During the first week, there was a sharp decline of 4 to 6 per cent in support for Fine Gael. Perhaps one of the most significant incidents of the campaign was an embarrassing encounter by Taoiseach Simon Harris with a carer in Kanturk, a town in the south of the country. The poll shock, however, happened before this incident and was perhaps the result of the release of a range of arguably excessive policy promises from Fine Gael otherwise regarded as the most fiscally conservative. The polling data at that time seem to suggest that promising to spend excessively, though obviously tempting, can have a negative impact on trust and public support for the parties doing the promising.

Photo credits: Shutterstock.com/Derick P. Hudson