I recently saw a table showing the decline in the combined Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael vote from 1981 to the present. It was a stark reminder of the long-term changes in Irish politics, and of the potential for further change.
In 1981 Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael commanded 81.8% of the vote, the entire remainder of the political spectrum - such as it was - took less than 20%. At the height of the Celtic Tiger and just before the economic crash the FF-FG vote was still 68.9%, having fallen just 12 percentage points. But by the 2024 General election it was only 42.7% and in the most recent opinion poll (April Red C) this had shrunk further to 32%.
This change has been a very long time coming. The year 1981 was a significant turning point because that general election dashed Fianna Fáil’s hopes of an overall majority. Two IRA prisoners in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh were elected in June 1981 - hunger striker Kieran Doherty in Cavan-Monaghan and protesting prisoner Paddy Agnew in Louth. Kieran Doherty was one of the ten hunger strikers who died in the H-Blocks that tragic summer. Fianna Fáil never again won an overall majority, having done so repeatedly between 1932 and 1977, their terms in government occasionally interspersed with Fine Gael-Labour coalitions.
Although there were no more overall majorities, the domination of FF and FG continued throughout the 1980s and 1990s. As the vote of these two parties combined continued to shrink, they still found ways to retain office. Labour provided coalition partners to Fine Gael on several occasions and once to Fianna Fáil. And Fianna Fáil relied on their former party colleagues in the Progressive Democrats.
But, since 2016 Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have depended on each other to govern and in 2020 nearly all pretence was removed when they entered a formal coalition with ‘rotating Taoisigh’. A second such coalition followed in 2024. The only reason these two parties still have any separate existence today is because they know that a merger would likely see the new entity get less votes than the total vote of the two parties running separately.
However, if we on the left are honest with ourselves, we must recognise that while the FF and FG share of the vote has declined in the long term, the total vote of the left has not increased sufficiently to outweigh the old conservative bloc. Or, at least it hasn’t yet. And here is our challenge and opportunity. How do we grow that left vote further?
Each party of the left is of course working to increase its own vote and these parties compete with each other as well as with FF & FG. But isn’t it time we recognised that the entire left can be greater than the sum of its parts? That’s surely one of the lessons of the Catherine Connolly campaign. While admittedly we were blessed with the ineptitude of our opponents, the campaign was able to reach beyond the support base of the left parties and elect a president. That was no small achievement.
There has been talk of building on the Connolly victory, but little has happened thus far. As I write we are in the middle of the Dublin Central and Galway West by-elections. Beyond calls to vote left and transfer left there is no formal co-operation between the parties. But perhaps this is to be expected as we have not reached a further stage of cooperation.
The question is what kind of co-operation could we move towards? In my view it has to be driven by a vision of change and based on sound policy. If that can be done, electoral co-operation in whatever form can be considered. Much of this happens already in the Oireachtas as on many issues Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats, Labour and PBP are on the same page. But the critical point is that at present ordinary people do not really believe that an electable alternative government exists.
How do we build that alternative and mobilise for its success in the next General Election? A common platform of agreed positions would be a start. This could include:
● Real and effective measures to assist working people and families in the cost of living crisis.
● Government and local authority led housing programmes to finally tackle the housing crisis, putting public need before market greed.
● Reform and investment in healthcare to provide care based on need and to end the two-tier system
● Energy sovereignty, including public ownership and control of electricity generation
● Defence of Irish neutrality and independent foreign policy, retaining the triple lock and enacting the Occupied Territories Bill
● A Citizens Assembly on Irish Unity and Irish government push for the referendum as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement.
Any agreed platform should be broad; we will not agree on everything. But it should be solid and distinct enough from FF and FG to win public support beyond the support bases of the left parties. The label ‘left’ in itself means little to most people. We must set out a vision of what a government without FF and FG would mean for people’s lives and for a better Irish society, based on community, solidarity and the sovereignty of the people.
Such a platform could appeal to and include the trade union movement, those involved at all levels of community development and, crucially, those at present without a political home and disillusioned with Irish politics. The conservative parties FF and FG as well as the far right feed off disillusionment and cynicism. Our job is to show there is a positive way forward and that not only is there hope of real change, but it is entirely possible if we work together to achieve it.
Mícheál Mac Donncha is a Sinn Féin Dublin City Councillor. He is former Lord Mayor of Dublin and former Editor of An Phoblacht. He writes here in a personal capacity.