The first of three pieces I produced for the final project of my Newspaper Journalism (MA) course, exploring the political implications of Covid-19 across Europe
Four months on from a disastrous election result, coronavirus has changed everything, as Ireland’s age-old rivals prepare to enter government together for the first time in history
Joan Collins was halfway through her re-election campaign in Dublin South-Central when she began to notice things changing. It was early February, and Ireland’s general election was approaching.
“Knocking on the doors, initially it was just ‘no to Fianna Fáil, no to Fine Gael’. People were very supportive and friendly. But then we started noticing the momentum coming in behind Sinn Féin,” says Collins, a member of the left-wing Independents4Change.
After almost a century in power, Ireland’s two traditionally dominant parties were about to be dealt a blow – largely the consequence of built-up anger over austerity. Collins thinks the sea change began when it became clear that the state broadcaster, RTE, was planning to exclude Sinn Féin from a television debate. Following a wave of outrage, the decision was reversed - but the damage was done.
“It started taking momentum from there and it was just phenomenal,” says Collins, who held her seat. She may even have benefitted from the Sinn Féin wave, as Ireland’s single transferable vote (STV) system means voters rank their choices from first to last preference. Sinn Féin’s success boosted left-leaning candidates into the upper reaches of those swing-voters’ ballot cards.
It looked as if the two old parties had lost their credibility for some years to come. Fast-forward through the Covid-19 pandemic, and the two are preparing to govern together for the first time in history.
Under the plan for government, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin will take over as Taoiseach (prime minister), before handing the job back to the current Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, in December 2022 – halfway through the parliament’s lifespan.
In the wake of the deal’s announcement, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald appeared on Sky News to say she wasn’t surprised “the two establishment parties have coalesced to keep us out”, while deputy leader Pearse Doherty was quick to decry the incoming government as “not the change that people voted for”.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil won’t admit it, but they’re the same as one another
Michael Collins TD
“If there was no Covid-19, then there would have been savage resentment to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil going in together,” says independent TD (MP) Michael Collins. “They won’t admit this, but they’re the same as one another.”
Never before had both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil suffered losses in the same election: one had always profited at the expense of the other – and never before had a party other than them won the popular vote.
“I don’t think anyone could but say that the election was the most extraordinary in the history of the Irish state,” says Gary Murphy, professor of politics at Dublin City University, “particularly because only eight months earlier, Sinn Féin had done spectacularly poorly in local and European elections.”
In the election’s aftermath, it was assumed that Varadkar would take his party, Fine Gael, out of government.
“Coronavirus has changed things in quite a significant way,” says Prof Murphy. “After the election, Fine Gael were insistent, because they’d come third, that it wasn’t up to them to get involved in forming a new government. They’ve always believed that they’re the natural party of government but they’ve now lost 41 seats in just two elections – an extraordinary amount."
Varadkar’s management of the crisis has however had the effect of boosting Fine Gael in the opinion polls: most show them a staggering 15 points up from their election result. This has been partly thanks to a tendency among electorates to stick with the status quo in a crisis, a phenomenon political scientists term the ‘rally around the flag’ effect.
But Varadkar has also performed well in his own right. As a former doctor, he signed up to join his husband, his sisters and their husbands (all also doctors) in keeping the health service afloat, offering his services as a GP in an hour-long phone slot every Sunday. His broadcast to the nation in March was seen by most as reassuring and detail-driven: he made clear that people’s health would take priority over the economy and introduced a strict lockdown.
Leo’s lockdown: how Ireland curbed the virus
27 February – First Covid-19 case on the island of Ireland reported as a woman from northern Italy makes her way from Dublin airport to Belfast, where she develops symptoms.
29 February – First confirmed case in the Republic as a male student returns from Italy.
11 March – An elderly patient in County Kildare is Ireland’s first Covid-19 death.
12 March – Leo Varadkar, away on his annual trip to Washington D.C., announces the immediate closure of schools and universities.
17 March – St Patrick’s Day festivities cancelled in favour of virtual celebrations.
25 March – Opinion poll from Red C/Business Post puts Fine Gael 15 points higher than their general election result, significantly ahead of both Sinn Féin (pushed down into second place) and Fianna Fáil (in third). Every poll since produces similar results.
27 March – Varadkar addresses the nation in a widely praised broadcast, telling all citizens to remain at home wherever possible. He commits to freezing all rents and says there will be no evictions. The over-70s are to be “cocooned” from the virus in their homes and travel for exercise is limited to two kilometres.
5 April – The Irish Times reports that Varadkar (a doctor of seven years before entering politics) has re-joined the medical register and will be working a weekly slot of GP-style phone appointments.
18 May – First phase of lockdown ends as some shops begin to reopen and people are permitted to meet outside in distanced groups of four. Unlike the UK, Ireland only makes this move after its track-and-trace systems are up and running.
25 May – No coronavirus-related deaths reported in the Republic for the first time in 65 days. The neighbouring UK meanwhile announces 134 deaths, albeit with no deaths in Northern Ireland for the first time since 18 March.
Healthcare worker Pete (not his real name), who has previously voted Labour and Fine Gael but gave his first preference to Sinn Féin for the first time in February, says he is “not overly inspired by the make-up of the new government,” though he concedes that “the government under Varadkar have done a really good job in handling the crisis.”
Michael McNamara, an independent TD formerly of the Labour party, also admits he has been impressed: “I do think the government have done well, objectively better than most administrations around the world, and they’re reaping the benefits of that in the polls.”
Varadkar and Martin have also enticed the Green Party into joining them, after offering several concessions on taking Ireland towards a zero-carbon economy – though it remains uncertain if the Green membership will vote to approve the deal. If they vote against it, the proposed government will lack a majority, and all parties will be back to the drawing board on forming a government.
“The Greens haven’t been in power since 2011,” says Prof Murphy, “and they were very badly burned and lost all their seats, coming out of the crash. But this coalition document offers them lots of the policies they were championing, and their voters will be thinking: ‘If not now, when?’”
Prof Murphy argues that if they’re seen to be working hard in government, parties won’t simply be punished for joining it.
“I don’t think there’s anything certain about Irish politics,” he says. “The Irish electorate in the past two elections, 2011 and 2016, hasn’t rewarded parties in power - but the electorate is so fickle and so disloyal now. There was always a great loyalty in Irish politics, up until the crash of 2008. If the parties in government do a decent job in such trying times, they might be rewarded for it.”
Varadkar and Martin are fixated on Ireland’s post-lockdown future, and the inevitable economic damage to come. Foremost in their minds will be the backlash that left them so weakened in February. Many voters had turned for the first time to a party who had been shunned by mainstream politicians for decades, owing to their historic links with the IRA.
“Sinn Féin offered something different, and the people wanted something different,” says Michael Collins. “ They wanted to send a message to the old parties. They had all become too complacent, in particular Fine Gael, to the point of arrogance.
“During the election campaign, down in my own constituency of Cork,” says Mr Collins, “they said they were going to shut down the Accident and Emergency department at Bantry Hospital. It was insanity. Did they think the people of Cork South-West were going to pat them on the back and thank them? They had a fury waiting for them. Cork was the land of Fine Gael, but no longer.”
Timeline of recent Irish politics: the decade of disloyalty
2008 – Global financial crash brings chaos to Ireland’s previously flourishing ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy. Taoiseach Brian Cowen implements a programme of austerity in response.
2011 – General election sees the governing (centrist/centre-right) Fianna Fáil’s vote collapse to its lowest in the history of the Irish state. Their coalition partners, the Greens, lose all six of their seats. Main beneficiaries are (centre-right) Fine Gael and (centre-left) Labour, who become partners in a new coalition. Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny assumes office as Taoiseach.
2016 – Labour are driven to near extinction in an election after a half-decade largely supporting austerity. Fine Gael, too, suffer losses, but manage to remain in power with the support of independent TDs and a confidence and supply arrangement with Fianna Fáil, who show signs of revival.
2017 – Confidence in Kenny begins to waver and he steps down. Fine Gael councillors and TDs outnumber the party membership in electing Leo Varadkar as his successor. The membership’s favourite, Simon Coveney, becomes Tánaiste (deputy PM).
2018-19 – Varadkar participates in talks with British PMs Theresa May and then Boris Johnson to strike a Brexit withdrawal deal that does not undermine the Good Friday Agreement or the integrity of the EU single market. He is lauded for the concessions he wins and enjoys high approval ratings.
2020 – (Left-wing) Irish nationalists Sinn Féin see surprise surge to top the poll in February’s election with 25% of the vote – and would have gained more seats if they had had the foresight to stand more candidates. The Covid-19 pandemic reaches Ireland before serious coalition talks can even begin. Deadlock ensues until a coalition is proposed in June.
Before the financial crash of 2008, Ireland enjoyed a dynamic economy dubbed ‘the Celtic Tiger’. The country was badly hit by the recession and the electorate, as in Britain, voted for austerity at the first opportunity. But after almost a decade of cuts, there was a growing feeling that austerity had gone too far.
“Many people hadn’t come through austerity and hadn’t gained from it,” says Joan Collins. “So many workers are on low pay or in precarious jobs, with poor access to public health and housing. Those years of austerity, it’s like going on strike: you never really recover from it financially. You’re always trying to claw back, paying back mortgages and loans. That’s how a lot of people felt and there was no benefit coming from the government. All the money was going to the vulture funds and tax loopholes. It was a brilliantly educated electorate, when I was knocking on the doors. The lived experience was clear.”
“Particularly on housing,” says Prof Murphy, “people were looking to Sinn Féin’s state-led solutions as being better than the market-led approach of Fine Gael. Fianna Fáil were then tied in the public imagination with Fine Gael, because of the confidence and supply arrangement they’ve had going since 2016.”
Anybody but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael… The emperor’s clothes have been taken off both of them
Joan Collins TD
Joan Collins agrees, claiming that the two old parties governing together “goes against the grain of the mood of the people. I know that mood has changed with Covid-19 but the feeling was so strong. People just saw that we’d had nearly 100 years of them in power. Anybody but Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael… The emperor’s clothes have been taken off both of them.”
While the two old parties have an enormous challenge ahead, Prof Murphy points out that a great deal of the Sinn Féin vote was “not solid” and came from swing voters.
“But Sinn Féin do have the advantage now of a narrative that the establishment parties kept them out of power,” says Prof Murphy, “and that they should be given a proper chance next time, which could increase their vote. That’s why in Fianna Fáil in particular you have some dissenting voices about going into power with Fine Gael in a full coalition, as this will be.
“The enmity between the two parties - which one would have thought nearly 100 years after the foundation of the state, should have dissipated - still runs deep. What we can safely say is that Sinn Féin are a significant player and they’re not going away.”
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